• Is there a way to watch live sports on TV without cable/satellite?

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  • I presently have satellite for TV-watching, the reason being, particularly, to see live sports events, such as tennis, golf, football, and baseball. Of course, it's extremely expensive. I would love to take the advice that I read on this site from those of you who recommend antennas and Apple TV, but, I wonder, is there a way to watch live sports!

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    Question by deargeorgia
    10/16/2013

I don’t think there’s many options without paying, other than an Over The Air (OTA) HD antenna.  This is a question I ask myself frequently, being a Sat TV subscriber too.

The lifehacker website has frequent articles regarding sports streaming:

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-stream-every-march-madness-game-on-any-device-1764858156

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-stream-the-mlb-playoffs-no-cable-required-1787399609

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-stream-the-nba-finals-on-any-device-1780180340

 Generally you’ve got two options:

-Subscribe to the sport governing body directly, (e.g. MLB.tv, MotoGP, MLS, etc)

-Find a subscription that gives you the TV channel via stream (e.g. Sling TV or be a DirecTV subscriber → some online streaming)

The general guideline is:

-Find the sport, determine who they sold the rights to

-If TV, then see if the broadcaster is allowed to also stream

-See if there is a separate streaming rights available

-See if you get a ”bonus stream” somewhere.  E.g. Verizon customers can stream NFL games, but I’m assuming that’s only on mobile devices.

Of course, theses all come with occasional catches.  Referencing the MLB playoff link above, if you bought a playoff package from MLB.tv you needed a cable/DBS subscription to watch.  Also, when I was streaming the MLS playoffs, I could stream the ESPN playoff game, but not the other game that was broadcast on Fox Sports 1.  The games were on the same day, one right after the other.  I guess ESPN let DirecTV stream, but FS1 did not.

Your best option, may be Sling TV, which I understand is available on AppleTV.

 https://www.sling.com/programming/sports.  

https://www.sling.com/devices/appletv

Basic subscription is $20, plus a ”sports pack” +$5.

 

Answer by eduba
12/17/2016
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