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IN THIS ISSUE:

• 📧 More from the Streaming Sports Mailbag

• 🥊 Jake Paul leads a stacked boxing Saturday

• 🏈 Sunday Morning NFL is streaming ONLY

The Main Event: Streaming NBA Basketball Simplified

Let’s simplify streaming NBA basketball. The answer is a slam dunk!

NBA and Live TV Streaming Services

If you don’t have cable TV or satellite, NBA basketball games are still available all season long. A live TV streaming service is a good way to get nationally broadcast games on TNT, ESPN and ABC. Which one is the best for the NBA?

To make this easier to understand, I created a chart that shows which live TV stream services carry each of the four channels that regularly have NBA basketball games.

There are only two realistic options for NBA fans. Sling TV is the cheapest way to get ABC, ESPN and TNT at just $35 per month. You can add NBA TV to Sling, but don’t. Your money is best spent buying NBA League Pass.

YouTube TV has all four channels packed in for $65. If you love all sports, and not just the NBA, this is a great overall choice.

The best Live TV streaming service for NBA basketball is Sling TV. Just know that you’ll need to use the ESPN app for ABC games.

NBA and local team streaming

Sling TV lacks your local NBA team on regional sports networks. RSN coverage on live TV streaming services has gotten complicated. If your home team is your priority, your best bet is to either 

• check each service for your local channel or 

• subscribe to a RSN streaming service if available.

There is one RSN streaming service that offers local NBA basketball games online. Bally Sports+ is available in 16 NBA markets for $20 per month.

The Best Way to Stream NBA Basketball

There is a much better way to stream the NBA, especially if you don’t live close to your favorite team. NBA League Pass is the best streaming service for every hoop head.

NBA League Pass has

• Hundreds of live out-of-market games

• NBA TV included for national games and studio shows

• Special broadcasts featuring former players and guests

• Home and visiting team broadcasts

• A 55% lower price for the 2022-23 season

NBA League Pass plans include

• League Pass for $15 per month or $99 for the season

• Premium with two streams for $20 per month or $149 for the season

• NBA TV alone for $60 for the season

NBA League Pass isn’t perfect. There have been complaints about their new app for smart TVs this season, as covered by the TV Answer Man. But these types of technical issues tend to be short term growing pains.

Still this is far and away the best deal for most NBA fans.

The Fast Break:

📺 Reader feedback - Streaming delays

This week I am answering another question from a reader. Joe writes:

Thanks for writing Joe. I believe what you are talking about is latency. That’s what we call the delay between the live event and the stream. Every live TV streaming service has a delay and it has been annoying to plenty of sports fans.

This isn’t a problem with Hulu or your local ISP. It is a technical issue with putting live TV broadcasts online. The good news is that it is getting better. Back in 2018, Jared Newman wrote about a full 60 second delay on live TV services like Hulu with Live TV. Now most services are between 20-40 seconds. The new NBA app has the delay down to 12 seconds.

If it bothers you enough, I echo the Cord Cutter Weekly recommendation of buying an antenna for big games like the Super Bowl. Good luck, Joe!

🏈 Sunday Morning Football exclusive on ESPN+

This is a big weekend for ESPN+ as they present their first ever exclusive NFL game. The Sunday morning matchup of Denver Broncos vs. Jacksonville Jaguars will only be available to watch on the Disney owned streaming service.

This game will be available on local TV and NFL+ in Denver and Jacksonville, but football fans elsewhere in the U.S. will need to pay $9.99 per month for ESPN+ to watch this game. Will be interesting to see how the stream holds up, and how many fans are scrambling when they can’t find this game on TV.

🥊YouTuber Jake Paul leads this weekend in boxing

It’s another big weekend for boxing and streaming, led off by YouTuber turned pro fighter Jake Paul. 

Three of the four events are streaming exclusives, and the other is an online pay-per-view on multiple platforms. The events start at different times, so fans should be able to watch all four main events if they want.

• Jake Paul vs. Anderson Silva on Showtime PPV and FITE, $60, midnight main event

• Katie Taylor vs. Karen Elizabeth Carabajal on DAZN, 5 p.m. main event

• Joseph Diaz Jr. vs. William Zepeda on DAZN, 10 p.m. main event

• Vasiliy Lomachenko vs. Jamaine Ortiz on ESPN+, 11 p.m. main event

Extra Points:

• The new F1 deal with ESPN is official, and it will include races on ESPN+.

• Fox Sports is the new exclusive home of the World Baseball Classic. Most games will be on FOX, FS1 and FS2, but some games will be on TUBI too.

• NY Post’s Andrew Marchand believes that Amazon Prime will land Pac-12 football streaming, splitting rights with ESPN.

• Friday night’s College Basketball special Legends of Basketball Classic Tennessee vs. Gonzaga is available exclusively on PPV.com or InDemand cable PPV for $9.99.

Watch. Learn. Stream.

I Watched:

• The Peyton and Eli ManningCast for Monday Night Football with special guest President Obama. Surreal.

• NBA basketball, including local Wizards games streaming from my RSN on YouTube TV. Like miracles, local streaming deals can happen.

• School of Rock with my kids. Great one for family movie night.

I Learned:

That in life, just as media companies are finding out in tech streaming, there’s always a bigger fish.

I’ll Be Streaming: 

• The World Series on FOX using an antenna. Maybe. I don’t care for this matchup, but still thank the baseball gods that the Yankees were swept out.

• My beloved Baltimore Ravens on Amazon Prime Thursday Night Football. Ravens vs. Bucs and the ghost of Tom Brady.

• College Basketball midnight madness & tip off specials. It’s a great sports time of the year.

Gratitude

Thank you for reading this week’s Streaming Sports Newsletter.

Do you have any questions? Reach out with a reply email or on Twitter. Your questions and ideas could become topics for future issues.

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Remember that you can reach me on Twitter @royd77 or by replying to this email at [email protected]