Soccer/Football Specialized/Obscure Networks, & Legal Streaming Services

mgarbowski · Mar 26, 2016

During last night's USMNT game there was an ongoing discussion about the networks it was on (BeIn and NBC Universo), how to get them, should the game have been on different networks, how else to watch it, and had references to Fox Soccer 2Go and other services.

I thought it worthwhile to make this it's own thread.

I'll start by saying I spent some time looking at how I can get BeIn on my TV provider, DirecTV. It seems I can only get it by getting a full extra package of Spanish language programming, or the full sports package, which mostly adds regional US networks from around the country. Both cost around $13-15 monthly. Neither appealed to me.

BeIn does not appear to have an online only subscription. It has an online service, but it's only for cable & satellite subscribers. But, there is a service called Fubo TV https://www.fubo.tv/ that costs $9.99 monthly , and includes BeIn and several others. It supports phone apps, PCs, Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast, and Apple TV. I'm probably going to give it a try.

Keith Putnam · Mar 26, 2016

For Time Warner customers, BeIN Sports is part of the TWC Sports Pass which costs $10/month and also gives you a crapton of other sports-specific channels.

I love having BeIN, as it provides easy access to La Liga and Serie A matches as well as the English League Championship and a grab bag of other stuff like last night's USMNT match.

Also, if you like Rugby and superbike racing, they're all over covering both.

FredMertz · Mar 26, 2016

mgarbowski said:
I'll start by saying I spent some time looking at how I can get BeIn on my TV provider, DirecTV. It seems I can only get it by getting a full extra package of Spanish language programming, or the full sports package, which mostly adds regional US networks from around the country. Both cost around $13-15 monthly. Neither appealed to me.

BeIn does not appear to have an online only subscription. It has an online service, but it's only for cable & satellite subscribers. But, there is a service called Fubo TV https://www.fubo.tv/ that costs $9.99 monthly , and includes BeIn and several others. It supports phone apps, PCs, Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast, and Apple TV. I'm probably going to give it a try.

If you're going to pay $9.99 for Fubo, with no idea of the streaming quality, you should try calling DIRECTV and asking them for some kind of discount. Depending on how much you spend with them, they might be willing to give you a $5 credit per month for a set period of time, and they'll likely extend it when the time comes.

I'm getting the sports pack with a $5 per month discount.

Keith Putnam · Apr 2, 2016

It appears that BeIN has struck a deal to cover NASL, and they're kicking that off today with Miami FC vs Ft. Lauderdale.

Midas Mulligan · Apr 3, 2016

mgarbowski said:
During last night's USMNT game there was an ongoing discussion about the networks it was on (BeIn and NBC Universo), how to get them, should the game have been on different networks, how else to watch it, and had references to Fox Soccer 2Go and other services.

I thought it worthwhile to make this it's own thread.

I'll start by saying I spent some time looking at how I can get BeIn on my TV provider, DirecTV. It seems I can only get it by getting a full extra package of Spanish language programming, or the full sports package, which mostly adds regional US networks from around the country. Both cost around $13-15 monthly. Neither appealed to me.

BeIn does not appear to have an online only subscription. It has an online service, but it's only for cable & satellite subscribers. But, there is a service called Fubo TV https://www.fubo.tv/ that costs $9.99 monthly , and includes BeIn and several others. It supports phone apps, PCs, Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast, and Apple TV. I'm probably going to give it a try.

Fubo is good. I like it. Fox soccer 2 go is also good in that you get a lot of matches. The production is often shit, though. Often times no announcers or clock, etc. It also requires airplay to get it on your TV.

engine46 · Apr 4, 2016

The night of the USMNT match, I started the registration process with Fubo but actually didn't go through with it cause I ended up watching it elsewhere. Earlier today, I got an email offering the first month for 50% off ($4.99). So, it seems if you wait a week, you get 50% off.

NYCFCfan · Apr 4, 2016

I've heard really good things about Sling TV which has beIN sports as part of a sports package, has anyone ever used it before? I don't have cable but while this Fubo.tv sounds cool I also like the idea of having cable tv, without having cable if that makes any sense.

mgarbowski · Apr 4, 2016

I signed up for FuboTV on Saturday, which let me watch El Classico. They had a bit of a problem right around the start of the game. As best as I can tell, if you were not already signed in ahead of time, you had trouble doing so. I had already set up the App on my Amazon Fire Stick in the morning and was fine there, but web access was no good and when I tried signing into the FIre Stick on another TV as an experiment it didn't work. The quality of the stream was great. I don't know if the glitch was purely a result of them having more traffic than they could handle or bad luck in timing.
While I appreciate the

FredMertz suggestion to ask DirecTV for a discount off the $15 sports package to match the Fubo monthly price of $9.99, I think I might stick with the web. It looks like it will be very easy to on and off the service month to month and I really only want the USMNT stuff and very occasional La Liga games. I'm guessing I might spend $40 yearly. The one area where DirecTV would be superior is in the DVR capability. Fubo allows you to fake-DVR one game at a time. This means you can watch it any time for up to 72 hours after it ends. So if there are 2 games one weekend you want to save you cannot do so. Also the playback is just a stream, and the fast forward and rewind capabilities, at least on the Fire Stick app, were terrible. Worse, when I exited from the "DVR'd" game, and then tried resuming, it ignored where I left off and went back to the beginning; given how bad the FF is, this basically meant I was screwed. But like i said, for my purposes it's probably the best option.

Keith Putnam · Feb 26, 2017

So, as much as I generally appreciate BeIN, they occasionally pull some weird shit like today when they chose not to show Barça v Atleti live on their main channel (they kicked it over to BeÑ, supposedly, which is a separate subscription) but went with Sassuolo v AC Milan instead. Barça v Atleti will be shown as a replay tonight in the main channel. They didn't even have the Barça match on one of their streams.

So some twist of logic told them that the US market would rather see an unremarkable match-up with no effect on the Serie A table than one of the most popular teams in the world battling a (sometimes) rival for a big table move in La Liga.

And this after I've felt that BeIN has really been underserving live Serie A this season, too... Feels weird, man.

hatt91 · Feb 26, 2017

NYCFCfan said:
I've heard really good things about Sling TV which has beIN sports as part of a sports package, has anyone ever used it before? I don't have cable but while this Fubo.tv sounds cool I also like the idea of having cable tv, without having cable if that makes any sense.

I have had SlingTV for a couple of new months now. There are two different packages you can sign up for.

'Orange' is $20 which, among other cable channels, includes ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN3... but no other sports channels.

'Blue' is $25 amd includes YES, FS1, NBCSN, FS2, Univision, and Unimas... but no ESPN

You can get both packages for $40 per month .

In addition to that you can spend five dollars a month and get their sports deal which looks like it's mostly college channels but does include BeIN.

joe · Mar 24, 2017

hatt91 said:
I have had SlingTV for a couple of new months now. There are two different packages you can sign up for.

'Orange' is $20 which, among other cable channels, includes ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN3... but no other sports channels.

'Blue' is $25 amd includes YES, FS1, NBCSN, FS2, Univision, and Unimas... but no ESPN

You can get both packages for $40 per month .

In addition to that you can spend five dollars a month and get their sports deal which looks like it's mostly college channels but does include BeIN.

Does Sling still have YES? It's not listed on the sight, but maybe it falls under Fox?

Very close to cancelling cable

gbservis · Mar 24, 2017

joe said:
Does Sling still have YES? It's not listed on the sight, but maybe it falls under Fox?

Very close to cancelling cable

Can confirm Sling has YES, it's the primary way I watch NYCFC when not at the stadium. I can't remember which package it comes with because I have sling Orange+Blue.

joe · Mar 24, 2017

gbservis said:
Can confirm Sling has YES, it's the primary way I watch NYCFC when not at the stadium. I can't remember which package it comes with because I have sling Orange+Blue.

Thanks! I'm guessing blue (Fox), but am likely getting both anyway.

hatt91 · Mar 24, 2017

joe said:
Does Sling still have YES? It's not listed on the sight, but maybe it falls under Fox?

Very close to cancelling cable

Yup, the 'Blue' package has YES. I was just flipping through the channels today

Ulrich · Mar 24, 2017

joe said:
Does Sling still have YES? It's not listed on the sight, but maybe it falls under Fox?

Very close to cancelling cable

If you cancel cable, I assume you've completely thought it through and have researched how to get what you need for less through streaming, so can you send me your how-to/cheat-sheet for this? Kinda seems daunting to make sure all of the boxes are checked off so nothing goes missing - especially a DVR feature.

mgarbowski · Mar 24, 2017

Early in the thread I described fubo.tv -- it's worth noting the service has been significantly altered since then. They are pushing a premier plan for $30-40 per month that adds a lot more than soccer including some non-sports stuff, which mostly seems to come from NBC affiliates. Also the cheapest option is now $15 monthly so it is much less cost efficient, except that it is still easy to start and cancel service, which seems to be the primary advantage.

Midas Mulligan · Mar 24, 2017

mgarbowski said:
Early in the thread I described fubo.tv -- it's worth noting the service has been significantly altered since then. They are pushing a premier plan for $30-40 per month that adds a lot more than soccer including some non-sports stuff, which mostly seems to come from NBC affiliates. Also the cheapest option is now $15 monthly so it is much less cost efficient, except that it is still easy to start and cancel service, which seems to be the primary advantage.

Yes, Fubo has improved, but the costs advanced beyond commensurately, IMO.

Ulrich - here's my thought process: I could do the calculations and find the right streaming services. Then, for the $500 a year I'd save, every match day, I would be faced with determining which device/service to use, what to watch live and why this feed sucks so hard. Or, I just keep my cable, tune to the game of my choice at kick time, and DVR at will in advance or via mobile via my TiVo app. I also pay for FS2Go because Fox insists that racing s10 pickups in Melbourne is more important than watching CP carve up Bundesliga defenses, and I get most of Hyndman's matches, too. But that's $120 or so per year I'm spending either way.

So to me, it's still a time/convenience play as much as anything. That's the beauty of modern economies, they do in fact allow us to trade money in order to avoid shitty tasks.

Ulrich · Mar 24, 2017

Midas Mulligan said:
Yes, Fubo has improved, but the costs advanced beyond commensurately, IMO.

Ulrich - here's my thought process: I could do the calculations and find the right streaming services. Then, for the $500 a year I'd save, every match day, I would be faced with determining which device/service to use, what to watch live and why this feed sucks so hard. Or, I just keep my cable, tune to the game of my choice at kick time, and DVR at will in advance or via mobile via my TiVo app. I also pay for FS2Go because Fox insists that racing s10 pickups in Melbourne is more important than watching CP carve up Bundesliga defenses, and I get most of Hyndman's matches, too. But that's $120 or so per year I'm spending either way.

So to me, it's still a time/convenience play as much as anything. That's the beauty of modern economies, they do in fact allow us to trade money in order to avoid shitty tasks.

So to paraphrase, you're recommending not cutting the cable?

joe · Mar 24, 2017

Ulrich said:
If you cancel cable, I assume you've completely thought it through and have researched how to get what you need for less through streaming, so can you send me your how-to/cheat-sheet for this? Kinda seems daunting to make sure all of the boxes are checked off so nothing goes missing - especially a DVR feature.

Important preface that TV is pretty low on our priority list, and a lot of this is being driven by not wanting to pay $180/month to the cable company.

Full sling has the channels I need for NYCFC (ESPN uno y dos; Fox, FS1, and univision/unimas) and the few channels my wife or I actually watch.

For on demand, they have deals where you can get free or discounted appletvs and rokus. Per Midas' comment, this could be a bit of a hassle depending on what you're trying to watch, but most of the time it's just the Mrs and I watching three episodes of brooklyn 99 after the kid falls asleep.

DVR is harder. According to a friend who just switched to sling, they are about to pilot a dvr-type product, but take that with the appropriate amount of salt.

YMMV. I'm probably cancelling Monday (so they don't inadvertently shut me off prior to the USMNT game tonight), but if the rep lowers my bill enough I won't.

Ulrich · Mar 24, 2017

joe said:
Important preface that TV is pretty low on our priority list, and a lot of this is being driven by not wanting to pay $180/month to the cable company.

Full sling has the channels I need for NYCFC (ESPN uno y dos; Fox, FS1, and univision/unimas) and the few channels my wife or I actually watch.

For on demand, they have deals where you can get free or discounted appletvs and rokus. Per Midas' comment, this could be a bit of a hassle depending on what you're trying to watch, but most of the time it's just the Mrs and I watching three episodes of brooklyn 99 after the kid falls asleep.

DVR is harder. According to a friend who just switched to sling, they are about to pilot a dvr-type product, but take that with the appropriate amount of salt.

YMMV. I'm probably cancelling Monday (so they don't inadvertently shut me off prior to the USMNT game tonight), but if the rep lowers my bill enough I won't.

There's another game next week too... may want to wait on it.

Thanks for the info. Like you, there's very little regular tv that I watch that are on crazy/odd channels. As long as I can get HBO/SHO/Cinemax for their homegrown shows, I really only need AMC and the sports networks. OTOH, my wife watches complete trash shows so she'd insist on whatever stations have 16&pregnant, or that genre of brain rot (and yet she quite intelligent, go figure). And the DVR is key since we find ourselves watching after the fact most of the time. Thank the toddler for that.

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