I wan’t sure if this should go in the TV channel or here. I’m thinking here because it’s more of a technical challenge. So I can’t cut cable unless I can get local sports programming in the house. I want to drop kick Comcast/Xfinity cable and just get my Internet from those guys. I recently helped my mother in law set up YouTube TV and it’s awesome: Inexpensive, lots of programming, and some neat DVR options. So I want to use YouTube TV to replace my cable.
But the snag is I need to get local sports. For me, that’s Mariners, Seahawks, and the local soccer team (can’t remember the name). I think the ticket is to get specialty channels from each of those leagues or the team or whatever. But even with those channels, I think the issue is that some of the games are still blacked out. Is that right? I did my research in central California (for my mother in law), but I think the issues are the same here.
So if all that’s correct, it sounds like my best bet is to use a VPN service to make myself appear to be from some other location. My question is this: Has anyone successfully done this? I looked at a paid VPN service and they had some instructions for how to do it at your router so that you can get the broadcast to appear on your TV. It looked hard. But I’m in the market for a new router, so I thought I would ask here for recommendations before I buy.
I guess the other variable is this: a lot of these paid VPN services offer apps for your phone or devices. I need to get the broadcast on the TV in the living room. I’m currently using a Roku3 (or something). The VPN services I looked at don’t have an app for the Roku, but if there were another service (or another device that worked), I wouldn’t mind upgrading. I guess if I’m using a VPN service and it has an app for the device I’m using for my TV, then I don’t need the router.
So I’m looking for anyone who is using a VPN service to get local sports broadcast. Is it a good deal? Do you have a recommendation for a router or a device that get the broadcast on my TV? I’d love to hear it.
To get those blacked games out, the only viable route is to pay for those pirate online sports streamer and those aren’t legal avenues. They do go under/change a fair bit due to the rights holders going after them and I don’t know what the current hotness is since I don’t watch sports at all. A friend who cut the cord went with one of the streaming services for sports a while back–I’ll ask him.
Here in Tampa, we cut the Spectrum TV cord nearly a year ago in favor of YouTube TV saving quite a bit of $$$ and don’t regret it one bit. We have three of the four major sports represented here (Bucs, Rays, and Lightning) and YTTV broadcasts every game, home and away:
Bucs: Major networks and ESPN
Rays and Lightning: FOX Sports Sun
I believe YouTube TV would work if they have your regional sports network. No idea if that’s true for the Mariners.
Couldn’t you get the football games from an over the air antenna? That seems like the easiest way to do that. As for the baseball games you might have to knuckle under and pay for an MLB.tv subscription… But actually, now that I think about it, do they black out local games with that? Because if so that would not work.
I know in the DC area the only way to get Nationals games is to have a cable subscription because the people that offer them do not have streaming options. It’s tied into rights arguments between the Orioles, who were here first, and the Nationals, who appeared later. I believe they are close to ironing that out, and when that happens, then there will be some sort of streaming ability. But until then, I’m tied to cable if I want to see Nats games.
For the NBA (Utah Jazz), I got around the blackout issue by subscribing to a DNS anonymizer for a couple bucks a month which allowed me to log into the League Pass site and subscribe to the Utah Jazz as an international customer, therefore no blackouts. I had to pay in euros but it worked great. I can’t remember the name of the website I used, but if you’re interested I’m sure I can dig it up.
Oh I’d love more information on this. I’m not 100% sure about my ability to setup the VPN stuff. I would much rather purchase a service that would allow me to get where I want to go.
I’m pretty sure they have blackouts in my area. I’m not the big sports fan in the house, but I’ve heard that Seattle rights are locked down for some games. I did the research for my mother in law in California who is a big basketball fan. The cable companies down there have those rights locked up tight. She can use YouTube TV to watch away games for her teams, but if they’re playing at home, she is locked out.
While they were not hacked sites (malware riddled pages are a staple of stuff that purported to be free) it looks like the providers friend used are all shut down
Okay, looks like this was back in 2016. Worked as advertised then, but it’s been a little while since I used it last (my wife is a big TV fan so we have cable TV again now for her).
For me, I had no problems giving the NBA money for me to watch the local games, but they refused to take it. I tricked them into taking my money, I suppose, but I personally felt better about that than going to a pirate stream or whatever.
Thank you Kevin! That’s perfect. And it looks like it gets around a lot of the VPN issues I read about. I’m with you on not wanting to do the pirate stream stuff. If I give this a try, I will report back to the thread.
You really shouldn’t have to do any of this if you’re picking up Youtube TV. See what channels your local teams are on, and see if those channels are on YTTV. Odds are pretty good they are.
ETA: There will be blackout restrictions if you buy one of the league-offered packages (MLB.tv, NBA League Pass, etc) because they want you to get those channels as part of a cable package. Youtube TV is considered a cable package for these purposes.
We haven’t had cable for > 10 yrs. We aren’t big sports fans, but we use a VPN to watch the Olympics. The great thing is that if you connect, for example, to Norway, you can see straight up sports without all of the silly NBC commentary and drama stories. It’s just people doing sports. They tend to focus on the sports that most interest the people of that country or where athletes from that country are competing, but nevertheless, it’s miles better than the boiled down garbage you get on NBC here.
This isn’t how it worked in LA. I suspect its the same in Seattle.
The YouTube TV site doesn’t go into too much detail about blackouts, but it does say “subject to availability” for the upcoming baseball season with the Mariners. Actually, they all say that.
So I dug in a bit - and you’ve picked the two markets where it’s the biggest issue (LA has had some contract disputes, and Seattle is serviced by Root Sports NW which none of the streamers appear to carry). So congrats :P It does appear you are on the right track then since Root isn’t on any of the big streaming services. I used adfreetime a few years back and it worked great.
Seahawks and Sounders games you can pick up with an antenna and YTTV should also get most of those. For Sounders games it sounds like there’s a split on what’s on Fox and what’s on JoeTV, and it’s not clear to me if YTTV gets that station. But it has a few broadcast antennas from what I’m reading.
I believe OP wants the VPN to get the games that are blacked out locally as well. Which would also be blacked out with paid legal sports streaming services, right?
If we’re talking streaming services like MLB.tv then yes - which is why Tim would want to use something like adfreetime to get around the blackout. If we’re talking broadcast television channels then no because they’re part of that channel’s programming and YTTV is acting as an in-market cable provider. It would be the same as watching a local game through Comcast, AT&T, or whoever. Unless there are unique contracts for those Seattle stations (not ruling anything out in broadcast-land) then that’s how it should work.
Ohhh, thank you @LockerK! I appreciate the extra research cycles. I was wondering why I seem to be the only one struggling with this, but it sounds like not every area has these kinds of deas. And another vote for adfreetime, which I’m liking better all the time.
So it looks like we cut cable then sign up for YTTV and see what that’s like. When baseball season rolls around, we’ll need adfreetime and possibly a subscription to MLB streaming (although I’m hoping YTTV and adfreetime might be enough).
Meanwhile, I just checked out the online tool for Xfinity access. It looks like cutting cable is going to be another fight: they only appear to sell internet with bundles that include TV. Holy cow! This is so terrible. I hope I don’t have to change internet providers too, because I don’t think there is another with coaxial in the area (rolls up sleeves).
