I don’t think there’s a way to get ESPN that cheaply. You’d have to find one of the streaming cable packages, and they’re going to be $30+.
Hulu is probably your best value in that rage. They have a plan at $8/mo, but I’d recommend getting the no-commercial one for $12. Hulu has a very deep catalog of on-demand content from most of the networks and other channels.
If you care about sports, you’ll have to work a little harder to watch them over streaming. The games aren’t easily available unless you subscribe to one of the sport network streams. It’s one of the reasons an antenna is good since you can watch what the networks are showing for free.
Yeah I’m puzzled too. Philster listed a set of requirements but now he says the Firestick meets his needs, despite not providing most of the features listed in the OP. It might provide casting, depending on whether your laptop supports Miracast (Macs do not, PCs might, but you’d need to check on your particular model). It won’t provide OTA channels without paying for it (maybe not even then), and it won’t support ESPN without paying significantly more than your $5 - $10 per month budget. Roku is generally a better product than Firestick (IMHO) but it similarly won’t get you OTA channels or ESPN without paying for them.
Still not following the OPs unwilling use of a $10 indoor antenna plugged into the TV. Mine looks like a black piece of paper 3" wide by 10" long stuck to the wall.
We ended up staying with basic cable as described upthread because the more we explored cutting the cord, the more convoluted everything became. We also subscribe to a couple of services so there’s always something to watch – or to use as as background noise.
It sounds like the decision has been made, but I’ll throw in my opinion as well.
Spend $50-$60 and get an OTA flat antenna for your TV and a Roku of some type. In my opinion, this is absolutely the best bang for your buck. There’s no subscription fee for the Roku (though you may want to set up an account with CC information so you can add pay channels on the fly) and they have the most channels available of any similar unit/service. The OTA antenna will fill in a lot of gaps and costs virtually nothing (probably less than $20).
I tried using my laptop as the streaming source, but it just didn’t work out.
I’m good to go. They tossed in a free Roku, which makes it simpler to fire the TV up. Roku with Sling app, YouTube app and some other apps that are free and offer free content (such as Local News app).
I’m good to go. I have ESPN 1/2/3 as well.
I know my original requirement had me wanting more, but my rank was important: Sports with some background noise (news, history).
Feedback is appreciated. You helped me narrow things down. 1,400 U.S. bucks richer per year. That’s 2,000 bucks in earned income, so I am all good.
We want to cut our cable, too, and it is unbelievably complicated. I pick at it every so often, get completely confused and annoyed, and then give up again. It shouldn’t be this hard; we want like five different channels, and don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars a month for them. I don’t feel like I’m asking for the moon here, but apparently I am.
Canadian cable companies are required by law to offer a relatively basic cable package. I think the Rogers basic package in Ontario costs something like $30 per month, and you can pick and choose various (relatively unbundled) additional channel packages for $5 or $10 per month on top of that. I’m not sure how you would get “hundreds of dollars a month” for 5 channels.
I recently went “all in” on cutting cable. Here’s what I did:
BEFORE CUTTING “CABLE”
Dish Network (America’s Top 200), One Hopper, Two Joeys = $122.00/mo TOTAL = $122.00/mo
After I decided to cut the cable, I purchased a Roku Streaming Stick for one television (I purchased two more for other televisions later).
AFTER CUTTING “CABLE”
Sling (Blue + Lifestyle Extra) = $30/mo
NetFlix = $12/mo
DSL Upgrade from 3Mbps to 12 Mbps = $10/mo
Already have Amazon Prime (Amazon Video is included with Prime) TOTAL = $52.00/mo
Also a one-time $69 payment to PlayOn for DVR capability.
This is all far from “hundreds of dollars” per month.
Doing this has saved lots of money, and I actually get more and better programming.
The caveat is that I needed to get used to watching television a different way.
That’s the problem right there. I want one local channel for news, and my husband wants one sports channel. We CANNOT get this simple combination.
The problem is the sports channel that my husband wants (note the ONE channel that he wants) - we can get basic cable and add sports onto that, but all the sports channels come bundled together, so instead of adding one sports channel, we are forced to take four or five, at $10 per channel. As far as I’m concerned, our local cable companies (Shaw and Telus) have completely ignored the spirit of the unbundling regulations (and I’m not even sure they’re complying with the law of them).
I should say, I was being hyperbolic with the “hundreds of dollars a month;” more like one hundred dollars per month extra paying for channels we don’t want to get the one sports channel we DO want. As someone mentioned upthread, too, if we unbundled our internet and home phone from the cable, we’d pay even more, too. This doesn’t feel like a company giving customers what they want, to me - it feels a whole lot more like companies having a monopoly and you’ll take what we give you.
See, this here is part of the problem - I don’t even know what half of these things are (and I suspect half of them aren’t available here in Lethbridge, either). Is there someone I can hire to figure out how to cut our cable for me? (Only partly joking.)
Yes, there ARE people who provide such services. I happened on to two of them by accident, I have no idea how to find them in your local area. But, if I had to, I’d start with independent computer stores/consultants (NOT people from your local Big Box store or the like). You want someone who is only getting money for advising you, not for actually selling stuff because you want an unbiased opinion
Also, watch out for people offering to sell you devices with “thousands of free movies” or “watch any content you want”. They’re selling grey market boxes that are running technically legitimate software but then keyed to sites hosting illegal pirated copies of content. Even if you had no moral qualms about that, the sites they’re using are usually quickly closed down leaving you without your promised programming.
Before worrying about paying anyone, if you’re interested, do a search for “Cord cutters forums” and you’ll find communities of people who live and breathe the gospel of cord cutting and would be thrilled to help you through it for free.
I see people are still pushing me to over the air (OTA) options.
There are silly people in life, and it might not be you that is silly; it is me, because I do not want an antenna of any type. I’m not spending $2 or $20 on an antenna, and if you gave it to me for free, I’d not attach it to the TV, etc.
It costs me $20 bucks per month to have background noise in my life. Morning news is on while I have my coffee, and it paces me as I leave daily, so I leave with some connection to the world and key info.
At night, I like the noise and warm glow of the TV. It relaxes me. I don’t look to watch anything, but might trip over something on the History channel, or there might be something on TBS that is funny.
That’s it.
I watch one thing deliberately and on schedule: F1 racing. ESPN is the provider, and I have 1,2,3.
The last step I took before cutting the cable was purely mental: Excess TV options are a vice. I tell people I have access to 30 channels, and they look at me like I am telling them I lick dirt of the floor to survive, while they can’t imagine giving up their Surf ‘n’ Turf of 300-500 channels and $300/month bills. “Be gone, peasant, with 30 channels and billions of interwebtainment options; we have caviar and Champagne to consume, you filthy animal!”
