Cut the Cord, Keep the Sports (c)

In a perfect world, cutting the cable cord wouldn’t mean cutting sports out of your life.

Last year, I lamented* how my life has been changed without cable TV.  Replacing cable with Netflix and Hulu (via a Roku) has been a success for most of the household – except when there is a sporting event that I want to watch.  Then I’m mostly out of luck.

*Or, as my wife might say, “cried like a b___ baby”.  Six of one…

For the most part, I’ve learned to deal with this.  My friends are great about letting me join them to watch my beloved Huskers play their road games – even that game at Fresno State last fall that didn’t kick off until 10 pm.  Otherwise, I’ve accepted that I’m only going to experience TV sports second-hand through Twitter comments or a highlight clip shared online.

But then, my beloved Kansas City Royals started playing good baseball.  All summer they were either in first place or in contention for a wildcard spot.  I would listen to games on the radio while I was out running errands, but I rarely saw them play on TV.

Once late September hit, it really started to get serious.  The Royals could clinch their first playoff spot in 29 years.  This was something I had to take in.  Fortunately, the MLB TV app was offering a free upgrade so I was able to listen to most of the game without sitting my car all night.  But as the Royals inched closer to that playoff spot, the itch to watch became too much.  I hopped in the car and went down to the neighborhood bar to watch the last inning on TV.  The Royals won and earned a wildcard spot.

For the wildcard game, I needed to step up my game.  The game was on TBS, so I tried the TBS app on our iPad.  Problem:  you needed to be a cable subscriber to access the app.  But if I had cable, I wouldn’t be watching a baseball game on my iPad, I’d use the 50″ screen in my living room.  Back to the bar for that game.

For the ALDS, I settled on MLB.tv, where for $3.99 I was able to access the TBS broadcast on the iPad.  However, that was not a perfect solution.  On the bright side, you could pick which camera angle you wanted to view (center field, catcher, first or third base angle, home or visitor dugout, etc.).  That’s pretty cool.  The downside was you were locked into that camera angle.  For example: if I was watching the center field view, I could see the pitch come in, but if it was hit, I couldn’t see the rest of the play – my view was still coming from that one camera.

MLB.tv did offer a “Quad View” option, where you got the center field and catcher angles (along with two other views) in a split screen.  Unfortunately, the other two angles were locked into the home and visitor dugouts.  I saw A LOT of Ned Yost during those first few games of the playoffs.  Plus, my already small view of the game was now even smaller.  And even though you were listening to the TBS broadcasters, you did not get to see the TBS graphics or replays, so you had better pay attention.

A family mini-vacation aligned perfectly with two games of the ALCS, so I was able to watch those games in the hotel room in full HD glory.  Game three was back to the iPad with MLB.tv.  The clinching game four, started during the afternoon, so I didn’t get home from work until the late innings.  Not wanting to watch the final outs on the Mini’s screen, I scooped up my one year old daughter and ran down to the neighborhood bar*.  We watched the Royals clinch the American League pennant while she ate orange slices from the bar.

*Yeah, I did.  And I’d do it again.

With this crazy, improbable playoff run culminating in a World Series berth, it was time to do something different.  I looked into live streaming options for the Fox telecast, but it appeared to me that I would need a Fox app (and likely, an active cable subscription).  A coworker suggested a website where you can view streams of various sporting events, provided you can navigate a maze of pop up ads and spam links.

Finally, I found the MLB app for our Roku player.  With a $9.99 purchase, I am able to stream the full Fox broadcast (replays and all) on my big TV.  Even better, the app has options to jump to a specific inning which meant I could wait to start Game 2 until the kids were in bed.  Even though the World Series ended in heartache, it was a joy to be able to watch live sports in the comfort of my home on a screen larger than nine inches.

I had the itch for live sports.

*   *   *

You can currently subscribe to services like MLB At Bat to get “out of market” games streamed to your mobile device, but as I mentioned last time, it seems ridiculous to watch a game on a four-inch phone screen when most homes have a 40 inch (or larger) TV set.  Yes, there are ways to get content from your device onto your plasma, but I want something that doesn’t involve buying a new device/TV, tethering my device to a HDMI cable, or some third-party app.

Recently, I discovered that I can cast the screen from my Android phone to our Roku.  That’s been great during the NCAA Tournament, as the March Madness app streams all of the games, but I would not describe the picture quality as “crisp” or “clear”.  And with this set up, I can’t use my phone for calls, texts, tweets, or a quick game of Candy Crush during a commercial.

*   *   *

During the heart of the past college football season, a miracle happened.

No, I’m not referring to Jordan Westerkamp’s ridiculous behind the back catch.  A kind-hearted angel, who will remain nameless, signed into the Watch ESPN app on my Roku with the info from their cable account.  Suddenly, I had access to live college football, and it was glorious.  I thought about the moral and ethical implications of receiving content that I was not paying for.

I also thought that averaging $75 a month for cable TV over the last 20 years – which is probably low – I’ve given the cable companies around $18,000.  Suddenly, watching Wisconsin and Rutgers didn’t seem so horrible.

*   *   *

So where do we go from here?

With every passing year, the likelihood of me going back to cable, or trying out satellite gets lower.  Today’s internet and streaming apps have given us the expectation for content on demand.

In short, I want to view what I want, on my big TV, without having to pay for crap I don’t care about.

The sports networks (ESPN, FOX Sports, Turner, etc.) should follow the lead of a true pioneer:  The WWE.

Yes, you heard me.  World Wrestling Entertainment.

Last year, they launched the WWE Channel for the Roku streaming player.  The 24/7 channel has original content, “classic matches”, and other rasslin’-centric programming.  But most importantly, the WWE Channel offers the monthly pay-per-view events (including WrestleMania) as part of the subscription price.  The price ($9.99 a month) isn’t bad considering each PPV match costs $44.95 ($59.95 for WrestleMania).

I would love to see other leagues and teams follow this model.  Imagine an NBA fan being able to subscribe to see all of the games for their favorite team along with the programming on the NBA TV network.  Or a college football fan being able to subscribe to the Big Ten Network to get access to games.

Major League Baseball has the MLB.tv service that allows you to watch “out of market” games on mobile devices.  You can upgrade to the Premium version for an extra $5 a month (or $20 a year) to be able to use a streaming device like Roku or Apple TV, or XBox).  But the kicker here is “out of market”.  Even though my house is 200 miles away from Kaufmann Stadium, my ZIP Code is considered to be in the Royals’ market – so even if I paid $129.99 for the full season of MLB.tv Premium, I would only get a handful of Royals games.  Heck, even if I was a fan of, say, the Pittsburgh Pirates, I’m still paying for a bunch of content that I’m not interested in.

*   *   *

In my perfect world, there would be options for all types of cord-cutting sports fans:  the diehards who live for the individual sports, passionate fans of individual teams, and the casual sports fan.

That guy who lives for the NFL, MLS, or NASCAR?  He buys a league pass package giving them all of the games.  Casual fans could subscribe to the ESPN or Fox Sports apps without having to get 95 other channels of garbage.  And passionate fans of a specific team could buy a “streaming season ticket” giving them access to all of their team’s games – regardless of the network they are on.

Until that day comes, I’ll be praying my kind-hearted angel doesn’t change the password on their cable account, or my children will be accompanying me to the sports bar for those can’t-miss moments.

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(Author’s note:  Wondering why there is a random letter in parentheses in the title of this post?  Not sure how this post corresponds to the daily letter in the April A to Z Challenge?  Like clicking on links?  These questions are all answered here.)

My Life Without TV

When I was growing up, my TV choices were limited.  We had the three networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) in Omaha, PBS, and on a clear day, a second CBS from Lincoln.  It was a big deal when the local Fox affiliate started as it greatly increased our TV options.

We lived out in the country so cable was not an option.  Our house was in a wooded area so one of the old school satellite dishes wouldn’t work.  In short, if I wanted to experience the magic of cable TV (MTV!  HBO!  ESPN!  Nick at Night!  Baseball games from Chicago and Atlanta!  Random 80’s movies!) I needed to go to a friend’s house in town or wait until we visited my Grandma.

By the time I went to college, I was more than ready to experience life with more than five channels.  Over time, I came to accept cable TV as a necessary part of my life and watched a variety of shows across many different channels.  The introduction of DVR only strengthened that bond.

But along the way things changed.  My monthly bill for cable and internet climbed past $150.  Our DVR queue was a mix of reruns, crappy faux-reality shows, and old series we were watching for the first time.  Last July we hit the tipping point:  the adoption of our youngest daughter meant that we needed to cut some expenses.

The cable boxes went out and Netflix (streaming over our DVD player) came in.  A few months later, we added Hulu Plus and a Roku box.  Nine months later, and the majority of our family has never looked back.  My wife loves being able to plow her way through her favorite shows episode by episode, season by season.  The kids like the variety of animated movies and their favorite PBS shows.  We were getting most of our TV entertainment needs met for a fraction of what we were paying.

But cutting cable has been hard for me.

It’s not that I can’t find things to watch; I’ve also worked my way through some very enjoyable series.  And it is definitely not because I miss giving $1,800 to Time Warner every year.

It’s the sports – or more appropriately, the lack of sports.  I miss being able to watch a game.

As a fan of the Kansas City Royals, I’ve grown accustomed to watching many of their games on Fox Sports Midwest.  It really stunk that the Royals started playing some of their best – and most successful – baseball in a decade after we dropped cable.

College football season was brutal.  I loved being able to watch the big games on Saturday and catch the highlight shows at night.  This year, when my beloved Huskers were playing on the road, I had to work an invite from one of my friends so I could watch at their house.

I’m not a big NFL fan, but I’ll often turn a game on for background noise while cleaning the kitchen or folding laundry.  But not this year.  We did watch the Super Bowl by streaming the game over the laptop*, but it was a herky-jerky mess without most of the good commercials.

*You may be saying to yourself, “But Dave, most Sunday NFL games and the Super Bowl are aired on the (free) networks.  Couldn’t you watch sports on those?”  

My initial response would be:  “Good question.  Our TVs do not have digital antennas built in, so I bought one the week of the Super Bowl.  It was a complete failure.  I bought the best antenna I could find that did not involve me climbing on the roof.  This supposedly got me a 35 mile range, but there were two downsides:  1) not all of the networks have a tower within 35 miles of Lincoln, NE, and 2) I couldn’t get the antenna properly aligned without having to go through multiple interior walls which, according to the tech support person I called in a panic on Super Bowl Sunday, greatly reduces the signal strength.  At best, we had two clear channels and one fuzzy station.”

My second response would be “Let me know if you are interested in purchasing a like-new digital antenna that Best Buy won’t take back because it is outside of their 15-day return policy.”

Gee thanks, $90 digital antenna.

My wife and I broke down and ordered the very lowest cable tier (20 channels) when we realized that neither one of us wanted to miss the Winter Olympics.  And we’re keeping those basic channels through the completion of the NCAA basketball tournament*.

*Watching the tournament has really changed in the last few years.  What I once viewed as a great step forward – having every game broadcast start to finish on one of four networks – really sucks when you only get CBS.  There were several times in the first weekend that the CBS game was in commercial, at halftime, or a boring 1 vs 16 blowout, but I was stuck watching it.  How I longed for the old days when they would do the “live look in” on other games in progress, cut over to a close game in the final minute, or switch over from a blowout.

With the excellent NCAA March Madness app, I can watch any game I want.  But the definition of irony is watching a buzzer beater on my four-inch phone screen while my 46″ LED sits idle a few feet away.

After the tournament is over?  Cable will go away again, probably for another long stretch.

I may* investigate some less than ethical ways to get access to streaming feeds of games.

*Or, readers from the NSA, FBI, ESPN, or other concerned parties, I may not.  Especially if any of those methods would be considered illegal by a court of law.

Otherwise, while you’re watching that amazing Thursday night game with national title implications, I’ll be watching season three of some cop show with my wife and secretly wishing I could tune in.