How To Watch More of Your Favorite Sports
Two things: there are no bad sports movies. And there is no such thing as watching too much sports. There is, however, a such thing as watching too little sports. It is a problem many Americans face because of the business model employed by the sports leagues, TV networks, and content distributors. They all seem to be in cahoots to deprive you of the maximum amount of sports you could get. Soap operas you can ingest until your brain rots. Sports, not so much
To get the most out of televised sports, you need a lengthy spreadsheet, and possibly an MBA. It really can get confusing when you are trying to figure out when your favorite team is playing next, and what gods to pray to for you to watch it. This is not that spreadsheet. But it will help you navigate the landscape, and help you get a little more sports into your life:
Football with Sunday Ticket
Direct TV is just one of many content distributors in the States. Every one of them carries football. If you had the feeds from every distributor in every market at the same time, then you could watch every game. But that would be nuts, even for a sports fan. That is why I am specifically calling out football with Direct TV. It is the only distributor that has a package that gives you access to every game played in the season regardless of where or when it is played
The Sunday Ticket package is where the magic happens. It is a flexible suite of channels that enables you to watch one game at a time, or up to eight of them at once. You can even record whatever games you see fit. With their high-quality set-top box, you can record up to six shows at a time. The Red Zone channel gives you a running commentary of every game at once. No other distributor offers this.
The app situation is a different matter. There is the NFL Game Pass. But on mobile, it is restricted to Verizon. By the way, the Direct TV Cinema experience includes a section for sports movies when there is no game being played. Right now, there is simply no better way to watch football than with Sunday Ticket on a TV in your home.
Baseball with MLB Live
Where football has a love/hate (let’s face it: hate/hate) relationship with mobile, Major League Baseball has a love/love relationship with mobile, and just about every other screen on which sports can be watched. This universality is accomplished with a combination of MLB TV service, and the MLB At Bat app.
The service gives the subscriber access to all the audio and video of every game sans blackouts. What is truly impressive is the large number of devices on which you can get the service. There is also a version of the MLB At Bat app for just about every platform you can think of, including all the set-top boxes. MLB is perhaps the most tech-forward sports league on the planet.
Everything Else
The people that bring you the amazing MLB app are working on doing the same for the NHL. Hockey fans, rejoice! NBA fans also have a lot to cheer about. Like MLB, the NBA offers the NBA League Pass. Once again, you can watch every game of every team. $200.00 gets you everything. But they have a plethora of subscriptions options from which to choose. You can get just the audio of all the games for $9.99, or all of a single game for $6.99.
Today, there are more options than ever to watch sports. The NFL is most tied to the old school model. But everything else is rapidly pushing into the future. It is still too expensive and too convoluted to get access to all the sports you can handle. But at least it’s possible. And that is a lot more than could be said just a few years ago. It can only get better from here.