It has long been true for many people that the toughest part of leaving cable is giving up live sports. The cable giants still have a stranglehold on live sports broadcasts, but that’s changing. We’re seeing more new sports apps added and old sports apps improved, which is making it easier than ever to get your sports fix without paying for cable — whether you’re a fan of soccer, football, baseball, basketball, hockey, or cricket.
| Price | Channels | Free Trial | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
#1
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$69.99 - $82.99 | 85+ | none | Watch Now |
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#2
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$69.99 - $159.99 | 140+ | 5 days | Watch Now |
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#3
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$74.99 - $94.99 | 220+ | 7 days | Watch Now |
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#4
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$40 - $60 | 30+ - 130+ | 3 days | Watch Now |
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#5
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$4.99 - $99.99 | N/A | 7 days | Watch Now |
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#6
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$6.99 - $13.99 | N/A | None | Watch Now |
How to Watch Live Sports on Roku Without Cable
The best way to watch sports is on TV networks such as ESPN, FS1, and the regional sports networks your favorite teams call home. But how can you watch these channels without cable? The answer is a live TV streaming service, or “skinny bundle.” Like cable, these services offer a selection of live TV networks for a subscription fee. Unlike cable, they feature slimmed-down channel bundles and trimmer prices to match.
Here are all the ways you can watch live sports on Roku without cable right now:
Stream Your Favorite Sports on Roku
Roku owners have a lot of options for streaming sports, and that’s also true of cord-cutters in general — even those who use Fire TV and other streaming platforms. Check out our complete guides to streaming individual sports and leagues, where you’ll find lots of information on streaming MLB baseball, NFL football, NBA basketball, NHL hockey, and more.
You left out Yahoo, which streams a free MLB game nightly and the occasional pro football game, all in picture quality superior to ESPN.
Also, there are private Roku channels with streaming sports. Let those with motivation and initiative find them.
Still can’t get Sports Illustrated to play on Roku. Loaded it but won’t play anything?
Not sure how you can call MLB.TV the “gold standard,” as they take pains to black out the team you’re most likely to be interested in. Perhaps they’re the best of a set of mediocre options, but I would call that the “tin standard” in light of what’s available today.
So no options for NFL?
Can you get Nascar and what is the cost?
Whats the best pkg or Bundle I can get for all SEC games? I don’t need any other conference.
The real issue for sports fan is the local or regional sports networks that cover the teams you follow. So in NY, for example, I can’t cut cable unless I can get SNY (Mets) YES (Yankees, Nets) and MSG (Knicks, Rangers, Devils). What is amazing is that no articles on the cord cutting address this despite it being the biggest obstacle to cord cutting. These articles all presume that as long as you can get a lot of national sports you’d be ok giving up your favorite baseball, basketball and hockey team games. They never address the fact that not every sport is like Football, where almost all 17 weekly games are on a National free or National sports cable network. Wake up guys.