OT: Sling TV - No MNF

Submitted by jocular_jock on

First time starting a new topic so be nice. 

So I am a cable cutter for 5 months now and I wanted to see what Sling TV was all about. Sling TV is an internet based live TV option which includes ESPN and ESPN2 and about a dozen other channels including broadcast for $20/month. It turns out that Monday Night Football is indeed blacked out from Sling TV and I was redirected to World Series of Poker. 

So I am not surprised about this, but I see it as another data point in how ESPN and cable companies are dealing with cord cutters. It also provides an interesting perspective on how far that $20/mo actually goes. And the NFL sucks. 

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MEZman

November 10th, 2015 at 10:43 AM ^

I use Sling TV and watch MNF every week on it. Not sure why you're blacked out. Maybe you live in the regional market for one of the teams? Still not sure why that would be a blackout though.

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stephenrjking

November 10th, 2015 at 12:22 PM ^

I don't know if this still happens, but back in the 90s and early 00s if the Lions played on SNF on ESPN WXYZ would acquire the rights to broadcast it on free tv locally. I watched a number of Lions games that way.

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Bleedmaizeblue

November 10th, 2015 at 10:50 AM ^

With a Sling TV subscription you can use the Watch ESPN app. If for some reason the MNF broadcast was not shown you just have to watch the Watch ESPN app instead. Mine was not blacked out, I watched it and it was fine. But that's how you can make sure you can watch it

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stephenrjking

November 10th, 2015 at 12:26 PM ^

Bingo, we have a winner. Verizon Wireless has exclusive rights to broadcast the NFL on phones. It used to extend to highlights, too, though I'm not sure if that's still the case. Mobile phone streams not using the Verizon NFL package (I am ignorant on how it works) are not permitted to stream NFL games. I believe this includes phones using wifi. However, cell tablets are. I have an old cell iPad that is exempt from those restrictions; I believe you can use your phone as a hotspot and watch on a non-phone device, too.

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Unsalted

November 10th, 2015 at 11:09 AM ^

Will Sling TV work directly on a Smart TV or do you need a Roku, Firestick, Chromecast etc?

The Sling website is vague, and they have not replied to my email inquiry. I have a year old Samsung smart TV.

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Jeff M

November 10th, 2015 at 11:17 AM ^

I don't have a Smart TV so I'm not sure. But the app for Sling TV itself is free - you just need a subscription to actually use it (just like how you could download Netflix to your phone, tablet, Roku even if you haven't subscribed).


So, however you go about installing apps on your Smart TV, I think your best bet is to see if you can get Sling TV that way.

And I'll echo everyone else -- I got MNF on Sling, so it must be a local market thing. I did notice that the ESPN feed was pretty patchy (as it was with MSU-Neb on Sat). Not sure if that was an ESPN issue or a local internet issue.

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teldar

November 10th, 2015 at 12:57 PM ^

I have cable but decided I wasn't going to pay for cable boxes. $40+/month for hardware, they can bite me. I have a mini-ITX board mounted on a piece of lexan. It uses a 19V laptop power supply and has a couple SSD's tucked between the MB and the lexan. I have a Silicondust HD HomeRun 3 tuner Cable Card network tuner in the basement. So the computer runs windows 7 and I use MCE for movies and DVR. I have like 500 movies and full runs of probably 20 or 30 tv shows on my computer in the office. I've thought about leaving cable completely, but the cost of internet and phone put together are just about what it costs to have all my services through TW. I was paying almost $200/mo for DirecTv, TW internet and Vonage. I've cut about $60/month off my bill. I just need to work on my wife to let me drop vonage but we'll lose our home number since we moved since we signed up for vonage. $37/mo to keep a home line we only use to call Canada.

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julesh

November 10th, 2015 at 11:21 AM ^

Can you download apps to your TV? My smart TV does not let me download apps so I can't even use Hulu with it, just Netflix and Amazon that were included.

But if you can download apps, just see if the app for Sling TV is available. But their website doesn't seem vague to me, and it seems clear it isn't supported.

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Blue and Joe

November 10th, 2015 at 11:28 AM ^

I've had Sling since it was launched, and I've never had that happen to me. Keep in mind that Verizon has exclusive rights to the NFL on phones, in case you were using the mobile app on a different carrier. 

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TXmaizeNblue

November 10th, 2015 at 11:28 AM ^

and have never experienced that.  I'll get some lag once in a while, but that has more to do with running it off my Amazon Fire Stick on my HDTV.  I find that I need to clear out the cache every Saturday morning or I will experience lag problems.

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late night BTB

November 10th, 2015 at 11:33 AM ^

oh god, another thread about cable cutting.

Cue the 'I cut the cord, but I use other people's login info for Netflix, SlingBox, HBO2Go, etc'.  

So you haven't cut the cord, you're just leeching off your paying customer friends.

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MBloGlue

November 10th, 2015 at 12:46 PM ^

He is talking about a paid Sling TV subscription. And besides, it is not leeching if it is mutual. I get their cable log-in's in exchange for sexual favors. That makes me a man whore, not a leech. Get it right.

 

EDIT:  This was in response to a comment that was subsequently deleted.  I am not going to delete my comment because I like using the term "man whore" wherever possible.

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Lou MacAdoo

November 10th, 2015 at 1:58 PM ^

You just killed my buzz man. We cut cable, but I've been using our friends AT&T U-Verse log in info to watch ESPN, BTN, and Showtime. They allow you to stream with up to five devices and they're only using two. I get to enjoy Michigan games, Homeland, and MNF. I figured at some point it would come to an end, but it still hurts to hear it. 

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ghostofhoke

November 10th, 2015 at 3:16 PM ^

Well it will also depend on the provider and how quickly the technology is adopted across the industry (and to some degree if it's adopted at all). What I can say is that there is a company in particular who is making it their mission to shut that loophole down. I think a big part of it is to be able to pull back some leverage over the networks/content providers who have had all the leverage in the last few years. They've been raking the cable/internet companies over the coals and this will return some power back to the ISPs to be able to control and prioritize the distribution and traffic



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ken725

November 10th, 2015 at 11:53 AM ^

For those of you who have sling tv, what do you like about it and what do you dislike about it.

$20 looks like a great deal, but I looked at the list of channels and I only see couple channels that I see myself watching. 

I like the $5 extra a month to add sports channels since it includes Bein.

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Harbaughgeddon

November 10th, 2015 at 5:13 PM ^

Likes: cheap way to get ESPNs, can cancel after football season, easy to put on big screen with a Roku, AMC for Walking Dead and occasional old western on the weekend, access on TV with device, laptop, or phone.

Dislikes: sometimes the ESPNs can be slow to load and cut in and out, VERY frustrating during a game. Most other channels load quickly and work fine so it could be related to demand for a particular channel through the Sling service. No DVR. 

Also, I got the Roku 3 for 50% off w/3 months prepay. I wanted the Roku anyway and it has a BTN app.

 

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WestSider

November 10th, 2015 at 12:18 PM ^

Sling, mainly to have ESPN. Its a decent deal. Better yet, if you have a friend with a cable account, you can log in with their credentials on Charter or Comcast and HDMI all kinds of shit to your TV.

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GO_13LUE

November 10th, 2015 at 1:25 PM ^

Fire TV Box!

Buy a fire tv box, not the stick, with the quad core processor. Then side load it with Kodi, aka XMBC. Anything you want to watch and more! Just saying...check it out!

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GO_13LUE

November 11th, 2015 at 8:19 AM ^

Have had it for just over a year and 2 firmware updates. Up to firm15.2 and couldn't be happier. Fast. No lag or buffering! Thousands of add-on apps for movies, tv, music, etc. Only con would be going through all the sources to find the perfect content i.e. HD or SD. I found a list of priority sources that you can set up to take that headache away on the ADD-on forum. Hope this helps

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ghostofhoke

November 10th, 2015 at 1:37 PM ^

Right, live sports are the most valuable thing the networks own, why would they give it to anyone at a discount if they're not going to be able to count on them for increasing their advertising revenue by providing eyes to their content? Cord cutting makes sense in terms of getting only content that you want but there is a value to that content. Live sports is seen as a huge value add if you buy their whole package because it gets them into cable company packages at higher tiers which means more viewers. They want to discourage on demand so they charge a premium to make up the difference. I don't understand why people feel entitled to the content without paying for it, that's not the way the economy works in any other sense.



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ghostofhoke

November 10th, 2015 at 1:39 PM ^

And by the way, I have it on very good inside knowledge that in the very near future using someone else's credentials will be a thing of the past which will force cord cutters to serious re-evaluate the economics of the move. It's not a matter of if, it's going to happen and fairly soon.



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julesh

November 10th, 2015 at 1:50 PM ^

HBO encourages sharing credentials. Netflix is set up to allow it. Not sure that's going to change, even if the technology to stop it becomes available. I mean, just me personally, aside from the moochers in my life, use four different devices for Netflix in my own home. If anything made it even slightly difficult for me to do that, I'd go back to pirating.

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