Potential Guide to Watching CFB in High Quality WITHOUT Subscribing to Cable TV
I posted this elsewhere, but here it is for MGoBlog consumption:
Disclaimer: I have not done any of this myself. However, in theory this should work. Also, it is not free. I estimate it would cost ~ $300/yr, which is probably a lot less than your 12 monthly cable bills.
You will need 4 things:
1) Most importantly you will need a high-speed internet connection, which I assume many of you already have since you are on this website reading this right now.
2) You will need to purchase BTN2Go International, which is basically a service BTN offers to fans abroad to watch their live programming overseas. This costs $119.99 a year I believe but you will be able to watch all the football and basketball games BTN covers this year. This option is not available (normally) to people living and residing on the US (but we will go over how to work around this requirement.) Link: international.btn2go.com
3) You will need to purchase ESPN Player. It's basically the same thing as BTN2Go international except change 'BTN2Go' as you know it to 'WatchESPN'. With this you will be able to watch all of ESPN's live progamming online (however notably, you will not be able to watch ESPN on ABC events--more on that at the very end). I can't access the current pricing but I think I saw something older that it was $150 a year. link: espnplayer.com
4) The last thing you will need, which is what makes this whole thing work is Hotspot Shield Elite (link: www.hotspotshield.com/us). This is a nifty little program that will make your computer 'show' up in the UK, using a VPN. It's legal and costs $30/yr. You will only have to run this program when you plan to sit down and watch your beloved Wolverines play.
To summarize, if you did follow through with all this, you *should* be able to watch all of BTN's live sporting events, and all of the ESPN/ESPN2 events (including NBA, Monday Night Football, MLB on ESPN, etc.) For the ND game and the ABC on ESPN programming, I recommend you purchase a high quality antenna and watch normally on your TV. Also note that if you aleady live overseas, you just need to do steps 1-3 and you should be set.
If any of you actually take my advice and go through with all this, please report back. I suspect the results would be glorious and worth sharing with others.
August 24th, 2014 at 10:59 PM ^
Lack of cable? Stream otherwise and you just found out about this? How am I supposed to know? Littany of possiblities.
August 24th, 2014 at 11:03 PM ^
August 24th, 2014 at 9:40 PM ^
August 24th, 2014 at 9:49 PM ^
August 24th, 2014 at 9:47 PM ^
Anybody who is willing to go a "non-traditional" route to watch their college football isn't going to jump through a bunch of hoops and pay $300 to do so. I put the over/under on people who choose to make use of this guide at 0.5.
August 24th, 2014 at 9:50 PM ^
This relatively complex and uncertain system, combined with watching (regular) NFL games is why cable is relevant and important. When you have a 50"+ TV, streaming from an international VPN kind of sucks. Even with an "HD" stream.
Unbundling willnot happen (especially with the Comcast & TW merger). Good job Dave!
August 24th, 2014 at 9:59 PM ^
Seems like the right place to ask:
How many of you have SEC channel?
Week 1 will find Texas A/M vs South Carolina (thursday) and Arkansas vs Auburn on the SEC network.
I called comcast and ended up upgrading part of my service (starter to something higher) and downgrading another part (scrapped sports and entertainment package). Will cost me five bucks more a month and I also added HBO and Showtime b/c of some promotion.
As I took advantage of a thread about 3 weeks ago and renegotiated with Comcast, the added five is still free money. End of the day, lost NFL redzone, added SEC channel/HBO/Showtime for five bucks more.
The conversation I had with the comcast guy was interesting. Seems the SEC channel is free in some areas, preferred in others, and even unavailable in some. I imagine BTN is the same.
August 24th, 2014 at 10:09 PM ^
August 24th, 2014 at 10:22 PM ^
August 24th, 2014 at 10:22 PM ^
August 24th, 2014 at 10:32 PM ^
August 24th, 2014 at 10:25 PM ^
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August 24th, 2014 at 10:58 PM ^
August 24th, 2014 at 11:10 PM ^
August 25th, 2014 at 12:37 AM ^
August 24th, 2014 at 10:45 PM ^
Borrow the cable password and username from a friend/family member. This will give you access to BTN2g0 and Watch Espn!
August 24th, 2014 at 11:18 PM ^
August 25th, 2014 at 7:33 AM ^
Not sure if you read much CC but the OP spoke of purchasing. Don't be such a dick
August 24th, 2014 at 11:18 PM ^
August 24th, 2014 at 11:43 PM ^
Nice to live in Chicago area. I don't have cable, and don't have time to watch every last game. But going to the neighborhood bar means I can catch most of the games pretty cheaply. With going to maybe two or three games live, watching a few at a friend's house with Tivo and HiDef, and catching several at home on ABC, the season is covered very cheaply. Regardless of which way you go, I could never imagine paying a monthly cable bill. U-Verse keeps on trying to get us to add cable, but with the BTN and ESPN not being in the basic tier, it makes absolutely no sense.
August 25th, 2014 at 7:32 AM ^
Do they serve beer with nipples cause I am missing how you watch a game at a bar "cheaply?"
August 25th, 2014 at 12:33 AM ^
August 25th, 2014 at 1:23 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
August 25th, 2014 at 1:25 AM ^
August 25th, 2014 at 3:19 AM ^
I have been watching internationally for the past 5 years. I started with Slingbox connected to my brother's 2nd cable box (dedicated to me), but the box burned out. I now use a combinaton of BTN2GO and ESPN Player. I get BTN2go for the year and then when I come upon a game I can't watch I get ESPN Player for 1 month (potentially for the year if I think I need to get 2-3 months in a row).. The last 3-4 years I have seen nearly every football/Basketball game (including pre-season). Note, I often watch the games on Sunday (as some of the games are only available at noon from BTN when it's not a BTN game.
I am open to ideas for the ND game as it doesn't look like BTN will show it (they don't show away non big ten games) and not sure I will get it on ESPN Player... That will be a pain as I will perhaps have to get up in the middle of the night and catch an illegal stream...
Note, I meant to post this here, but I posted on BTN Plus...
August 25th, 2014 at 9:10 AM ^
How was the quality of video on a slingbox?
August 25th, 2014 at 3:08 PM ^
It was not great, sometimes grainy (can't see jersey numbers...). I think this is dependent on bandwith on both sides though, so perhaps could be OK...
August 25th, 2014 at 8:52 AM ^
Thank you for trying to provide this information. It seems some people just don't know how to say "Thanks" but would rather knock the information you provided. The internet manages to make asses out of people who otherwise would be good people.
I've always been irritated with the way TV is in the US. I don't watch it. I can almost say I don't watch it EVER. The only thing I watch is college football games and occassionally I see how many interceptions Stafford can throw on any given Sunday. I wish there was a service I could pay for that would get me my college sports WITHOUT having to also carry a full blown subscription to 200 channels that I will never watch. I realize if this happened probably 20% of subscribers would shut down their monthly subscription and just use Hulu and Netflix. Just wish a company would come out and offer this as an option. Like a sports Netflix or Hulu account.
August 25th, 2014 at 9:50 AM ^
Everyone's a critic lol. But yeah I agree with you about the way cable is subscribed to. Unfortunately the live sports channels carry a lot of power, which is why ESPN (owned by Disney) is so massive and powerful. I don't think we'll ever see pay per view CFB or a la carte options any time soon. That's why stuff like this BTN2Go and ESPNPlayer are nice little loopholes to use. Honestly if you went without the BTN2Go subscription and caught those (few) games somewhere else, you could essentially have all the ESPN channels streamed for ~ $11 a month which is pretty comparable to Netflix.
August 25th, 2014 at 11:04 AM ^
i have an xbox one for espn. the xbox one and xbox 360 have truly live espn as well as the feeds from watch espn. i just use my parents dish network account to log in.
then i also use by parents account for big ten.
that covers basically everything except games on abc/nbc/cbs. but for that i have a 7 dollar antenna so those should also be covered, although it is not yet tested because i just cut the cord between seasons.
also my 40 dollar internet package comes with hbo go and 10 cable channels (just so they can keep their cable numbers up). i can add btn if i want for 5 bucks a month, but i dont see the point, ill just use my parents.