VPN for watching sports

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21

“How do I find out what games youtube tv streams?”

I’ve used YouTube TV a few times. Last summer, I wanted to use it to watch Detroit Tiger games ( live in Michigan ) but quickly found out that I was blacked out from them. I live hours away from Motown, so it’s not like I’m in the local Detroit market. It seems that Bally Sports has a stranglehold on Tiger telecasts, and they don’t have a business relationship with YouTube TV any more.

I did have the MLB network on my YouTube TV stream, it also would not allow me to watch a Tiger game. Signing in with a VPN might have fixed that, but it turns out the Tigers are horrible, and I don’t want to watch them anyways.

A couple of years ago, I could get the Tigers, Pistons, and Red Wings on YouTube TV, but that is no longer true. Not a big deal, as all 3 teams are really bad.

I’ll probably sign up for a month when the NHL and NBA playoffs are in their final month, those will all be streamed.

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Not sure if this helps, but I’m sometimes using a VPN to trick Netflix into believing I’m currently living in Australia for example, and the list of available movies changes soon after I turn the VPN on. Don’t know if it’ll work with a sports channel subscription, though. Anyhow, I guess you’d have to be logged in into that profile before you “switch” your location via VPN

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MLB.tv works well, but the biggest annoyance, as mentioned in a comment above, is that YOUR OWN local games are blacked out. So if you live in CA, you can watch all the east coast and central games, but not the teams in your home market(s).

So, when the Red Sox play at your local ballpark, that game will be blacked out. Also, reportedly, they’ve become more clever regarding determining your location, so the VPN location change trick doesn’t always work anymore.

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That’s annoying… NESN 360 should be available to anywhere and it’s not… why would that be? Money is green (or the same digitally) everywhere in the country, right?

Red Sox comment = sarcasm. Season was “over” by the end of July. They didn’t get better “on paper” over the winter.

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The real money comes from advertisers. Local teams attract a lot of local advertising. Advertisers may not want to pay for eyeballs that are out of their market.

Which is pure speculation, but what we can be certain of that the answer is going to be money. It is always money, if you dig deep enough.

(The rule of thumb I am applying goes something like this: If the question is “Why not…”, the answer is money.)

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Rick,
did you end up with a VPN and which one did you go with? Did you find the perfect network for you teams? This has been an interesting thread…doc

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Not yet. For now I’m using those crappy free streams one can find. They suck, but I’m first using that until I definitely decide if I can stand watching the crappy Red Sox, LOL! Once I decide I’m a fan and want to watch, even when they lose a lot, I’ll decide what to subscribe to. I may to MLB.TV.

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MLB.com will work for you since you live in Cali. You won’t have to worry about the blackout issue. You don’t need a VPN to stream MLB.com and you should get all the Red Sox games…doc

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Here is one for Hockey RB that works great. I didn’t register just watch the games.

Andy

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30

Thanks! I’ll give it a try. Although I use onhockey.tv and it works very well if you know the tricks and ins and outs of how to use it. But I’ll try NHL Streams and see how they compare.
It’s baseball that I can’t find a good free stream for. I use Sportsurge but it truly sucks so I’m willing to pay for baseball to get away from that lousy site if I decide I’m going to continue with the Red Sox.

I don’t mind paying for a good hockey site either, at a reasonable price. The reason I haven’t isn’t because of money per se, it’s because they make it IMPOSSIBLE to figure out how to subscribe to get ALL the games! They make it so complicated, they are shooting themselves in the foot. Every time I try to research it and contact the different services I end up giving up in utter frustration.
There are so many different networks showing different hockey games, that you would have to subscribe to multiple services to get them all. AND NONE OF THEM CAN TELL ME WHAT GAMES THEY WILL TELEVISE AND WHAT GAMES THEY DON’T! So there seems to be no way in advance to know how many Bruins games I would get for any particular subscription. It’s INSANE! Truly.
I pine for the days when there were 5 or 6 channels on TV and that’s that! All the Bruins games were on one channel, period. The world has gone nuts, LOL!

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I would give up trying to get the services to tell you what they will have. Approach it from the other direction. On the MLB site the Red Sox schedule appears to list the TV possibility for each specific game. I would NOT count on it not changing later in the season, but the next month or so should be nailed down.

I scanned the schedule looking for what it said for TV. These are what I saw:

NESN, MLBN
Apple TV+
NESN, TBS
FOX
ESPN
NESN, FS1
Peacock

I only noticed one game each for Apple and Peacock. One, or only a few, for FS1 (Fox Sports 1). Not a lot for ESPN. Surprisingly few with MLBN. Of course it doesn’t give any information on blackouts.

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I can’t get this NHL Stream to work :frowning:
“Could not play video” is the constant error message I get.

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Sorry about that RB. I can’t get it to work now either. I am also getting a bunch of pop ups that were not there before and they want me to sign up.

Andy

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I came across an article that has nothing to do with the specific case being discussed here, but gives some interesting background on why things are so screwed up.

Regional sports channels not only attract a relatively small audience, but they are also some of the most expensive channels within pay-TV bundles. According to media research firm Kagan, a subdivision of S&P Global, many networks charge upwards of $5 per month per subscriber.