I've read a few posts on this forum about how to watch ESPN but they all are older posts. I was wondering if there were any tips on how to watch NFL games? This would be the one thing keeping me from buying the ROKU playing and cutting the cord with cable. Can anyone give me some advice, or tricks of how to watch NFL games and/or ESPN? Thanks!

hkrn44 wrote:

I've read a few posts on this forum about how to watch ESPN but they all are older posts. I was wondering if there were any tips on how to watch NFL games? This would be the one thing keeping me from buying the ROKU playing and cutting the cord with cable. Can anyone give me some advice, or tricks of how to watch NFL games and/or ESPN? Thanks!

There's no way to watch ESPN on Roku. ESPN would have to make a channel.

You can still buy and use a Roku without cutting cable, though. You don't need to get rid of one to use the other.

Espn 3 is available depending on your ISP. First find out if your ISP subscribes. You need one of the transcoders like Plex to get it on Roku. ESPN, ESPN2, etc are not available on Roku or legally streaming at all.

hkrn44 wrote:

I've read a few posts on this forum about how to watch ESPN but they all are older posts. I was wondering if there were any tips on how to watch NFL games? This would be the one thing keeping me from buying the ROKU playing and cutting the cord with cable. Can anyone give me some advice, or tricks of how to watch NFL games and/or ESPN? Thanks!

You can watch ESPN with the private channel USTVNow. It costs $19/month for the first three months and $29/month thereafter to subscribe. You get ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, PBS, My9, A&E, Animal Planet, Bravo, Cartoon Network, CNBC, CNN, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, ESPN, Food Network, FX, Fox News, History, Lifetime, National Geographic, Nickelodeon, Spike, Syfy, TBS, TNT, and USA. You can watch on your Roku, computer, and phone. When you sign up it will tell you it's only for those outside the United States but it does work here as well. I use it abroad and here at home as well. If you want to pay a little more you can get DVR service as well.

FX4 wrote:

Espn 3 is available depending on your ISP. First find out if your ISP subscribes. You need one of the transcoders like Plex to get it on Roku. ESPN, ESPN2, etc are not available on Roku or legally streaming at all.

ESPN3 generally doesn't have NFL football that I know of. At least I don't recall seeing it in the schedules for that channel. I think it is pretty much an ESPN1 program offering.

And for that $19/month, you'll get unreliable streams, questionable legality, and have to break the company's TOS to watch in the US.

vnzjunk wrote:

FX4 wrote:

Espn 3 is available depending on your ISP. First find out if your ISP subscribes. You need one of the transcoders like Plex to get it on Roku. ESPN, ESPN2, etc are not available on Roku or legally streaming at all.

ESPN3 generally doesn't have NFL football that I know of. At least I don't recall seeing it in the schedules for that channel. I think it is pretty much an ESPN1 program offering.

No it does not.

mikebdoss wrote:

And for that $19/month, you'll get unreliable streams, questionable legality, and have to break the company's TOS to watch in the US.

And poor picture quality. For grins I started a trial. Underwhelmed to say the least. It does work though. The streams seem reliable. If you travel a lot, probably worth while. A cable replacement, probably better off just purchasing basic cable.

I did a Xbox Live trial last night for a month. Looks pretty good so far, we shall see how the quality is when the college football games start this weekend

JimMadsen wrote:

I did a Xbox Live trial last night for a month. Looks pretty good so far, we shall see how the quality is when the college football games start this weekend

Used ESPN3 (or whatever its called now) via Xbox last season, and it worked great. The only issues I encountered were some games were blacked out. And, I couldn't determine where to find out ahead of time if it was blacked out. Using UGA for instance, some games were not blacked out at all. One or two were blacked about all across the state. Even one game was blacked across multiple states. I never saw a nationwide blackout, though; I expect those wouldn't even be on ESPN3.

MLB has a blackout coverage map that tells me where all I can't watch the Braves live, for example, but there's no such thing for NCAA games, at least, not that I could find.

Bottom line: ESPN via Xbox worked great, and occasional blackouts are a pain.

ESPN3 works fine for me using Plex.

What kind of quality do you get with Plex vs. XBox Live? Does college football (my real interest) look like 8-bit blocks running back and forth on a big green screen (ala Tecmo Bowl)?

DBDukes wrote:

JimMadsen wrote:

I did a Xbox Live trial last night for a month. Looks pretty good so far, we shall see how the quality is when the college football games start this weekend

Used ESPN3 (or whatever its called now) via Xbox last season, and it worked great. The only issues I encountered were some games were blacked out. And, I couldn't determine where to find out ahead of time if it was blacked out. Using UGA for instance, some games were not blacked out at all. One or two were blacked about all across the state. Even one game was blacked across multiple states. I never saw a nationwide blackout, though; I expect those wouldn't even be on ESPN3.

MLB has a blackout coverage map that tells me where all I can't watch the Braves live, for example, but there's no such thing for NCAA games, at least, not that I could find.

Bottom line: ESPN via Xbox worked great, and occasional blackouts are a pain.

Most of the ESPN blackout situations I have encountered went something like this. If the game was being carried by the OTA networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX in your area......then the local stations have the local rites to show the game and you would be blacked out of the ESPN broadcast. If a local network channel is not broadcasting the game and it is available on one of the ESPN channels you should be able to watch it there. That may be just a generalization but I think you will find it an easy way to determine the blackouts for the NCAA games.

As for ESPN3 programming I seem to find that MOST of the stuff that I am interested in watching that is listed for cable tv broadcast on ESPN2 shows up on ESPN3. And on top of that, ESPN3 carries a lot more that may not be shown in your ESPN2 channel. In fact they have pretty much incorporated the old ESPN College Game Plan football nationwide coverage which used to be a pay service on cable and satellite systems giving you most of the games shown on ESPN across the country. Most of these if not all are now available on ESPN3. Of course there is no ESPN3 on cable so this is the way to get those games if you have 3 available to you. Not so much for ESPN1 and ESPN3 simulcasting the same programing although

Buckeye911 wrote:

hkrn44 wrote:

I've read a few posts on this forum about how to watch ESPN but they all are older posts. I was wondering if there were any tips on how to watch NFL games? This would be the one thing keeping me from buying the ROKU playing and cutting the cord with cable. Can anyone give me some advice, or tricks of how to watch NFL games and/or ESPN? Thanks!

You can watch ESPN with the private channel USTVNow. It costs $19/month for the first three months and $29/month thereafter to subscribe. You get ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, PBS, My9, A&E, Animal Planet, Bravo, Cartoon Network, CNBC, CNN, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, ESPN, Food Network, FX, Fox News, History, Lifetime, National Geographic, Nickelodeon, Spike, Syfy, TBS, TNT, and USA. You can watch on your Roku, computer, and phone. When you sign up it will tell you it's only for those outside the United States but it does work here as well. I use it abroad and here at home as well. If you want to pay a little more you can get DVR service as well.

Makes me wonder if you geolock authorized it while out of the country and it just followed you home or did you set it up here in the states?