for NFL it hugely depends on whether you want to follow the local team. So far, if you're in the local market the NFL generally shows the games on broadcast for free, and that you can get to with an antenna and a TV card depending on where you are.

MLB, I haven't tried for a few years but I could watch any out of market game on mlb.tv, but not any that involved the local team, so it was the opposite. For that there was a special regional sports channel that I'd have to subscribe to. No way to do it directly with the network, I'd have to get satellite or something.

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kstrauser 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> for NFL it hugely depends on whether you want to follow the local team.

That's the situation for probably 95% of viewers, though. Others might want to watch games from where they grew up, but most people typically follow the local teams. We don't even have a great way to get an antenna feed into our TV, and that also means we have one way to watch everything except local games, and another, worse way to watch them (for example, by not having a way to pause them).

I get why the streaming apps don't show local games from their business POV, but as a potential subscriber, that's a them-problem, not a me-problem. There's no way I'm paying that much money without being able to watch the home games.

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wombat-man 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Not sure which streaming apps you're referring to. If you only care about the local team, getting a TV streaming option like Youtube TV, sling or hulu tv should work. Probably some I'm not thinking of. As long as they get the main networks, that should cover it. Even when they do a Prime exclusive or MNF(espn) game, they'll show it on the local affiliate for local markets. At least that's the way it has always worked, NFL may change it in the future. The real pain is if you want to follow an out of market team. Just for starters you need NFL Sunday ticket which is not cheap these days.

If you're cool waiting a day to watch the games, nfl plus has everything with commercials cut.

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kstrauser 2 hours ago | parent [-]

NFL is egregiously bad here. They split exclusives among multiple streaming services, so you need to subscribe to (IIRC) at least Netflix and Amazon Prime in addition to your TV service if you want to see everything.

	▲	larntz an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think a few games are only on NFL Network (not always included in the base cable subscription) also. And you'll need Peacock if you don't have cable/antenna.