2017 CFB Guide to Cord Cutting

Updates (see corresponding symbols below)
*12/18/17 (12@)
-Updated the STREAMING SERVICE & CFB NETWORK CHART to include information for NBCSports.com & the NBC Sports App for both Notre Dame football games & other events, updated DTV NOW & YouTube TV as authenticated providers for CBSSN.

*12/6/2017 (11@)
-Added a chart for the 2017-18 Postseason Bowl Games under "POSTSEASON GAMES"

*9/26/17 (10@)
-Corrected the information re: CBS not streaming games this year via the CBS Sports App in the "TV Everywhere Apps" section under TV CHANNELS (i.e. CBS is streaming SEC on CBS games this year similar to previous years)
-Updated info on DTVNOW carrying CBSSN on Go Big & above as of 9/23/17 under STREAMING SERVICES; also updated the links under CFB CHANNEL INPUT SPREADSHEET to direct to newer files that reflect DTVNOW now carrying CBSSN and edited the description under it

*9/13/17 (9@)
-Updated the information re: CBS not streaming games this year via the CBS Sports App in the "TV Everywhere Apps" section under TV CHANNELS
-Added info re: CBSSN now available on Vue under STREAMING SERVICES; also updated the links under CFB CHANNEL INPUT SPREADSHEET to direct to newer files that reflect Vue now carrying CBSSN
-Added info re: the OTA affiliate list for Stadium under TV CHANNELS

*9/02/17 (8@)
-Updated info on FuboTV now carrying P12N under STREAMING SERVICES; also updated the STREAMING SERVICE & CFB NETWORK CHART to reflect this info
-Updated info on YouTubeTV expanding to 12 additional markets on 8/31
-Updated the links under CFB CHANNEL INPUT SPREADSHEET to direct to newer files that reflect FuboTV carrying P12N

*8/27/17 (7@)
-Added a section about Stadium under TV CHANNELS including links to the games that will be streamed on Twitter & Facebook
-Added Stadium as a partner of the MWC in the MEDIA RIGHTS BY CONFERENCE (GROUP OF 5 CONFERENCES) chart.
-Corrected the information re: CBSSN is streamed via the CBS Sports App in the "TV Everywhere Apps" section under TV CHANNELS
-Added additional information regarding the ACC Network and the coverage of the various games it airs under TV CHANNELS

*8/17/17 (6@)
-Added info about YouTubeTV expanding to additional markets under STREAMING SERVICES and added links to all available YouTubeTV locations & local channels under SOURCES & REFERENCES

*8/13/17 (5@)
-Added links to a spreadsheet I created that allows you to enter in the channels you want and returns all services that carry those channels including the cheapest option in a new section "CFB CHANNEL INPUT SPREADSHEET" before the STREAMING SERVICE & CFB NETWORK CHART

*8/07/17 (4@)
-Added info re: DTVNOW reaching an agreement to carry CBS & CBSSN under STREAMING SERVICES
-Updated the STREAMING SERVICE & CFB NETWORK CHART to reflect that DTVNOW will carry CBS (in certain markets only) and CBSSN (tier not known at this time)

*8/05/17 (3@)
-Corrected an error in the STREAMING SERVICE & CFB NETWORK CHART re: BTN & DTVNOW; BTN is only offered on Just Right or higher, previously it was listed as Live a Little or higher.
-Created new footnote (*****) for LHN on Vue in the STREAMING SERVICE & CFB NETWORK CHART and changed the first footnote (*) back to its original wording.

*7/27/17 (2@)
-Added info re: TV Everywhere app authentication now available with FuboTV, Hulu Live, YouTube TV credentials under STREAMING SERVICES; also updated the STREAMING SERVICE & CFB NETWORK CHART to reflect these changes
-Added info re: Sports Pack now available as part of Vue under STREAMING SERVICES
-Added info re: Root Sports rebranding as AT&T SportsNet under KEY TERMS TO KNOW

*7/14/17 (1@)
-Added info re: BTN now being available on Fox Sports Go (TV CHANNELS)
-Added more info re: ESPN3 additional camera feeds & viewing requirements on connected devices (TV CHANNELS)

I love watching college football especially on Saturdays in the fall when there are games on for 14 straight hours or more.  But I *hate* having to maintain an expensive cable or satellite subscription for an entire year just to be able to watch college football from September-early January.  Well, you and I are in luck because there are now up to seven streaming services available, depending on your location, that can help you watch as much college football as you want.  Sadly, even for some teams in the Power 5 conferences, not every single game is available; however, for most teams all of their games can be viewed on one of the existing streaming services.  Thus, you may still need an antenna to pick up some games if local channels aren’t offered in your market.  So read below for the various options that exist to get your college football fix for as cheap as possible.

DISCLAIMER: This work was put together using data from various sources.  As such, if you come across something that is inaccurate, please feel free to reach out to me to correct it via email realcordcutters@outlook.com or Twitter: @RealCordCutters or by leaving a comment below.  My goal is to make a comprehensive and accurate guide that can help people quickly & easily decide how to watch as much college football as they want for the cheapest possible method.  Unlike other cord cutting websites, we welcome and encourage reader feedback, both positive and negative. 

First, I’m going to give a brief overview of the various options that currently exist regarding CFB broadcasts including defining some terms.  Please note that this guide will focus primarily on the Power 5 conferences (ACC, B1G, Big 12, Pac-12 & SEC).  If you’re already familiar with these terms, services, etc. please feel free to jump down below to the conferences section.

KEY TERMS TO KNOW

Designated Market Area (DMA) – a geographic region, defined by Nielsen Media Research that receives the same (or similar) television stations.  The DMA that you are located in determines which local broadcast stations you receive, although cable companies are free to carry channels from outside the DMA without any type of waiver.  To see a map of all US DMAs from 2015-16, click here.

Regional & National Broadcasts – College football games can either be a regional or national broadcast.  A national broadcast shows one game over the entire country on a given channel while a regional broadcast will have different games showing on a given channel in different parts of the country.  For most, but not all, regional broadcasts, the game not shown on the primary channel is aired on an alternate TV channel.  The most common example of a regional broadcast is the 3:30 PM ET ABC/ESPN2 broadcast window.  Some part of the country receives Game A on ABC and Game B on ESPN2 while the rest of the country receives Game B on ABC and Game A on ESPN2.  Some of the conference networks (BTN, SECN, etc.) also do this when there are multiple games airing at the same time by using alternate overflow channels.  When there is a regional broadcast and the alternate game is not shown on another TV channel or the provider does not carry the alternate channels, the extra game(s) will then be streamed online.

Tier 1/2/3 Media Rights – Tier 1 media rights generally refer to games broadcast on over-the-air (OTA) broadcast networks such as FOX, ABC, CBS, etc.  Tier 2 media rights generally refer to games aired on cable television stations such as ESPN/2, FOX Sports 1, etc.  Tier 3 media rights are the rights to games that are institutionally controlled.  The Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC control these Tier 3 rights for all their member institutions and air these games on their respective conference networks.  The ACC has sold these rights to Raycom for syndication but is re-purchasing them in advanced of the launch of the ACC Network in 2019.  The Big 12 allows each member institution to control one home game and the institution can then choose how & who to sell the broadcast rights to that game to.

Regional Sports Networks – FOX (FOX Sports <channel>), Comcast (Comcast SportsNet <channel> and NBC Sports <channel>), and AT&T (Root Sports <channel> (2@) Note: 4 of the Root Sports channels rebranded as AT&T SportsNet <channel> effective July 14^th (2@)) own the most common regional sports networks (RSNs) that air college football games.  Currently, they air games featuring ACC & Big 12 teams in addition to games featuring teams outside of the Power 5 conferences and FCS teams.  The coverage can vary by channel due to other programming commitments such as professional baseball, basketball and hockey; thus, even if a game is designated to be carried by FOX Sports RSNs, your local FOX Sports RSN may not carry it.

Conference Networks – Several conferences (Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC) have created conference networks to exclusively air Tier 3 content in addition to other college sports programming.  These conference networks vary in their structure and also in the number of subscribers each has.  The Big Ten conference launched the Big Ten Network (BTN) back in 2007 while the Pac-12 started the Pac-12 Network (P12N) in 2011 and the SEC started the SEC Network (SECN) in 2014.  The ACC announced last summer that the ACC Network (ACCN) will debut as a linear television channel in 2019.

TV CHANNELS

ABC/ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU/ESPNEWS – The Disney family of channels (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNEWS) carry games multiple days a week.  In addition to Saturdays, these stations also carry games on Thursday & Friday nights (most weeks), Tuesday & Wednesday nights (usually only October-November) and the first Sunday of the season.  They also carry most of the bowl games, including the College Football Playoff, except for a handful.

ESPN3 – ESPN3 is an online streaming channel that airs many sporting events, including college football games, and does not require login authentication.  To view ESPN3 events, one must either have a participating Internet Service Provider or a cable/satellite/streaming service subscription which includes it though.  For example, Sling TV & PlayStation Vue both include ESPN3 access with their subscriptions.  The list of ESPN3 participating providers can be found here.  All games aired on ABC in your region are also available to watch online via ESPN3.  (1@) ESPN3 also airs additional camera views for important games although mostly for bowl and College Football Playoff (CFP) games. For example, the most recent CFP National Championship Game had 8 different feeds available on ESPN3 including Sounds of the Game, Pylon Cam, Hometown Radio feeds, Spider Cam and others.  Thus, some games that are aired on ESPN cable channels can also be viewed via ESPN3 and do not require a subscription to ESPN, ESPN2, etc. in order to watch.  One other thing to be aware of regarding ESPN3 is that the WATCHESPN app requires an ESPN video subscription (i.e. credentials) in order to view ESPN3 content via a connected device such as Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast, or PlayStation 4.  In other words, if you do not have a subscription to a service that includes ESPN (but do have ESPN3 access through your ISP) and try to watch ESPN3 content through the WATCHESPN app on a Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, etc., you will receive an error.  The only way to watch ESPN3 content without an ESPN video subscription is via a computer web browser (www.watchespn.com) or the WATCHESPN app on mobile devices such as phones and tablets.  For more information on this, please see here. (1@) 

FOX/FOX SPORTS 1/FOX SPORTS 2 – FOX Sports carries games on the FOX broadcast channel, FOX Sports 1 (FS1), and FOX Sports Regional Sports Networks (for more information on these see Regional Sports Networks below).  Fox Sports 2 (FS2) traditionally has only been used as an overflow channel when games run late but so far for 2017, at least one game (West Virginia vs East Carolina on 9/9/2017) will air on it.  FS1 has games every Saturday, most Thursdays, and occasional Fridays.  FOX generally has games on Saturdays only but not every Saturday due to other sports commitments (NASCAR, MLB Playoffs, etc.).  Two bowl games will be broadcast on FOX channels for the 2017 season.

CBS/CBS SPORTS NETWORK – CBS Sports carries games on both the CBS broadcast channel and CBS Sports Network (CBSSN).  The CBS broadcast channel typically carries one game involving an SEC team per week on Saturdays while also having several doubleheader days where it carries two games. Last year it featured one tripleheader with the third game being Notre Dame vs Navy. CBSSN typically carries multiple games on Saturdays in addition to games on Thursdays & Fridays most weeks.  CBS will carry one bowl game and CBSSN will carry two bowl games in 2017.

NBC/NBC SPORTS NETWORK – NBC Sports carries games on the NBC broadcast channel, NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), and regional sports networks such as NBC Sports (NBCS) <channel> and Comcast SportsNet (CSN) <channel> (for more information on these see Regional Sports Networks below).  NBC usually only broadcasts Notre Dame home games on Saturdays while NBCSN has a few FCS games in addition to broadcasting one Notre Dame game in 2017.

Regional Sports Networks – The two most common types of Regional Sports Networks (RSNs) are FOX Sports RSNs and NBCS/CSN RSNs.  There are also five RSNs owned by AT&T called ROOT Sports <channel> that carry the FOX Sports RSN games, in addition to some other games, but they are currently not available on any streaming service.  Four of these channels are changing their names to AT&T SportsNet <channel> in July 2017 while the fifth (ROOT Sports Northwest) will keep its name for now.  Additionally, some other RSNs like NESN, Prime Ticket, SportsTime Ohio and MASN carry games as well.

Big Ten Network – BTN is a conference network owned by FOX and the Big Ten Conference that airs programming from all sports featuring Big Ten teams.  It usually shows 2-5 games featuring Big Ten teams each Saturday with occasional games on the first Thursday & Friday of the season.  It owns the Tier 3 rights to all games that Big Ten teams “own” the rights to.  BTN Plus is online streaming network offered by BTN for an additional cost but it does NOT air any CFB games on it.  BTN2GO is the website/app that BTN uses to stream its content. (1@) BTN is now also available to watch via Fox Sports Go per a Twitter user. (1@) (2@) The Big Ten confirmed this at its conference media days on July 24, 2017 (2@).

SEC Network – SECN is a conference network owned exclusively by ESPN (Disney) which shows all sports of SEC teams.  It usually airs 2-5 SEC games on Saturdays in addition to games on the first Thursday & Friday of the season.  SECN owns the Tier 3 rights to all games that SEC teams have the rights to.  SECN+ is an online channel that airs extra events and can only be viewed with authenticated credentials (i.e. it requires a subscription to SECN) via the WATCHESPN/ESPN apps and the ESPN website.  SECN+ generally does not air any CFB games.

Pac-12 Network – P12N is a conference network owned exclusively by the Pac-12 conferences that airs Pac-12 sporting events.  It usually shows 2-5 Pac-12 games on Saturdays only.  P12N owns the Tier 3 rights to all games that Pac-12 teams own the rights to.  The network has 1 national feed and 6 regional feeds (Arizona, Bay Area, Los Angeles, Mountain, Oregon, and Washington) with each regional feed covering two teams.  Most CFB games are aired on the national feed and the regional feed(s) of the team(s) participating in the game. 

ACC Network – The linear ACCN cable channel is scheduled to launch in 2019.  Currently, ACCN refers to ACC college football games that are syndicated either via over-the-air (OTA) stations by Raycom or on RSNs, which are generally FOX Sports RSNs plus some others.  The ACCN Game of the Week airs on OTA stations, is syndicated by Raycom, and will start at 12:20 PM ET on Saturdays this year (previously it started at 12:30 PM ET).  Additionally, the ACCN Game of the Week is streamed on the (7@) ACC's website with no authentication required.(7@)  There is also usually one RSN game aired each Saturday at various times, although several weeks two of these games are shown.  The (7@) RSN games (7@) are also available outside of the airing markets on ACC Network Extra which is an online channel that can only be viewed with authenticated credentials (i.e. it requires a subscription to a service which has ESPN) via the WATCHESPN/ESPN apps or the ESPN website.  (7@) What this means is that if a regional sports network in your DMA is airing the ACC game, you can only watch the game on that network; however, if there is no RSN airing the game within your DMA, then you are able to watch it online with proper ESPN-authenticated credentials via WATCHESPN.  This is important to note because if the game is airing on an RSN that your service does not carry (NESN, AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh, etc.), it means you will not be able to watch the game because you do not receive the station that is airing it in your market and it will be blacked out on WATCHESPN.(7@)  ACC Network Extra begin in 2016 as before that all ACCN games were available via ESPN3 access outside of the local viewing area.  ACC Network Extra also airs other sporting events for ACC teams that do not require authentication.

Longhorn Network –Longhorn Network (LHN) is an ESPN-owned network that focuses solely on University of Texas athletic events and programming.  It generally airs two home Texas football games per year, one non-conference game and one conference game.  The conference game also airs on additional platforms in the home market of the visiting conference team.  It is generally carried as a regional, not national, channel by most providers and is streamed via the WATCHESPN/ESPN apps and the ESPN website.

(7@)Stadium – Stadium released some details about which games they will be carrying for the 2017 season in late August.  They channel will have multiple venues including free Twitter & Facebook live streams and an OTA channel which was previously American Sports Network.  (9@) Stadium finally released a list of OTA affiliates.  The current list can be found here while the webpage with updates can be found here.(9@)  They will be carrying games hosted by Conference USA, Mountain West Conference, and Sun Belt Conference teams.  There will be 15 games aired exclusively on their Facebook page including 9 Conference USA games & 6 Mountain West games; the list of games can be found here.  Additionally, they announced that 28 additional games that will be available via Twitter here and on Pluto TV; these same games will also be available via OTA affiliates but they have not yet announced those affiliates yet as of 8/27/17.  Of the 28 games though, the schedule of which can be found here, only 15 feature Conference USA.  The remaining 13 games all feature FCS teams.(7@)

TV Everywhere Apps – Many cable channels now have a live stream of their channel available to watch online for authenticated subscribers.  ESPN makes all of its programming, including ACCN, SECN, SECN+, LHN & ESPN3 events, available via the WATCHESPN and ESPN apps while FOX uses the FOX Sports Go app for FOX broadcast channel sporting events & FOX Sports RSNs.  BTN uses the BTN2GO app (1@) and the Fox Sports Go app (1@) while P12N uses the Pac-12 Now app.  (9@) CBS & (7@) CBSSN both streams their its college football games through the CBS Sports App (no authentication required for CBS games while authentication is required for CBSSN) while CBSSN does not have an app for streaming; it only streams via the web.(7@) (10@) Effective this year it appears that CBS is no longer streaming its SEC on CBS games through the CBS Sports App.(9@)  CBS Sports is streaming the SEC on CBS games through the CBS Sports Mobile App with no authentication required. (10@)  NBC & NBCSN & NBCS/CSN RSNs all stream their content through the NBC Sports App.

STREAMING SERVICES

Sling TV – Sling TV (Sling) is a streaming service owned by Dish with 2 different base packages, Orange ($20/month) & Blue ($25/month).  The Orange package includes ESPN/ESPN2/ESPN3 + other channels while the Blue package includes FOX (depending on market) & FS1/FS2 + FOX Sports & NBCS/CSN RSNs + other channels.  Both packages together are $40/month ($5/month savings).  ESPNU/ESPNEWS/SECN + P12N + beIN SPORTS (plus other sports channels) are all available in the Orange Sports Extra pack which costs $5/month but requires a subscription to the Orange package; there is another Sports Extra pack for the Blue package that costs $10/month but only includes P12N + beIN SPORTS (plus other sports channels).  The P12N channels offered are the six regional feeds only; the national feed is not included (link here).  ABC (depending on market) is available via the Broadcast Extra pack at $5/month.  The Orange package is limited to 1 simultaneous stream and the Blue package is limited to 3 simultaneous streams.  Sling does not have any location restrictions and can be accessed anywhere in the US.  It’s available on nearly all streaming devices and is setup to authenticate on most TV Everywhere apps, although not the Pac-12 Now app.

PlayStation Vue – PlayStation Vue (Vue) is a streaming service owned by Sony with 4 different packages: Access, Core, Elite & Ultra.  Access starts at $39.99/month and contains ESPN/ESPN2 + ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX broadcast (depending on market) + FS1/FS2 + NBCSN + other channels. Core, at $44.99/month, contains all the channels in Access + BTN + ESPNU/ESPNEWS/SECN + FOX Sports RSNs (if applicable) + NBCS/CSN RSNs (if applicable) + other channels.  Elite ($54.99/month) & Ultra ($74.99/month) contain all the channels in Core plus additional channels.  (2@) Effective July 25^th, Vue introduced a Sports Pack as a $10/month add-on (Core or higher subscription required) which will carry LHN nationally to those out-of-market that don’t receive it as an RSN, ESPN Goal Line, and 11 other sports channels including some RSN’s. (2@)  (9@) Effective 9/13/2017, Vue now carries CBSSN on the Core package and higher.(9@)  Vue is limited to 5 simultaneous streams although there are some limitations such as a maximum of 1 PS 3 console stream, 1 PS 4 console stream, and 3 simultaneous streams on any mobile or web based devices (i.e. computer browsers).   Most importantly, Vue is restricted to a subscriber’s “home location” only in that its content can only be streamed at the location determined by the subscribers billing zip code & IP address when the service is first setup.  In other words, if you try to access Vue while on vacation in a different part of the country, you will receive an error, although some Vue channels can be viewed outside of your home location either via a mobile app or in a desktop browser.  For more information, please see here (Supported Devices -> PlayStation Vue Mobile).  Additionally, you can also use a VPN to access your router remotely which will show your current location as your home location.  Please note that you DO NOT need a PlayStation in order to setup or use Vue.  Similar to Sling, it’s available on nearly all streaming devices and is setup to authenticate on most TV Everywhere apps.  Also, Vue is listed as an ESPN3 provider but it is not clear which level of service provides this access.

DIRECTV NOW – DIRECTV NOW (DTVNOW) is a streaming service owned by AT&T with 4 different packages: Live a Little ($35/month), Just Right ($50/month), Go Big ($60/month) and Gotta Have it ($70/month).  Live a Little includes ABC/NBC/FOX (depending on market) + ESPN/ESPN2 + FS1 + NBCSN + other channels.  Just Right includes all channels in Live a Little plus BTN + ESPNU/ESPNEWS/SECN + LHN + FOX Sports RSNs (if applicable) + NBCS/CSN RSNs (if applicable) + other channels.  Go Big includes all the channels in Just Right + FS2 (10@) + CBSSN (officially live as of 9/23/17) (10@) while Gotta Have It include all channels in Go Big + other channels.  (4@) DTVNOW announced on 8/7/17 that it reached a deal with CBS to carry both CBS (originally in owned & operated markets only) and CBSSN.  It is not clear when the channels will be available or which packages will include CBSSN. (4@)  DTVNOW is limited to 2 simultaneous streams and is available on most streaming devices.  There are also some restrictions when it comes to streaming local channels on a mobile device.  It does not have any location restrictions and does have authentication available most of the common TV everywhere apps now.  Also, DIRECTV NOW is listed as an ESPN3 provider but it is not clear which level of service provides this access.

FuboTV – FuboTV is an independent streaming service which announced its official launch on 4/10/2017. Its main package, Fubo Premier, is currently listed at a discounted introductory rate of $34.99/month (regular price supposedly $49.99/month) and includes a number of CBS, FOX & NBC related channels such as CBS/FOX/NBC (in certain markets) + FS1/FS2 + NBCSN + CBSSN + FOX Sports RSNs (if applicable) + NBCS/CSN RSNs (if applicable).  (8@) FuboTV announced on 8/30 that it would carry the P12N with the official announcement coming one day later.  The national channel is available on the Premier package while the 6 regional channels are part of the Sports Plus add-on ($5.99/month).(8@)  It does not include any ESPN channels though.  FuboTV is restricted to a maximum of 2 simultaneous streams and is available on most of the common streaming devices.  It does not appear to have any location viewing (i.e. out of area) restrictions and is listed as an authenticated provider for FOX Sports Go (2@), but is not currently listed for the (2@), BTN2GO and the NBC Sports App (announced 7/25).

Hulu Live –Hulu Live is a streaming service, owned by Hulu that officially launched in Beta mode on 5/03/2017.  There is one package that costs $39.99/month and offers about 50 channels including ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU/ESPNEWS/SECN/ESPN3 + ABC/NBC/FOX (in applicable markets) + FS1/FS2 + FOX Sports RSNs (if applicable) + NBCS/CSN RSNs (if applicable) + CBSSN + other channels.  The package is limited to 2 simultaneous streams but offers an Unlimited Screens option for $14.99/month which allows unlimited streams at home and 3 simultaneous streams outside of the home.  There are no location viewing restrictions but it currently is not available on Amazon Fire TV/Stick, Roku, or online via browser.  It currently offers authentication with only WATCHESPN and BTN2GO.

YouTube TV – YouTube TV is another newer streaming service that launched in May 2017 and is currently only available in (2@) five fifteen select markets after ten additional markets were launched in July 2017. , although it was announced in June 2017 that it will be expanding to ten additional markets.(2@)  (6@) 29 markets after 14 were added on 8/17/17 and will soon be adding 17 additional markets soon after to bring it to a total of 46 available DMAs.(6@)  (8@) As of 8/31/17, 12 of the 17 additional markets were available for service. (8@).  It has one package that costs $35/month ($39.99/month if you sign up via iTunes) and includes ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC in (6@) most, but not all,(6@) markets.  For cable channels, it has ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU/ESPNEWS/SECN/ESPN3 + FS1/FS2 + BTN + FOX Sports RSNs (if applicable) + NBCS/CSN RSNs (if applicable) + CBSSN + other channels.  It allows a maximum of 3 simultaneous streams, but is not available on any of the common streaming devices (Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, etc.) except for Chromecast. It does not have any location viewing restrictions; however, you must be physically located in one of the select markets to sign up and create an account.  Currently, (2@) WATCHESPN is the NBC Sports App is the only app that does not accept YouTube TV credentials.(2@)

CenturyLink Stream – CenturyLink Stream is the newest streaming service that announced its nationwide launch at the end of June 2017.  The Ultimate package, its base offering, is $45/month and offers a number of sports channels including ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU/ESPNEWS/SECN/ESPN3 + LHN (in applicable markets) + ABC/NBC (in applicable markets) + P12N (National Feed) + NBCS/CSN RSNs (in applicable markets), with a $5/month discount for CenturyLink internet customers.  There is also a Sports Extra package which costs $10/month that includes NBCS/CSN RSNs (out of market only) + LHN + P12N (Regional Feeds) + beIN Sports.  For the Ultimate package, the availability of LHN varies by location, but nothing is mentioned regarding P12N, indicating the national feed is available to all subscribers.  Thus, it appears that for out-of-market subscribers, they would need to purchase the Sports Extra package to receive LHN.  The package is limited to 3 simultaneous streams and currently is only available on Roku devices and via an app for tablets & smartphones.  The only app that it currently authenticates with is WATCHESPN.

THINGS TO KNOW

There are a lot of nuances and caveats regarding some of these services and channels so please read the following items before you decide to purchase anything.

Issues with local coverage

·       Local stations sometimes air a different game than is advertised

o   There are times where you may not be able to watch a game (or must use the appropriate app to view a game) even though it has been designated to be carried by one of your local channels because the local channel is instead airing other programming such as professional sports or even a different college football game.

For example, in the Pittsburgh market, WTAE ABC (4.1) is the station which has the rights to the OTA ACCN Game of the Week each Saturday @ 12:30 PM ET.  However, ABC usually airs a national or regional college football broadcast starting at 12:00 PM ET.  Thus, the ACCN Game of the Week usually ends up being shown on This TV (4.2), the digital sub channel of WTAE. However, when the ACCN Game of the Week features Pittsburgh, that game is aired on WTAE and the ABC regional/national game is bumped to This TV.  On November 5, 2016, Pitt played at Miami starting at 12:30 PM ET; this game was shown on WTAE which forced Northwestern-Wisconsin (ABC national broadcast starting at 12:00 PM ET) to be shown on This TV.  Thus, if you subscribed to a streaming service which carried ABC (WTAE), you would not have seen the Wisconsin-Northwestern game.  Instead the only way you could have watched it would have been to use the WATCHESPN or ESPN apps or to use an antenna to receive This TV.  It should be noted that all ABC games are available via ESPN3 so this example would not have required a television subscription to view the game, only ESPN3 access.

Similar issues can happen with RSNs as well.  On September 24, 2016, San Jose State at Iowa State was distributed by FOX Sports RSNs starting at 12:00 PM ET.  However, FOX Sports Detroit chose to air the ACCN RSN Game of the Week, Central Michigan at Virginia, starting at 12:30 PM ET on its main channel.  Thus, the San Jose State-Iowa State game was aired on FOX Sports Detroit+.  Again, if you had a subscription to a streaming service that does not carry FOX Sports Detroit+, which is essentially an overflow channel, you would have needed to go to the FOX Sports Go app to be able to watch that game.  Please note that the issues described above are not unique to streaming services, but they are things to keep in mind.    

Overflow channels

·       Conference Networks

o   As mentioned earlier, conference networks will frequently air multiple games at the same time with the primary game for your region usually determined by geography.  This means that if you are interested in watching the secondary game, you must either find the alternate channel for the network or find the online stream of the game via the networks app. 

For example, on September 17, 2016, BTN aired both Georgia Sate at Wisconsin & Temple at Penn State starting at 12 PM ET.  If you lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the main BTN channel showed the Temple-Penn State game while Georgia State-Wisconsin was carried on one of BTN’s overflow channels.  However, not all of these streaming services carry all the overflow channels for networks that have them.  So if you used a streaming service that did not carry all of  BTN’s overflow channels, you would have had to login to the BTN2GO app, using your provider credentials, in order to watch Georgia State-Wisconsin.  It’s similar for the SECN, except that you would use the WATCHESPN or ESPN apps.  Again, this issue is not necessarily unique to streaming services, because some cable providers do not carry all the overflow channels (compared to satellite providers who generally do), but it is something to be aware of.

Game windows

·       Game running late into the start of the next game

o   Most college football games are scheduled for 3.5 hour windows; however, games frequently last longer than 3.5 hours, especially when there are weather delays, which end up delaying the start of the next scheduled game on the same channel.  It also frequently happens with the channels that air the ACCN Game of the Week since that game starts at 12:20 PM ET and thus, only has 3 hours and 10 minutes until the 3:30 PM ET games start.  When these situations happen, the next game is usually started on an alternate network, or if none is available, streamed online via the WATCHESPN or FOX Sports Go apps.  For games on the ESPN channels, ESPNU & ESPNEWS are usually used as overflow channels, although the SECN alternate channel has been used occasionally as well for SEC games.  If there are no overflow channels available, the next game will usually be made available to be streamed on ESPN3. For games on the FOX channels, FOX Sports 2 is usually used as the main overflow channel, although there was once instance where a game (Oklahoma-Texas Tech) was moved to FOX News Channel because the World Series was set to air on FOX that night.  Although each network usually stays with the current game until its conclusion, there are cases where the network will leave a current game to show the start of the next game; this usually happens with networks that are located in the broadcast area for one of the teams that is playing in the next game.  For example, in 2013 there was an ACC Game of the Week between Louisiana Tech and NC State that started at 12:30 PM ET on WTAE (ABC) in Pittsburgh.  However, the game was not over by 3:30 PM ET when ABC was scheduled to air Penn State-Syracuse as part of its 3:30 PM ET regional coverage.  WTAE left the ACCN game and started airing the Penn State game on time since Pittsburgh is considered part of the Penn State viewing area.   However, for most games, especially those on cable channels, unless the game is a large blowout the network will stay with it until its conclusion.  This is something to keep in mind if you decide to subscribe to a streaming service as there may be channels you do not anticipate needing to watch but may occasionally air part of a game you’re interested in because the game before yours ran late, pushing the start of your game to an alternate channel temporarily.

Away Games

·       The TV partners of the home team determine who airs each game.  Generally, the home team has the broadcast rights to each game and thus, one of the channels of those partners will be the one that airs the game.  In the case of a neutral site game, the contract for the game usually designates one of the teams as the “home team” for both uniform and broadcasting purposes.  This is important because even if your favorite team is in a conference who home and/or conference games are only aired on certain channels, they may play a road game (or games) which is aired on other channels because the team(s) they are playing has a different media partner.

For example, Virginia Tech is in the ACC whose conference broadcast partners are ABC, the various ESPN channels and local broadcast networks + RSNs for any ACCN games.  Thus, you might think that a streaming service which includes all of the various ESPN channels + your local FOX Sports RSN would be sufficient to watch all of their games.  However, on September 16, 2017, they are scheduled to play at East Carolina, a member of the American Athletic Conference. This game is scheduled to be aired on CBSSN, one of the broadcast partners of the home team’s conference.  Thus, in order to watch it, one would need a subscription to a streaming package with CBSSN.  Therefore, when deciding which streaming service best fits your needs, you should make sure to research any away games for your favorite team(s) to see which channels you may need to subscribe to in order to watch those road games.

CONFERENCE & CHANNEL CHARTS

Below are several charts to assist with your decision to cut the cord and/or sign up for an online streaming service.  The first one shows the channels which have the Tier 1, 2, and 3 media (i.e. TV) rights for each of the Power 5 conferences.  The second one shows the television partners for the other 5 FBS conferences, aka the Group of 5.  The third one shows the most common channels which carry college football and the level of package (if available) on each streaming service. 

MEDIA RIGHTS BY CONFERENCE (POWER 5 CONFERENCES)

	Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3	Conf Champ Game
ACC	ABC	ESPN/2/U/NEWS	OTA (syndicated by Raycom, channels vary by market) & RSN (RSNs vary by market)	ABC/ESPN/2
Big Ten	ABC & FOX	ESPN/2/U/NEWS & FS1/FS2	BTN	FOX
Big 12	ABC & FOX	ESPN/2/U/NEWS & FS1/FS2	*Varies by team –Longhorn Network (Texas) is the only linear cable channel	**FOX & ABC/ESPN/2
Pac-12	ABC & FOX	ESPN/2/U/NEWS & FS1/FS2	P12N	***FOX & ABC/ESPN/2
SEC	CBS	ESPN/2/U/NEWS	SECN	CBS

*Each team is given one game for institutional control which they can then sell the rights to for broadcasting

**This game will resume in 2017 after last being played in 2010. It will be split between FOX (odd years) & ESPN channels (even years)

***This game is split between FOX (even years) and ESPN channels (odd years).

Notre Dame – NBC Sports owns the rights to all Notre Dame home games.  All 2017 home games are scheduled to be aired on NBC broadcast except for the 9/30/2017 game vs Miami (OH) which will air on NBCSN.  Their five away games will air on networks determined by the broadcast partners of the teams they are facing.

BYU – ESPN has the rights of first selection to all BYU home games or neutral site games where BYU is the designated home team.  This includes a minimum of 3 games to air on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 and at least one game to air on ESPNU.  Any home games that ESPN does not televise can be aired on BYUtv, which is a TV channel founded and run by the university.  BYUtv general airs one BYU football game per year and is currently not available as part of any streaming service. 

MEDIA RIGHTS BY CONFERENCE (GROUP OF 5 CONFERENCES)

	Partner 1	Partner 2	Partner 3	Partner 4
AAC	ESPN	CBSSN*	-----------	-------------------------
Conf USA	ESPN	CBSSN	beIN Sports	Stadium**
MAC	ESPN	CBSSN*	-----------	-------------------------
MWC	ESPN	CBSSN	Campus Insiders***/ (7@)Stadium**(7@)	TheMWC.com***
Sun Belt	ESPN	Stadium**	-----------	-------------------------

*These games are sublicensed from ESPN which controls the initial rights to them.

**American Sports Network was a syndicated network broadcast over the air that ceased operations in March 2017 and was merged with Silver Chalice & 120 sports. The new venture is called “Stadium” and will stream online 24/7 on Twitter in addition to being available over the air.  For more information on Stadium, see this excellent summary from Matt Sarzyniak (7@) and/or read the updated summary of it under TV CHANNELS above.(7@)

***These games are streamed online only.

(5@)CFB CHANNEL INPUT SPREADSHEET

I have exciting news to announce!!  As of 8/13/17, my CFB channel input spreadsheet is now available for download and use.  Basically this is an Excel spreadsheet that will allow you to input up to 15 channels and will return all streaming service options which carry that group of channels, including highlighting the cheapest available option.  Please read the instructions (located on the 2nd tab in the file) before using but it is fairly straightforward.  You simply enter in the name of each channel (it has to match the name I've assigned to it in the Channel Key in the file) and the spreadsheet will automatically update.  There's also an Out of Market filter which is only used for receiving P12N & LHN on certain services.  (10@) Please note that CBSSN is not included for DTVNOW yet (although CBS is), since they have not announced which tiers it will be featured on. CBSSN is live on DTVNOW as of 9/23/217 so it is now included in the spreadsheet.(10@)

To see a view-only copy of the spreadsheet, click here. (updated 9/26/17)

To download a copy of it (it's a zip file which you must save & unzip to access the Excel file), click here.(5@)(updated 9/26/17)

STREAMING SERVICE & CFB NETWORK CHART
(last updated 12/18/17)

	Sling TV	PlayStation Vue	DIRECTV NOW	FuboTV	Hulu Live	YouTubeTV	CenturyLink Stream
ABC	Broadcast Extra*	Access* (or higher)	Live a Little* (or higher)	No	Yes*	Yes	Ultimate*
ESPN	Orange	Access (or higher)	Live a Little (or higher)	No	Yes	Yes	Ultimate
ESPN2	Orange	Access (or higher)	Live a Little (or higher)	No	Yes	Yes	Ultimate
ESPNU	Sports Extra (Orange)	Core (or higher)	Just Right (or higher)	No	Yes	Yes	Ultimate
ESPNEWS	Sports Extra (Orange)	Core (or higher)	Just Right (or higher)	No	Yes	Yes	Ultimate
SECN	Sports Extra (Orange)	Core (or higher)	Just Right (or higher)	No	Yes	Yes	Ultimate
BTN	No	Core (or higher)	Just Right (or higher)	Premier	Yes	Yes	No
FOX	Blue*	Access* (or higher)	Live a Little* (or higher)	Premier*	Yes*	Yes	No
FS1	Blue	Access (or higher)	Live a Little (or higher)	Premier	Yes	Yes	No
FS2	Blue	Access (or higher)	Go Big (or higher)	Premier	Yes	Yes	No
CBS	No	Access* (or higher)	Live a Little* (or higher)	Premier*	Yes*	Yes	No
CBSSN	No	Core (or higher)	Go Big (or higher)	Premier	Yes	Yes	No
NBC	Blue*	Access* (or higher)	Live a Little* (or higher)	Premier*	Yes*	Yes	Ultimate*
NBCSN	Blue	Access (or higher)	Live a Little (or higher)	Premier	Yes	Yes	Ultimate
P12N	Sports Extra (Orange or Blue)**	No	No	Premier*** and Sports Plus***	No	No	Ultimate*** and Sports Extra***
LHN	No	Core***** (or higher)	Just Right* (or higher)	No	No	No	Ultimate**** or Sports Extra****
FOX Sports RSNs	Blue*	Core* (or higher)	Just Right* (or higher)	Premier*	Yes*	Yes	No
NBCS/CSN RSNs	Blue*	Core* (or higher)	Just Right* (or higher)	Premier*	Yes*	Yes	Ultimate*
ESPN3	Orange	Access(?)	Live a Little(?)	No	Yes	Yes	Ultimate
TV EVERYWHERE APPS
WATCHESPN	Yes	Yes	Yes	---------	Yes	Yes	Yes
BTN2GO	---------	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	---------
FOX SPORTS GO	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	---------
PAC-12 Now	No	---------	---------	No	---------	---------	No
NBCSports.com/ NBCS App-ND FB only/Other content	Yes/ Yes	Yes/ Yes	Yes/ Yes	Yes/ Yes	Yes/ Yes	No/ Yes	Yes/ Yes
CBSSports.com/CBSS App-CBSSN	---------	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	---------

*Available in select markets only
**Includes all P12N regional feeds only, does not include the national feed.

***Ultimate & Premier packages include the P12N national feed while the Sports Plus & Sports Extra add-ons include the 6 regional feeds

****Available on Ultimate in certain markets only; available on Sports Extra for out of market subscribers
(3@)*****Available in select markets as part of Core; in other markets, requires Core or higher subscription + Sports Pack ($10/month) (3@)

To view this as a PDF, click here.

POSTSEASON GAMES

All bowl games will air on ESPN except for the ones listed below. 

Game	Date	Time	Channel
Celebration Bowl	12/16/2017	12:00 PM ET	ABC
Cure Bowl	12/16/2017	2:30 PM ET	CBSSN
Las Vegas Bowl	12/16/2017	3:30 PM ET	ABC
Foster Farms Bowl	12/27/2017	8:30 PM ET	FOX
Holiday Bowl	12/28/2017	9:00 PM ET	FS1
Sun Bowl	12/29/2017	3:00 PM ET	CBS
Arizona Bowl	12/29/2017	5:30 PM ET	CBSSN
Liberty Bowl	12/30/2017	12:30 PM ET	ABC
Outback Bowl	1/1/2018	12:00 PM ET	ESPN2
Citrus Bowl	1/1/2018	1:00 PM ET	ABC

  
(11@) To see a chart of all Bowl Games with the day, time and services each game is available on, please click here.(11@)

SOURCES & REFERENCES:

The information in the chart above and this entire post came from a variety of sources.  Some websites that are very useful for CFB TV listings are Matt Sarz Sports, FBSCHEDULES.com, and LSUFootball.net.

College Football Game Broadcast Schedules

Matt’s CollegeSports on TV Website - Has CFB & CBB TV listings for each week in addition to archived listings dating back to 2006-07

FBSCHEDULES.com – Has future & past schedules for every team including TV information

LSUFootball.net – Has CFB TV listings for each week for & a schedule of upcoming game replays; also includes archived TV listings back to 2004

ESPN

ESPN3 – List of Participating Providers (ISP & TV)

Sling TV

SlingTV – Local Channel & RSN Lookup by Zip Code

SlingTV – Article on Alternate RSNs

PlayStation Vue

PlayStation Vue – Local Channel & RSN lookup (enter zip code)

DIRECTV NOW

DIRECTVNOW – Local Channel & RSN Lookup by Zip Code

DIRECTVNOW – Master List of RSNs by Zip Code & Team
DIRECTVNOW – Comparison Guide for Channel Packages

FuboTV

FuboTV – List of Regional Sports Networks

FuboTV – List of Broadcast Channels

YouTube TV

(6@)YouTube TV – List of all available markets
YouTube TV – List of all markets which do not have all local channels(6@)

CenturyLink Stream

CenturyLink Stream – Channel List & Local Markets

MISC

Nielsen DMA Map (2015-16)

More Misleading Cord Cutting Articles

***Please see the update posted below on 7/7/2017 which has more thoughts on the survey and an accurate statistic/dollar figure that can be derived from it.***

Another day, another misleading and inaccurate article from a cord cutting website.  Today’s example is from Streaming Observer which claims “ESPN Gets $4.5 Billion a Year from Subscribers Who Say They Don’t Even Want It” in an article published on 6/28/17.  However, that conclusion is not supported by any of the evidence it cites and frankly, is worthless for a variety of reasons.  Below are the various ways, the articles twists statements and stats to end up at that (false) conclusion.

*”Pay TV subscribers who don’t want ESPN are still paying over $4.5 billion annually to have the channel in their packages.”

This statement is false, or at the very least, not proven by any of the statistics or evidence cited in the post.  In other words, it may be true, but it is not proven by any of the evidence the article uses as shown below.

*“A recent survey found that 53% of people don’t care whether or not their TV package includes live sports channels,…”

That is not what the survey (link here) asked. It specifically asked “How important are live sports to you when choosing a TV service?”.  That is NOT the same question as “Do you want or need or prefer to have live sports channels when choosing a TV service?” or “Do you care if your TV service has live sports channels when you made the decision about which one to select/purchase?”  The question that was asked is basically a question of how much importance live sports plays in relation to choosing your TV service, whereas the conclusion reached in the article (and also in the summary of the survey by Cut Cable Today) is that people do not care about receiving sports channels.  Those are two different things.  Live sports not being important to choosing your tv service is NOT the same as not caring or not wanting live sports channels. 

*”… like ESPN and ESPN2 which are included in nearly every basic pay TV package.”
The article specifically references ESPN & ESPN2 but the survey question on which it based its conclusion off of only references “live sports” not the specific ESPN & ESPN2 channels. It made the conclusion regarding 2 specific channels when then is no question that specifically asks about the interest level in them other than a later question in the survey "How often do you watch ESPN?" which is not the same as interest level or importance.  In other words, conflating ESPN & ESPN2 with a generic description of “live sports channels” is misleading.

*”Given that 53% of pay TV subscribers don’t care if they have ESPN or other live sports channels, that means 46,294,970 of ESPN/ESPN2’s subscribers don’t really want the channels.”
I already pointed out that the 53% figure is how many people listed live sports channels as “not important” when choosing their TV service, i.e. it is NOT the # of subscribers that don’t care if they have live sports channels and it most definitely NOT the # of subscribers that “don’t really want” live sports channels.  However, there is another problem with the 53% figure.

The 53% figure includes everyone (n=753) that completed the survey.  But not everyone who completed the survey had a subscription to a cable/satellite/telco service or an OTT cable-lite streaming service (i.e. Vue, SlingTV, DIRECTV NOW, etc.).  This is confirmed in a later question (“How often do you watch ESPN?”) where it states “Of the 753 people we surveyed, 414 were currently subscribed to cable TV.”  Now, one problem immediately is does the phrase “cable TV” only include legacy cable/satellite/telco subscriptions or does it also include OTT cable-lite services such as Vue, Sling TV, etc. which also carry ESPN?  I would assume it’s the latter, but it’s never clarified since Cut Cable Today never released the actual results of the survey, only a written summary to each question and a pie chart. 

What this means is that using the 53% figure, which comes from ALL respondents, and applying that to the group of ESPN/ESPN2 subscribers (which in this survey, comprised only 55% of total respondents) is wildly inaccurate and just flat out wrong.  For example, if someone who subscribes to Netflix & Hulu (not Hulu Live but traditional Hulu) completed the survey and selected “Very Unimportant” to the Live Sports question, that person would represent some part of the 53% who “don’t care/don’t really want” ESPN/ESPN2.  However, that person is NOT an ESPN/ESPN2 subscriber.  So that person is NOT one of the 46,294,970 of ESPN/ESPN2’s subscribers which the article claims “don’t really want the channels” who are paying $4.5 billion per year “despite not wanting those channels”.   So, you can’t take the 53% figure and multiply that by the number of ESPN/ESPN2 subscribers to figure to calculate how many of them don’t want/don’t care about those channels because the 53% figure is of ALL respondents (of which 45% do not subscribe to ESPN/ESPN2), NOT solely ESPN/ESPN2 subscribers.  TO accurate determine the percentage of subscribers that do not care about/do not want ESPN/ESPN2, you would have to take the 414 responses to the Live Sports questions from those who indicated they currently subscribe to ESPN/ESPN2.  Therefore, the percentage of ESPN/ESPN2 subscribers who are paying $8.11/month but do not care about/do not want those channels is not 53%, for a variety of reasons, as this article claims and as such the figure of $4.5 billion is wildly inaccurate.

*”….that’s $375,452,207 people are shelling out every single month despite not wanting those channels. That’s $4.5 billion a year!”

Lastly, I mention this sentence not to explain how those figures are incorrect, but instead to point out the inaccurate wording used in it.  “…people are shelling out every single month despite not wanting those channels…”(emphasis added).  Notice the phrase “not wanting” which is not directly asked (or even inferred) anywhere in the survey.  That phrase is (wrongly) concluded from the wording of a completely different question and another reason why the main conclusion of the article is false.

Let’s review again the steps this article goes through to reach its conclusion.

1-Take a somewhat vague question and twist the original subject of it (importance of live sports) to something else (don’t really care and/or don’t want)

2-Conflate “live sports channels” to mean 2 specific live sports channels which are not mentioned in the question

3-Take a statistic from a survey that came from all respondents and then apply that statistic to a specific subgroup of the respondents (only those who subscribe to ESPN/ESPN2).

4-Scale the statistic to an abnormally large value by multiplying it by various factors (subscription rate per month, number of months in a year).

(Added 7/7/2017):  There are two other important points that I thought of after this article was posted. The first relates to an actual statistic that can be derived from the survey while the second is another reason while the $4.5 billion figure (or even the figure I will demonstrate) is misleading.

I’ve already explained why the conclusion that “ESPN Gets $4.5 Billion a Year from Subscribers Who Say They Don’t Even Want It” is inaccurate and wrong.  However, there is a conclusion that can be drawn from the survey regarding ESPN and the theoretical amount of money it receives from a certain group of its subscribers.  As mentioned previously, there is a question which asks only those who subscribe to cable TV how frequently they watch ESPN.  30% of respondents indicated they never watch it.  Thus, subscribers who receive ESPN (and presumably ESPN2 as well) are paying $8.11/month or $97.32/year for two channels they never watch.  Since there are approximately 87,349,000 households subscribed to ESPN/2, as of March 2017, this means approximately 26,204,700 households never watch ESPN.  More importantly, these households are supposedly (more on why I use this word in the next paragraph) paying ~$2.55 billion/year for ESPN/2.  Thus, a more accurate (and still mind-blowing) result of the survey/headline would be “Disney Gets $2.55 Billion a Year from Subscribers Who Admit They Never Watch ESPN.”

Now, the reason I used the word supposedly in front of the dollar figure I just calculated is that the affiliate fees that ESPN/ESPN2 receives are derived from the regular price of the programming packages from various providers.  In other words, I don’t believe it takes into account the various promotional prices that individuals are on in which they pay the providers much less than the regular advertised rate; therefore, they are not paying the full affiliate fee.  For example, I am currently on a one-year contract with DirecTV where my base programming rate for Choice is $29.99/month.  If you take away the local channel costs, usually estimated at $5-$10/month depending on the market, that leaves $20-$25/month left to pay for the remaining 170 channels in my Choice package.  However, the estimated fees of all these remaining channels far exceeds that $20-$25 figure.  If you look at just the 11 national sports channels alone, not including any RSNs since there is a separate RSN fee, they total ~$17, leaving between $3-$8 for about 150 more channels.  And this doesn’t even factor in any other costs DirecTV has that are associated with providing & operating their service (labor, website maintenance, support, etc.).  In other words, ESPN, or rather Disney, isn’t getting $8.11/month from me.  Some portion of that money is coming out of DirecTV’s pocket.  Now it may be that the $8.11 figure for ESPN & ESPN2 is an average fee across all subscribers, including both those who are paying regular price and those who aren’t.  However, if that is the case, it would mean two things.  First, it would mean that the overall contribution, $2.55 billion/year, is still accurate because the overall “average” fee is still accurate.  Second, it would also mean that those on promotional rates are actually paying less than $8.11/month and those who aren’t (i.e. those paying the regular advertised rate) are paying more than $8.11/month.  So even if this is the case, it’s still true that there are some number of people, like myself, out there who are NOT paying $97.32/year for a channel they never watch.

An Analysis of Recent Cord Cutting Articles

More and more newspaper writers are starting to write articles about cord cutting and a lot of them seem to take a particular angle of “You better watch out or else you may not end up saving any money by cutting the cord.”  I’m going to highlight two of these recently published articles and point out some of the fallacies and errors with their analysis.

The first article was published on May 15, 2017 in The Denver Post by Tamara Chuang titled “HuluLive, Sling TV, DirecTV Now and others bring live alternatives to cable, butwatch out for the bottom line”.  It examines the five major streaming services (sorry FuboTV) and compares them to Comcast on a number of factors including overall cost and the number of included “top 30 channels”.  Compared to much of the garbage that is written out there, this article is actually useful in that it’s fairly comprehensive and explains things clearly.  However, it does have some errors in its analysis which I’m going to highlight below.

Error 1: Using the cost of internet service as an additional (marginal) cost instead of a fixed (already existing) cost. 

The article says “But subscribing to a $20-and-up plan doesn’t stop at $20. You still must pay for internet service, which can cost viewers in the Denver area $30 to $65 a month.” and also “ ‘That’s the fallacy of the argument for cord cutting. You’re not really cutting the cord but swapping it for another one,’ said James Willcox, senior editor of electronics for Consumer Reports. ‘Unless you’re getting it over the air, you need broadband. And if you offload more entertainment to (internet video services) you may have to speed up your internet plan and pay more for it.’

For some reason, almost every single one of these articles is under the assumption that the person looking to cut the cord only subscribes to a pay-tv service and does not subscribe to an internet service.  But only 13%of the population currently does not have internet access.  Yes, if there is an individual who currently subscribes to a cable/satellite television service and does not have internet, that person would have to pay an additional cost for internet service in addition to the cost of any streaming service(s) he/she chose to subscribe to. 

It’s also worth noting that there are two primary groups of people who may need to spend more on their current internet service after switching to a streaming service.  The first is those that plan on having a large number of streaming devices operating at the same time and/or are currently on a very slow DSL-type (6 Mbps or lower) plan. These people might need to increase their current speed level and therefore, they would incur an extra cost for their internet service compared to what they are currently paying.  Another group is people who currently have an internet plan with a data cap who may end up paying more either to remove the cap (i.e. receive unlimited data) or incurring overage fees for going over the data limit.  For example, a household with 4-5 heavy TV users using only a streaming service could very easily use up the 1 TB monthly data cap that many internet providers offer.  So, again, yes it is true that there are people who fall into the situations described in the article.  But these situations would probably not apply to all or even most households, yet the article assumes they would.  

Error 2:  The comparison cost among the services is misleading for several reasons.

For each of the five streaming services plus Comcast, there is a total monthly cost figure given.  However, the criteria that leads to this cost figure is misleading for the following reasons. 

·         As mentioned earlier, the article treats internet access as an additional marginal cost that would be needed to cut the cord. 

o   This would only apply to at most, 13% of the population that currently does not use internet service.  Thus, the total price for each streaming package is $30 more than it would be for most, but not all, people.

o   As also mentioned earlier, some people may end up paying more for internet by either increasing the speed of their internet package, paying to receive unlimited data or by paying overage fees if they go over the allotted data cap.  Thus, listing a blanket $30 additional charge on each streaming package is misleading since it would not apply to all, or even most, cord cutters.

·         The cost comparison uses a metric “top 30 channels”, which it defines as “the 30 most-watched channels from September to May, according to the Nielsen ratings service,” to determine an approximate monthly cost for each service. The problems with this are as follows:

o   It doesn’t even list anywhere in the article what these 30 channels are. 

o   It calculates the cost for each service by adding on additional top 30 channels, if possible, to receive as many as possible. 

§  For example, the Sling Orange base package has 13 of the top 30 channels, but there are an additional 9 channels that can be added via add-on channel packs for a total of $35 (Note: I’m assuming that $35 comes from adding Sling Blue for an extra $20 plus 3 extra $5 channel packs but the article doesn’t explain where the $35 total came from).  Thus, the total cost for the Sling package comes to over $90 (!) due to this and several other misleading assumptions (discussed later).

o   Listing the number of top 30 channels available on the both the base package and other additional add-ons is useful but it should not be included in the total monthly cost estimate.  Doing so misleads the reader by showing a possibly inflated cost depending on his/her channel preferences.  If the article is going to list the total monthly cost to receive as many top-30 channels as possible, it should also list the base monthly cost without all the additional add-ons.

·         The total cost for each streaming services includes the cost of CBS All-Access ($5.99/month) for those that do not carry CBS. 

o   There’s nothing wrong with listing which local channels are included in each service and/or the options that exist to receive local channels that aren’t included, but this should not be included with the total cost estimate. 

o   Including CBS All-Access for $5.99/month inflates the price of Sling TV and DIRECTV NOW as it is a purely optional add on.  Some people have no interest in receiving CBS and/or already receive it over the air (OTA) via an antenna.  Voluntary add-ons should not be counted in the total monthly price cost since they are optional and thus, not required.

·         The Comcast cost comparison is misleading for several reasons. 

o   First, there are many additional fees (some optional, some mandatory) that can apply to this package including the regional sports fee, HD Technology Fee, franchise fees and additional outlet fees, that aren’t listed anywhere.

§  Regional Sports Fee - I couldn’t find the exact channel lineup anywhere for the package cited (X1 Double Saver), but it appears to include the Digital Starter TV package which typically includes any/all local regional sports networks (RSNs) which would then incur the regional sports fee.  The RSN fee costs up to $5/month and is generally mandatory for those subscribing to Digital Starter and above. This fee is not mentioned in the article, but I think it should be---assuming that Digital Starter is indeed the level of TV service included in the X1 Double Saver promo.

§  HD Technology Fee – Also absent from the article is that all the streaming services broadcast in some form of HD, but that the Comcast package price is for SD service, not HD.  HD service typically costs an extra $10/month from Comcast.  Now personally, I don’t mind watching service in SD (I’ve never paid for HD service as long as I’ve had cable/satellite), but most people aren’t like me.  Thus, to receive an equivalent viewing experience (in terms of picture quality), the Comcast package would cost an extra $10/month more (technically $10.77 once you include the 7.65% sales tax rate for the city of Denver). 

§  Franchise fee – If the city/county you live in has entered into a franchise agreement with Comcast, then you will most likely be charged a franchise fee, usually only on the cable television portion of your bill, on your monthly bill. It’s important to note that this money ends up going to the local franchise authority (i.e. city or county), not to Comcast.  The rates all vary by location, but it can add an extra 6% (of the pro-rated television cost) to your bill that would you would not pay for subscribing to any of the streaming services.

§  Additional Outlet Fee - The package price quoted is for only one outlet (i.e. TV) of service; additional outlets cost anywhere from $3.99 (digital adapters that only receive some chanenls) to $9.99 (full cable box) per month.  Thus, the comparison chart is comparing the monthly total cost for one outlet of service among the options, which is fine; what it fails to mention though is that for additional outlets, the streaming service costs would not change (except for Hulu if you one chose to purchase the unlimited streams option) whereas the Comcast estimate would go up.  For example, adding two additional full boxes (i.e. TV’s), which would allow a household to watch programming on 3 TV’s simultaneously, to the Comcast service would increase its monthly cost by $20 + sales tax. 

o   Second, the Comcast price cited is only a promotional price

§  While that promo price is valid for new customers, would someone who is a current Comcast customer and is debating about whether to switch to a streaming service be eligible to receive it?  I have no idea.  There are tons of stories of individuals on the internet explaining how they called in, threatened to cancel their service and were granted a much lower price on their cable TV/internet bill or received an increase in their service level for a negligible price increase.  (Editor’s note:  I myself did this two weeks ago when I called to put in a cancellation date for our internet only service with Comcast and was offered Blast (200 Mbps download/10 Mbps upload) for $49.99/month, which is four cents more per month than what I had been paying for Performance Starter (10 Mbps download/2 Mbps upload.)  I was ready to switch to Frontier---and had scheduled an installation---since the Performance Starter was too slow at times).

§  The price used for Comcast should be the regular non-promotional price since the prices listed for all of the streaming services are the regular, every day prices.  This would give a true apples-to-apples comparison.  Using the promotional price means that the cost comparison guide is only applicable to individuals considering a streaming service that currently do not have Comcast TV service.

Overall, this article is more useful and informative than most of the mainstream media articles written about streaming services, but it still falls short in several areas.  It repeats the myth that most people who would switch to a streaming service either don’t currently have internet service or would need to pay more to improve their internet service.  Counting these extra monthly costs towards the cost of the streaming service for everyone paints a misleading picture about the actual amount of money than can be saved.  Additionally, adding in optional packages to receive as many top-30 channels as possible and/or local channels inflates the cost of the streaming services (and thus, deflates the hypothetical amount of savings from cord cutting).  Finally, I don’t believe the accurate for Comcast is accurate for several reasons: it leaves out several mandatory fees (Regional Sports Fee, Franchise Fee) that increase its cost relative to the streaming services, it doesn’t mention any of the optional fees (HD Technology Fee, Additional Outlet fee) that may be incurred which the streaming services do not have and finally, it uses a promotional price that may or may not be available to current Comcast customers.  Thus, a customer who wants HD service and the ability to watch on 2 TVs simultaneously would pay the listed amounts for each of the streaming services, but would end up paying $131-$137/month (not $117) to Comcast (depending on whether they wanted a full cable box or a digital adapter on the 2^nd TV).  Unfortunately all those things I just described make the savings amount from “cutting the cord” seem much smaller than it would be in actuality for most people. 

(Posted 5/26/2017)

The next article I’d like to examine was published on May 20, 2017, in the Los Angeles Times titled “Cutting the cord doesn't necessarily meancutting the cost.”  This article is actually a lot less useful than first, primarily because it is very broad and not detailed, but also because of the large number of false and/or misleading statements in it.

Error 1-The lady cited in the article is not a true cord cutter.  She didn’t have any TV service and then decided to subscribe to streaming services instead of cable.

The person cited in the article, Tahlia Hein, moved to New York City without a TV, but when she & her roommates got one, they decided to sign up for several streaming services.  In other words, this was not a person who had a cable/satellite TV subscription and then decided to drop that in favor of streaming services.  Rather this person appeared to be more of a cord never who decided to go with streaming services, instead of a cable TV subscription, and as a result her monthly expenses actually went up compared to where they were previously.  Typically, a cord cutter is someone who has a current cable/satellite subscription and then choose to cancel it in favor of only over-the-air (OTA) programming and/or streaming services, for either convenience and/or monetary savings.  But this situation is the exact opposite.  Thus, it’s odd that this example is cited since it has very little relevance to the main point of the headline, which is that cutting the cord might not be that much cheaper than cable.

Error 2-The cord cutters statistics are from Dec 2015 and therefore are outdated.

The article then states “Forgoing cable and satellite TV is a decision that’s increasingly common — 1 in 7 Americans is a cord cutter and an additional 9% have never had a cable or satellite TV subscription…”  However, the Pew Research Center survey these are linked from is from December 2015, almost 18 months ago.  More recent statistics suggest that 25% of US TV households do not have an active cable or satellite subscription according to GFK.

Error 3-The PlayStation Vue monthly base fee is listed as $39.99 which only applies to certain markets.

A table which compares the various cable-lite streaming services lists the Monthly Base Fee for PlayStation Vue as $39.99.  However, that cost only applies to the seven original launch markets (Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Miami, NYC, Philadelphia, San Francisco) where all four broadcast networks are included.  All other markets start at $29.99/month.  The chart should indicate this with some sort of footnote.

Error 4-Where does the Sling $45 a month figure come from?

The article says “Until recently, live sports programming was nearly impossible to watch without a cable-TV subscription.  But now sports fans can get their fix through add-on packages via Sling TV, for $45 a month,…” without any explanation of where the $45 comes from.  The Orange + Blue packages together cost $40/month.  Is the other $5 from the Orange Sports Pack add-on?  The link which is listed in that sentence goes to a San Diego Union Tribune article, “A sports junkie's journey to cut the cord”, but that article does not mention the $45 monthly cost anywhere?  It’s just weird that this reference is used when there is no package defined at $45/month instead of say PlayStation Vue’s Core Slim package for $35/month (or $45/month in select markets) which has virtually all the same sports channels that Sling TV would have, except for Pac-12 Networks.

Error 5-The $103/month average TV & internet bill price is misleading as it is deflated by much cheaper TV + internet packages such as Internet Plus or Internet Pro Plus (Comcast plans).  Also the average internet only monthly price ($52.29/month) is from a different survey than the average TV & internet monthly cost.

The article cites figures for the “average cost for pay-TV service nationwide, including plans bundled to broadband and sold on their own”, $103/month, and “the price of Internet access only, without pay TV”, $52.29/month.  It then uses these figures to compare the cost of cord cutting to the cost of cable.  But there are several issues with that comparison. 

First, due to the rise of cord cutting with many households wanting to subscribe to internet-only service, many cable companies introduced internet + very basic cable (usually only local channels plus some shopping channels) + a premium channel packages to try and keep these individuals as “pay TV” subscribers.  And, more importantly, they frequently run promotions on these packages, instead of the internet-only packages, to make them cheaper than subscribing to internet-only service, even after all the taxes & fess are included. 

For example, Comcast has Internet Plus & Internet Pro Plus packages which include limited basic cable, internet service (25 Mbps-Plus, 100 Mbps-Pro Plus) and a premium channel (either HBO or Showtime).  The regular price of these is more than the regular cost of standalone internet.  However, the difference is usually small enough so that the package is cheaper than the cost of subscribing to internet service and HBO separately.  Additionally, they will offer promotions on these packages making them cheaper than the comparable internet-only service. 

Why would Comcast do this?  Basically, for promotion and advertising purposes.  Not only does Comcast get to inflate its number of “TV subscribers” for advertising purposes, i.e. the more TV subscribers it has, the higher rates it can charge for ads even if only on local networks, but they also get to use the good publicity whenever quarterly subscriber figures are announced.  Every household that was moved from an internet-only package to a “skinny bundle” now counts as a new TV subscriber and every household that wanted to cancel their TV service remains a TV subscriber, i.e. the number of subscribers doesn’t decrease as it would if that household became internet-only.  Thus, I believe the $103/month average figure is misleading.  Instead the median figure, the cost at which half pay more and half pay less, would probably be more useful when trying to compare the cost of cord cutting vs a cable/satellite subscription.  Or at the very least, the median figure would show how the TV subscribers are in fact distributed in terms of cost.

Second, and more importantly, the two figures used are from two completely different surveys compiled by two completely different companies in two different years.  Thus, you cannot use them as a basis for comparison.  The studies could have completely different methodologies, sample sizes, etc. and on top of that aren’t even from the same time periods (2016 vs 2017 Q1).  Taking the internet-only cost figure from 2017 and using that (along with streaming costs) to compare to the average pay TV & internet bundle cost from 2016 is not an apples-to-apples comparison. 

Lastly, a hypothetical example based on average costs is not helpful to most consumers.  What really matters is how much would a streaming service cost for me versus the amount I currently pay for cable/satellite TV.  Just showing an example with average costs is useless unless the person who is considering cutting the cord happens to be close to the average amount for their current costs.

Error 6-The person cited in the article disproves the entire hypothesis; she found a cheaper rate with streaming services than cable.

The person mentioned in the article, Ms. Hein, ends up cancelling her streaming services and signing up for a cable TV package.  Is it because the cable company offered her something cheaper?  Nope.  Although that would seem the logical conclusion since it would prove the entire hypothesis of the headline, the offer she got was in fact more expensive, by ~ $20/month.  She just decided to switch to cable TV because of the convenience of it.  Which means that this anecdote has absolutely nothing to do with the premise of the article.  In fact, this example disproved the article’s headline; cutting the cord DID in fact cut the cost for Ms. Hein, by $20/month or ~$240/year.  Now, maybe the monthly savings weren’t as much as she expected.  But that’s completely different than what the article was meant to explore.

Streaming Service Summary* (*with Errors)

Update (5/21/2017): Of the four most recent errors I noted, only two have been corrected as of 5/21/2017 (Bloomberg Television & Fuse).  The chart still doesn’t have Fusion listed (not sure why?) and more importantly, continues to list “Great America” as available on DIRECTV NOW even though A) no such channel exists & B) If he means Great American Country, that channel is not carried on DIRECTV NOW.

Update (5/15/2017): The three errors I initially reported below have all been corrected as of 5/15/2017.  However, not surprisingly, there are other errors I found based on a quick inspection which are detailed below.

1-Bloomberg Television is listed as only available on Sling TV; it is also available on both Vue & DIRECTV NOW:

Bloomberg Television is listed as only available on Sling TV but it is available on two other streaming services.  PlayStation Vue offers it in the Elite & Ultra packages (https://www.playstation.com/en-us/network/vue/channels/, use any zip code) and DIRECTV NOW on all 4 available packages (http://cdn.directv.com/content/dam/dtv/gmott/html/compare-packages-account.html).  So here we have yet another case where the guide has incorrect information regarding the availability of a channel on multiple services.

Error

Corrected

2-Fusion is not listed in the guide despite being offered by multiple streaming services?

Fusion, an English-speaking channel owned by Univision that covers news, pop culture, entertainment, etc., is available on multiple streaming services but is not included in the guide.  PlayStation Vue (https://www.playstation.com/en-us/network/vue/channels/, use any zip code) carries the channel in both its Elite & Ultra packages while DIRECTV NOW carries Fusion on 3 of its 4 packages (http://cdn.directv.com/content/dam/dtv/gmott/html/compare-packages-account.html, Just Right & higher).  Now, one could make the case that this isn’t a big deal because this is a niche channel only carried by a few services.  Fair enough, except that there are multiple channels included in the guide that are only carried by one streaming service such as Duck TV (what?), Esquire, and France 24.  So why is Fusion not listed?  

Error (below are pictured all channels that start with F)

3-Great American Country (GAC) is listed as being carried by DIRECTV NOW but does not appear to be:

The guide has a channel listed as “Great America” which appears to be Great American Country or GAC.  This channel is listed as only being carried by DIRECTV NOW.  However, this appears to be incorrect.  The current DIRECTV NOW channel guide (available here) does not show that channel on any of its four packages.  Where is Cord Cutters News getting its information that DIRECTV NOW carries Great American County?

Error

Corrected

4-Fuse is listed as only being carried by FuboTV but it is also carried by DIRECTV NOW:

Fuse is listed as only being carried by FuboTV, but this, not surprisingly, is also incorrect.  DIRECTV NOW offers Fuse on three of its four packages including Just Right, Go Big & Gotta Have It.  Again, this information is easily verifiable (Go here ------> http://cdn.directv.com/content/dam/dtv/gmott/html/compare-packages-account.html) and points to the overall sloppiness & inaccuracy of this guide.

Error

Corrected

We've reached out to Cord Cutters News with these errors and will keep you posted if/when they are corrected.

Original post (5/13/2017): 

Folks, if you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times.  You can't believe everything you read on the internet.  The latest example comes to us from the old reliable site that routinely publishes posts with false & misleading information, Cord Cutters News.  The post is a comparison of the 6 currently available OTT streaming services (Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, DIRECTV NOW, YouTube TV, Hulu Live and FuboTV) which includes a large channel guide indicating which channels are available on each of the services.  While we would give the site an "A" for effort (since this post actually has useful information compared to most of the other posts), it gets an "F" for accuracy. Below are 3 errors regarding the availability of specific channels from the channel guide and after each post is a screenshot of the error and how the chart should look in corrected form.

1-Comcast SportsNet is listed as not available on YouTube TV:

Comcast SportsNet, which I’m assuming represents CSN & NBC Sports Regional Sports Networks (RSNs), is listed as not available on YouTube (i.e. there is no “X” in the YouTube TV column), but CSN & NBC Sports RSNs are available on that service, in applicable markets.  Not only does the YouTube TV homepage show the CSN logo (scroll all the way down to the bottom and the channels carried are listed under “What’s included for $35/month”), but the post itself even states “All 6 major streaming services offer regional sports networks. Including CSN (being renamed NBC Sports Networks) and Fox Sports Networks….” Additionally, this website confirms the specific RSN's that YouTube TV carries in its five current markets.  Perhaps, this is just an oversight/typo?

Error

Corrected

 

2-MLB.TV is listed as being included in two streaming services (Vue & DIRECTV NOW):

MLB.TV is listed as a channel carried by DIRECTV NOW & PlayStation Vue, but this is incorrect.  MLB.TV is a streaming service (not an individual linear TV channel) available for purchase ONLY on MLB.com and is not included in any streaming service subscription; it is included with the purchase of MLB Extra Innings but that service is only available to purchase via cable/satellite operators. MLB.TV was also included for free to T-Mobile subscribers who selected the offer back in April (Note: for more info on MLB.TV, see our 2017 MLB Guide to Cord Cutting).  In other words, one does not receive access to MLB.TV (which costs anywhere from $87.49-$112.99/year) by purchasing a subscription to any PS Vue or DIRECTV NOW package.  It appears that the post meant the linear TV channel MLB Network (MLBN) and not MLB.TV?  If that is the case, it would be correct. But those are two completely different things (one is an independent streaming service, one a linear TV channel) and as the guide currently stands, it gives the (false) impression that you can receive access to MLB.TV by subscribing to a streaming service, which is false.

Error

Corrected

3-The YES network is listed as  only available on two streaming services which it is available on all six.

The YES network is listed as only available on DIRECTV NOW & FuboTV, but this, not surprisingly, is incorrect. It is available on all 6 streaming services including Sling TV (http://help.sling.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/How-do-the-FOX-Regional-Sports-Networks-work), PlayStation Vue (https://www.playstation.com/en-us/network/vue/channels/, use zip code 10001 & package Core or higher), YouTube TV (http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/youtube-tv/263523/youtube-tv-launches-in-select-markets-updated-with-regional-sports-networks) and Hulu Live (https://www.hulu.com/live-tv, use zip code 10001).  This does not appear to be a typo as perhaps the other two errors are; it's just flat out wrong.  

Error

Corrected

We've reached out to Cord Cutters News with these errors and will keep you posted if/when they are corrected.  In the meantime, for the most accurate information regarding MLB and cord cutting, please see our 2017 MLB Guide to Cord Cutting which has the information you need regarding MLB and the various streaming services.