How to Watch MLB Without Cable

Editor's note: due to the COVID-19 crisis, many sports leagues and special events have been canceled or postponed. Portions of this article may not apply during the crisis. If you're looking for something else to watch, check our favorite streaming services!

Baseball is BACK, baby! After a long, cruel winter full of awful things like snow and football, our national pasttime is returning triumphantly to the ballparks of North America — and to television, too. But what is a cord cutter to do when the games are on cable? Can you watch baseball without cable? We're so glad you asked. Sit back and relax, because we're here to show you how to watch MLB games without cable.

Here are a few of our favorite ways to stream MLB:

	Price	Channels	Free Trial
#1	$5.99 – $85.96	68 – 88	7 or 30 days	See Offer
#2	$39.99 – $44.99	85 – 100+	7 days	See Offer
#3	$25 – $40	32 – 52	7 days	See Offer

What channel is the MLB game on?

There are some very cost-effective ways for cord cutters to enjoy live TV broadcasts without cable. Several of the options that we'll lay out below involve finding live TV networks without having to pay big cable bills. But which networks should we find? Here are the channels we'll be on the hunt for.

• Fox: This over-the-air network is home to the World Series, among other big-time games.
• FS1: Not all of the MLB goodness fits on Fox's flagship network. Expect to see some games bumped to FS1, a network station.
• TBS: TBS offers nationally televised baseball and is a must-have for the playoffs.
• ESPN: ESPN airs nationally televised baseball games throughout the season. The TV events include the popular Sunday Night Baseball broadcast.
• Regional sports networks (RSNs): The most important networks in the baseball world are the so-called “regional sports networks,” or RSNs. Some of these are owned by big broadcasters, and others are run by the teams themselves. But however you slice it, networks like Fox Sports Midwest, NESN, SNY, and YES are must-haves for baseball fans who want to follow their local teams.

Not all of our MLB-without-cable solutions will involve live television networks per se, but many will, so it's a good things that we know what we're dealing with.

How to watch MLB online and over the air without cable

Figuring out how to watch MLB games without cable is made a bit tricky by a few factors.

For one thing, as we just established, not all MLB games are on the same channel. As a consequence, you'll have different options for watching different games. ESPN and Fox are among the channels that broadcast games nationally; Fox is available for free over the air in many regions, but ESPN is not. Your local team, if you have one, is likely to be on a regional sports network. Out-of-market games are not available on cable, so learning how to watch baseball without cable is actually the only way to watch those!

So our list here will feature a few different types of options. But a few are similar enough to merit a bit of a collective explanation here. Live TV streaming services, sometimes called “skinny bundles,” occupy the first several spots on our list. These services offer live network television stations at a lower cost than cable. They often include local broadcasts from the major networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC) and regional sports networks, but there's a catch: access to such local live streams varies by market. Luckily, it's easy to check and see what's available in your are without paying, because the live TV streaming services on our list offer risk-free free trials.

Again, the list below will start out with those live TV streaming services, and will then move on to other options, including MLB.TV. With that as introduction, lets move on and see how to watch baseball without cable.

Hulu + Live TV is Hulu's skinny bundle offering. It offers a nice selection of channels, including live streams of ESPN, TBS, and (in select markets) Fox. That translates to MLB live streams of nationally televised games for subscribers. Hulu also has a pretty healthy selection of RSNs on offer, so check out their offers and see if you can use Hulu + Live TV to watch your favorite team! You can read our review of Hulu + Live TV to learn more, or just sign up for the service's free trial and get started.

fuboTV began life as a soccer-specific live TV streaming service. It has long since relaunched as a more general sort of live TV streaming service, but fuboTV still claims to have the most to offer sports fans in particular. That claim is undermined a bit by the conspicuous absence of ESPN, but fuboTV does offer live local feeds of Fox in select markets, and it has a nice selection of regional sports networks, too (coverage varies by region, as always). Read our fuboTV review to learn more, or just dive in and check out its free trial via the link in this section.

Sling TV is designed to make it easy for you to get only the channels you want while avoiding what you don't want. Sling TV lets its subscribers build their own channel bundles, making it easy for MLB fans to scoop up ESPN, TBS, and (in some markets) their favorite regional sports networks, all without having to pony up for an overstuffed bundle. The only drawback is that, as of this writing, Sling TV doesn't have any major networks on offer. To get Fox and complete your setup for watching MLB without cable, you'll need to grab an over-the-air antenna, too.

AT&T TV Now

AT&T TV Now is a popular live TV streaming service that you might know by its old name: DirecTV Now. This re-branded skinny bundle is still a great way to watch all sorts of stuff, including MLB baseball. AT&T TV Now offers live streams of Fox (in select markets), ESPN, FS1, TBS, and even some RSNs.

YouTube TV

YouTube TV is a live TV streaming service owned by tech giant Google. There are lots of reasons to love this service, but MLB fans will find that a few stand out in particular: Fox, FS1, ESPN, TBS, and the assorted RSNs that YouTube TV subscribers have access to in select markets.

Free over-the-air TV

Some of baseball's biggest games happen on broadcast networks — including the World Series, much of which is broadcast on Fox. Broadcast networks are available for free over the air in many regions, so baseball fans would be wise to track down their local Fox station, get an antenna with the proper range, and learn how to watch MLB games without cable — for free!

MLB.TV

You can thank Major League Baseball, at least in part, for the fact that we're even talking about how to watch baseball without cable. MLB Advanced Media, one of the most important companies in the streaming space, was started by MLB. And their MLB-specific streaming service, MLB.TV, remains the gold standard for league streaming services.

The deal with MLB.TV is that it offers you a live stream of all of the MLB games that the league has not already promised to a channel in your area. In short, that means no local games and no national broadcasts. But that leaves plenty for big baseball fans, particularly those who live outside of their favorite team's home market. And MLB.TV is loaded with features and perks, including home and away broadcast options for each available game and the ability to overlay live video feeds with live audio from the relevant radio broadcasts.

Can I Watch MLB on Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, or Chromecast?

We wouldn't show you how to watch baseball without cable unless we could also show you how to watch baseball without cable on your big screen! Baseball is beautiful on an HD TV, so don't limit yourself to watching on a laptop or smartphone.

Watching baseball without cable on a big TV is easy, because each of the streaming services mentioned above has great platform support.

If you use a Roku, you can check out live MLB games on Hulu + Live TV, fuboTV, Sling TV, AT&T TV Now, and YouTube TV.

Hulu + Live TV, fuboTV, Sling TV, AT&T TV Now, and YouTube TV each support Fire TV.

Hulu + Live TV, fuboTV, Sling TV, AT&T TV Now, and YouTube TV work great on Apple TV, too.

Do you use Chromecast? You can enjoy your MLB on that device, too, thanks to supported apps for Hulu + Live TV, fuboTV, Sling TV, AT&T TV Now, and YouTube TV.

Hulu + Live TV, fuboTV, Sling TV, and YouTube TV are options for Android TV.

Hulu + Live TV, fuboTV, Sling TV, AT&T TV Now, and YouTube TV will also work on your Android or iOS mobile device, as well as on your desktop or laptop computer.

Antennas are designed to plug directly into your TV, of course, but you can also stream OTA content over Roku, Fire TV, Aple TV, or Chromecast devices by using your antenna with an OTA DVR or with another similar setup.

As for MLB.TV, it's a great way to stream MLB games on Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, iOS, Android, and PC/Mac.