Watch ESPN online for $20/month with no contract. Yes, No, Maybe?

[poofyhairguy]

Ummm... sounds like a reach. Is that what you do?

No I have direcTV. My grown up sister lives on my dad's HBO Go account though.

Go read any forum/reddit for cord cutters and when the "how do I get sports" question comes up the answer is always either piracy, stealing daddy's login, or doing without.

 

[Carson Dyle]

No I have direcTV. My grown up sister lives on my dad's HBO Go account though.

Go read any forum/reddit for cord cutters and when the "how do I get sports" question comes up the answer is always either piracy, stealing daddy's login, or doing without.

Interesting. Do they limit the number of streams or could half of America watch ESPN using one stolen cable login?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Once again, since I still haven't seen any comments on it, this bundle is for a single user login and stream. It can't be used for a household and multiple computers/TVs streaming different channels from the same package. Makes it much less attractive, IMO, although I imagine it's mostly targeted at young, single people.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Interesting. Do they limit the number of streams or could half of America watch ESPN using one stolen cable login?

They do. One stream at a time.

 

[Balt]

In this area Comcast charges $10 extra for HD, and it requires a really bad cable box. To upgrade the box requires a separate tier of packaging. I had Blast + TV + HD, but the TV watching sucked going through their box. I was going to upgrade the box, but then it meant I'd have to upgrade everything else, and it just about doubled my bill.

I think all of them are pretty much like that, unfortunately. When I moved here I was eligible for what I thought was a pretty decent promo offer of like $40/month for a lot of cable channels. When I actually went through the sign-up process, though, it was going to end up being more like $70-80 because of all the extra fees and equipment that you MUST have.

Said NOPE. Still living w/o cable TV. All I really miss is college football.

 

[midwestfisherman]

I go $9 a month for it but that's it.

 

[DCal430]

Once MegaComcast sucks in TW, they can kill this easily.

 

[SP33Demon]

So untrue. Sports, especially the NFL, dominate TV ratings. Like of the top 30 rated shows every year most are NFL games. In fact sports are the best television products to have if you want to sell advertising because people watch them live instead of DVRing it.

Sports are one of the few things propping up both the cable TV system and Mickey Mouse.

I think you're overrating sports a bit. While it's still popular, TV ratings in general is declining, especially among 18-24 segment.
http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/are-young-people-watching-less-tv-24817/

-In percentage terms, traditional TV viewing among 18-24-year-olds in Q3 2014 was down by 19% year-over-year. Between Q3 2011 and Q3 2014, weekly viewing by this demographic has fallen by 27%, a sizable chunk.
•On average, 12-17-year-olds and 18-24-year-olds are spending almost as much time using apps or the mobile web on a smartphone as they are listening to AM/FM radio. Looking at users of each medium, smartphone users in the 18-24 and 25-34 brackets spent more time using apps and the web on their devices than radio listeners spent listening to AM/FM radio.

Across the board:

•Traditional TV viewing also declined on a year-over-year basis in Q3 for the 12-17, 25-34, 35-49 and 50-64 age groups. It only increased for the 65+ demographic.
•Overall time spent watching TV in TV households was 141 hours and 19 minutes per month, down a little less than 6 hours per month from the year-earlier period.

Regarding the NFL, you realize that ESPN only has rights to 17 games per year, i.e. Monday Night Football right? All of the other 200+ games go to Fox, NBC, and CBS. That's not worth $20/month to watch fucking 17 games. While you are right that the NFL is still a force in TV viewership, ESPN's role in NFL ratings is minimal.

Like I said, ESPN knows the writing is on the wall for them so they're trying to go to a new business model that speaks to the younger generations, yet it's a losing battle as evidenced by the facts above. Young people simply don't care about TV as much, let alone sports, due to a multitude of other entertainment options. For us older 30 somethings, sports is more prevalent since it was all we had growing up so it's ingrained in us. Millenials don't care, and they don't even play football (declining participation in Pop Warner leagues) as much so I'd expect NFL viewership to drop as boomers die off. Everything is already on the internet, including pirate streams, so ESPN had to go this route eventually. Adapt or die, just like the music industry and mp3's and napster. They're going to have to come down to a reasonable price just like mp3's did.

 

[tential]

So untrue. Sports, especially the NFL, dominate TV ratings. Like of the top 30 rated shows every year most are NFL games. In fact sports are the best television products to have if you want to sell advertising because people watch them live instead of DVRing it.

Sports are one of the few things propping up both the cable TV system and Mickey Mouse.

It's the only reason I have cable. Otherwise, I'd cancel.

 

[JC]

this may be the best post I've read so far this year.

/edit

dear mother of god O_O

Ooooooooh.....Chef Boobie. I hear she's single again....time to make my move.

 

[KeithP]

Engadget has posted a preview...
http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/26/sling-tv-preview/

Looks like a mess to me, to each his own.

-KeithP

 

[Ns1]

goddamn everytime I stumble onto that giada post....

 

[PingSpike]

I'm not sure why everyone is using a non a la carte package as an example of why a la carte channels couldn't possibly work.

 

[cronos]

Anyone else here have gotten the invite for 7 free days of Sling TV?

I just activated mine and it looks okay for the 5 minutes I played around with it. Skimmed through the Engadget review above and I'd say it's a pretty complete assessment.

What sucks is that they only allowed one streaming at the same time. At least give us 2 or 3 (maybe for an extra buck or two?). More than that and people are going to abuse. People will abuse it anyway, but still, one stream limit is probably a deal-breaker for a family trying to cut the cord.

Anyway, I said above I'd pay from September through March, but after testing it, I'd probably just pay $40/year for this (the last month of college football season including bowls/playoffs + a month during March Madness). I'll live with the terrible quality pirated streams if I *really* need to watch a game outside of those.

 

[boomhower]

I got a beta invite and have been using it for a few days. No real complaints, it's basically regular cable TV. The quality of the streams have been good overall. Only thing I'm waiting for is the Fire TV and Apple TV apps.

 

[Carson Dyle]

What sucks is that they only allowed one streaming at the same time. At least give us 2 or 3 (maybe for an extra buck or two?). More than that and people are going to abuse. People will abuse it anyway, but still, one stream limit is probably a deal-breaker for a family trying to cut the cord.

Yep. That's a point I brought up previously. It's obviously not targeted at families, who they most likely see as unlikely to cut the cord.

 

[Ns1]

so I'm buying a Roku and getting Sling TV....I just need BRAVO and I'll be set.

Core package ($20/mo):
ESPN, ESPN2, AMC, TNT, TBS, Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, ABC Family, Disney Channel, CNN, El Rey, Galavision, Maker Network

News and Information Extra ($5/mo):
Bloomberg, HLN

Kids Extra ($5/mo):
Disney Junior, Disney XD

Sports Extra ($5/mo):
ESPN News, ESPN U, SEC ESPN Network, ESPN Buzzer Beater, ESPN Bases Loaded, ESPN Goal Line. Universal Sports, Bein Sports

 

[Anubis]

no

 

[Chaotic42]

Well, I tried to sign up, but they said the package I selected was invalid and so was the price...

Yay.

 

[Red Storm]

Sling TV is getting AMC in the base $20/month subscription: http://arstechnica.com/business/201...amc-new-sports-channels-available-for-5-more/

I got the free trial invite and have been testing it out. So far so good, all I'm waiting for now is the Nexus Player app. I watch NBA, so having ESPN/TNT is great especially come playoff time.

Combined with Netflix, Hulu, and an HD antenna, I see no reason to keep cable around. Well there's HBO but their stand-alone should be out this year.

 

[chitwood]

goddamn everytime I stumble onto that giada post....

you fap uncontrollably?

 

[SunnyD]

If it wasn't limited to just one stream...

 

[TwiceOver]

Not worth eating up my remaining monthly media budget for. It's unfortunate.

 

[Red Storm]

If it wasn't limited to just one stream...

Definitely this is the service's single biggest flaw.

 

[TallBill]

No, I barely watch now

 

[zinfamous]

$20/month?

ESPN?

lolno