TBH, football is the only season where ESPN matters to me and the lack of multi tabs is a deal killer. I refuse to pay for Hulu or ESPN’s service so it is what it is.
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If you think about it, its crazy how this has evolved. So if I have a TV set with an antenna I can watch games for free on ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC as long as my antenna can get the signal. No charge.
If I want to watch ESPN or Foxsports, well I have (had) to pay cable for both. Okay. It also gives me a better signal.
But if I want to stream any of those networks for the same programming and same commercials, now I have to pay monthly for each of them. And by my count there are like 893 of them to pay for, and growing.
But now apps like Hulu and Youtubetv basically offer what was formerly known as, uh, cable. So were back to square one. And Hulu is owned by Disney, so when you think about it, this dispute is like Comcast and Charter cable fighting over customers and one owns the programming in dispute.
I thought we had them beat when streaming took over, but they have the last laugh.
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This is how I see it as well. I know in an earlier post it talked about during the early cable days, we all wished for an a la carte solution. Why do I need to pay for 100 channels when I really only watch 5 or 6? I’d rather pay less money and just pick the 5 or 6 channels that are important to me. Then streaming comes along, and it offers close to that solution. What do the cable companies then do? Oh, you’d like to watch our channel? 20 bucks a month. Now each channel wants you to pay independently.
So before, the problem was cable companies charging high prices for services you didn’t need or want. The compromise was streaming services, which allowed you to pick and choose what you want and give you more flexibility in how you watch. Now, the a la carte solutions we all wanted, have basically divided and subdivided the market so now you end up paying even more money than you were for cable, just to watch each individual channel.
It absolulely sucks. I love fall, College Gameday is a staple in my place, I’ve got a good chili made and now I have to find alternate solutions just to watch it and today’s college football games.
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This battle, imo, is all about market share in my opinion.
From things I have read, talked to friends who have the ESPN streaming, the ESPN streaming has some technical issues it isn’t consistent. The other unknown for ESPN is how many folks will keep the streaming platform once football is over. Football is the king by far for ratings.
I’ve simply gone to the college station on Sirius, yes ESPN, but it fills the void for now. I typically work on Saturday mornings so I’m not watching more listening, so that takes care of gameday.
Missing the games is what sucks.
With Direct TV I get MLB and I order the MLB extra innings package if I think the Cardinals are worth watching. The one problem I have with them is I have not had a local fox channel for over 2 years from an unresolved dispute they seem to have no intention of resolving. I can’t get the station on an antenna because their transmitter is next to a landfill. The mountain of garbage at the landfill is so high it blocks transmission to the northeast direction.
MLB Network comes with the mlb.tv subscription in case you weren’t aware.
In 10 years it will just be cheaper to rent an Optimus for 3 hours, have it go to the actual game and beam the FPV into your brain via Starlink to your Neuralink implant,
as your FSD Tesla Model E-Go clips along at 120mph delivering you to the one game you want to be at in person.
Which will cost either $2 million to go to or $2, depending at which point in the hyperinflation to deflation curve we are on.
Then I’ll be happy…
My Son pays my annual subscription fee for Hulu plus live TV. Which includes Diney+ and the ESPN thing.
My oldest daughter pays for my Netflix and Peacock.
My youngest Daughter supplies my Amazon prime and Paramount.
Pretty much I mooch off my kids. I feel like I deserve it after raising those little bastards.
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Seems to me that the real issue is that content people want to watch is expensive. Especially football. Really, really expensive. You can slice and dice the various ways to get football broadcasts to your eyeballs, but at the end of the day, that content costs a lot of money—because it’s one of the few things you can count on people to reliably watch, so advertisers and networks will outbid each other for the rights.
For many years, when everybody had cable, your sports were subsidized by dollars from non-sports fans, so seemed less expensive. Didn’t stop everybody from complaining about having to pay for things they didn’t watch. OK, now we get to pay for only the things we watch, with nobody else subsidizing them—so we get to see how much they actually cost. Surprise: football is expensive.
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Oh and another thing! (Yes I am a cranky old man waving my fist at the air): those of us who are ancient enough to remember the days of cable should recall that the same damn shit happened then too! For the same reasons! There was constantly issues with NBC or ESPN getting yanked from DIRECTV or Comcast, and the cable companies and the networks would all say the same damn things when it happened. The more things change…
It’s come full circle for me.
Spectrum has added most of the streaming services to the cable plan we had anyway.
I was able to cancel my Peacock, Paramount Plus, Disney, HBOMax, ESPN Plus, Tennis Channel, and Hulu.
Now I only have Amazon and that was more for other services.
I binge Netflix a month here or there, usually about 3 or 4 months out of the year.
The only one I don’t have is Apple Plus.
Started doing this last year and haven’t looked back… Once I got the antenna dialed in, the only games I can’t watch for free are the international ones and TNF, I subscribe to prime anyway, so that isn’t an issue. Football is literally the only live TV I watch, I’ll be damned if I pay for cable again…
Now if I could only get the gf to stop wanting to watch every streaming service known to man 
…
Honestly, it’s great. At least, indistinguishable from YouTube. They actually call out the games available in 4K, which is kind of cool. Although I think YouTube started doing that also. Truly, the only thing different is the multiscreen. Tho I am annoyed that I can’t watch four games simultaneously at the moment.
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That, not watching games simultaneously, led me to cancel the fubo trial. just not worth it.
Sweet - thanks. I’m activating my trial today.
I’ve read the multiscreen is most compatible with Apple tv devices. I might pick one up if the trial goes well.
It also might just be a matter of time until compatibility improves with devices.
Did anyone switch over to FUBO during the Disney/YoutubeTV drama? Isn’t this fun??
That’s a positive result isn’t it?
We didn’t leave, got the $20 credit and I guess I know have ESPN Unlimited as well. Now, how do I get access, well that is a really good question and not sure I will make the effort to figure it out.