Help me cut the cord

In My Humble Opinion
1

Every year, like clockwork, my cable/internet bill doubles because my “promotional pricing” period expires and “regular rates” go into effect. So I play the game of calling and threaten to cancel until they find a new promotion to put me in.

It started off where I refused to go above $120 a month. Find a plan for that amount or I bail. “Well, we have this plan at $128, blah blah blah.” Oh, all right; I can accept that. Then next year, “Well, our best promotion is $139 per month, blah blah blah.” OK. But each year, the “new promotion” is just that much more and now I’m up to $182 per month. I’m like the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water.

But now I’m ready to jump out. I’m tired of playing the game. Plus, I’ve assessed my viewing habits and realize there’s no way I should be paying this much for what I use.

Based on my viewing habits (listed below), what are my options?

–I don’t watch TV shows. Any show with “must see” word of mouth, I’m content to get from Netflix after the fact. I’ve watched Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, The Wire, Lost, Game of Thrones, House of Cards, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, etc. all on DVD discs sent to my house. I am perfectly content with this arrangement.

–I don’t watch TV news–I get the Washington Post delivered every day and read it religiously. The only time I watch TV news of any sort is once every 4 years on election night.

–I don’t watch movies on TV. Between the 800 DVDs I have on my shelf and my Netflix subscription, I’m all set for movies.

–95% of what my wife watches is Korean internet. As far as she is concerned, the TV only needs one channel: HGTV, which she will watch as a nighttime “pass the time while waiting for sleep” aide or as background while folding the laundry or something.

So what does that leave? LIVE SPORTS. Just about everything I watch has a final score. In roughly descending order: Major League baseball. College football. NFL. College baseball. The Olympics. College basketball March tourney. NBA playoffs (but only if the Celtics are playing).

I’ve already figured out how to get my daily baseball fix: MLB.com subscription, which I am happy to pay for. ESPN generally has a lot of college football games on its “internet 360” or whatever they are calling it these days, but they always ask about my cable subscription before allowing me to watch anything. Not sure how that would work if I no longer have a cable subscription. In a pinch, I could pay per view a college football/baseball game from my alma matar’s website. The NCAA tourney appears to be streamed free by CBS.com.

So is there is a way for me to “cut the cord” and still be able to watch all the sports I love? (Aside from camping out at Buffalo Wild Wings all weekend). It makes no sense for me to pay for a full cable TV subscription when all I watch are, at most, 5 channels dedicated to sports.

Any help is appreciated.

2

Never mind, I stopped by to give a hand with an umbilical cord, but I guess I’m not needed.

3

Sling has some sports:

Over the Air TV also has some live sports–put up an antenna.

Next year there will be new steaming options for ESPN:

4

One popular way to do it is to ask if any friends or relatives are paying for cable and if you can use their cable login for ESPN et al.

5

ESPN is putting out a stand alone streaming channel. Just wait for that to launch.

6

For ESPN, as of right now, it is easy enough to borrow a cable login from a friend or relative that isn’t a sports fan. Write it down, you’ll be asked to reenter it often.

However, things are always changing. When NBC got the premier league, they would broadcast every single game, the biggest games on NBCSN and NBC, and all the rest on NBC sports plus channels available on just about every cable system, though usually in SD only. They also streamed every premier league game on the NBC sports app, which just required a cable login.

This year, NBC is moving streaming premier league coverage over to the paid NBC Gold service. They did the same thing with a lot of their Tour de France coverage.

Cord cutting is going to be in constant flux over the next few years. Thankfully, it looks like MLB seems to be committed to their current MLB.TV streaming service and they offered it at substantial discounts even during the first part of this season.

7

There are a few streaming cable channels. These channels offer a cable-like package over the internet. Some companies that offer them are (I think) SlingTV, Dish, DirectTV, PlayStation, YouTube, and probably others. I don’t think you can get just the sports. You’ll have to look at their packages to see what the smallest one with sports is.

I would guess that having a streaming cable package would let you also have access to the associated streaming channels in that package just like if you had regular cable. Your streaming cable login may work for the HGTV and ESPN channels.

8

MLB.TV is an amazing service (just the fact that it syncs up the video with local radio for you kills me!), but it still has blackout policies. You can’t view any games in your market, which means you can’t watch the team you follow if you live anywhere near that team. If you don’t follow the local team, if your chosen team comes to play near you, that will be blacked out for you.

VPNs are getting cheaper and easier to use now, though. Not sure how well they are able to work in conjunction with streaming devices, though.

9

Ok, Sling; new ESPN streaming…getting some ideas I’ll check out. Thanks for that!

I love my MLB.TV subscription. Plus, being a veteran, I get a pretty nice discount.
Luckily, my die-hard team I follow is out of market, so the only time I get blacked out is when they come to DC to play the Nationals. And those games I can either get on the local radio, or wait until it’s over and then watch it on the MLB.TV replay. (Also, just to note, only the TV feed is blacked out. You can still stream live audio for blacked-out games).

I wish the NFL had a similar package. (Does it?) If so, I’d buy that and be 80% satisfied with my cutting the cord. I’d have MLB, NFL, and as long as ESPN.com comes through with college football and baseball, that’s enough to justify dumping my cable bill.

10

Just a reminder that any suggestions to the OP in this thread need to be legal suggestions.

11

I will tell you that cutting the cord involves some compromises, and the biggest one is sports. For people that don’t care much about sports, cutting the cord is fairly easy. However, as a sports fan, by the time you add-up all the channels and apps you need to purchase to keep you whole, you may well be in the neighborhood of what you are paying now.

12

Here’s a recent thread on almost the same topic. Lots of good info there. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=830907