Hey guys, most of you know I live in KC. I used to watch Lions games using my Dad’s slingbox that was connected to his cable in Livonia, then streamed through a website so I could watch it on any browser or my phone/tablet using the Slingbox app. Slingbox was officially shut down in November 2022, so I had to resort to the sketchy streams to make it work.
Since my son has gotten so big into the Lions, and we missed two of the biggest plays of the preseason due to web streams freezing, I decided to bite the bullet and get Sunday Ticket. It’s expensive, and does not give you local games but I wanted to try it. To get it, they package it with YouTube TV. I didn’t need YouTube TV, but they do give a good price and an intro discount period. I figured I will just try it and see what happens, and paid the few extra dollars for the 4k quality. After a few weeks of using it, I wanted to give my review.
I am not going to call Sunday Ticket a good value as it’s expensive, but it does work. You can watch any game, the quality is perfect, and outside of the normal issue where a stream runs a bit behind people with a direct feed, I don’t notice a difference. I am determined to get my full value out of it and am watching as many of the games as I can, and it is really nice when you don’t like the local tv options, you can pick another game. Last weekend, I had some family come over who are Chiefs fans. With the Lions/Seahawks game and the Chiefs/Jags game on at the same time, I hooked up a second tv through my laptop, and used my tv to watch the Lions game, with the Chiefs game on the second tv. It worked out great.
Now for my YouTube TV review. I will admit it, this IS a good value. I think this has officially exceeded the Slingbox in terms of usefulness. You access it through a website, but you can add an app for smart tv’s which I have, and there is a mobile device app. I once again can put a game on my phone and listen to it in the car driving around. Sunday Ticket integrates seamlessly, it just pops up as additional channels you can watch. It does allow you to watch local tv feeds, it uses your location to determine what channels you get access to. I am guessing if you traveled out of your local region that could get a bit interesting, but I haven’t tested that yet. I will soon I am sure, I am frequently in St. Louis for work. One thing that was a very unexpected surprise, you get some pretty obscure channels for free! I’ve been able to watch Michigan games on BigTen Network, KU games on ESPNU, SEC Network games, all included. I am seriously debating cancelling my actual cable service, and just using internet plus YouTube TV for everything. You can add on pay channels easily, I like how you can add or remove services, and the layout is simple to use. Provided you don’t mind sharing your password, you can also have other people log in and use the app while you do and they can watch different programs at the same time, I just had to approve his phone when he enrolled into my Youtube TV account through Gmail.
I hope this may help some people who are on the fence about either product. I don’t like wasting money and hate spending other people’s money, but if this can help someone watch Lions games with their family, I wanted to say it does work. I know this will not work for platform specific games like AmazonPrime games, or Peacock, but we can all thank the NFL for that one.