That’s likely to black out this weekend’s U.S. Open tennis championships, college football games on ESPN and next week’s Monday Night Football.
For customers of Spectrum, the country’s second-biggest TV provider by subscribers, I’ll point you to alternative places to watch (or listen to) upcoming big games you can’t see on TV.
Pro tip: Spectrum cable customers should call or text the company to ask for a credit on your bill. (More details on that in a minute.)
And if you’re okay listening rather than watching, streaming audio broadcasts of games are your cheapest alternative to cable.
Even if you’re not a Spectrum customer or only watch streaming services, you cannot escape messes like this.
The slow death of conventional TV is combining with a desperate moment for streaming. That collision will make all of us pay more money for cable or streaming, especially sports fans.
We will also all have to deal with fights over money that make sports, shows and movies disappear from TV or streaming services.
Why Spectrum customers can’t watch ESPN
There’s a contract dispute between Disney, which owns TV channels including ESPN, ABC and FX, and Charter Communications, which operates the Spectrum cable and internet service in places such as New York, Los Angeles, North Carolina and southern Texas.
If you’re a Spectrum cable customer who usually has access to those Disney-owned channels, they’re not available to you on TV or online.
TV impasses over money and power happen often, and they typically last a few days or weeks. This one could be different.
Charter said, semi-plausibly, that it might stop offering cable TV, period.
Or Charter and Disney could resolve their fight today and your TV channels will be back.
Alternatives to watch sports if you’re a Spectrum TV customer
The straightforward, and most expensive, option: Subscribe to a streaming service that’s like cable TV but streamed online.
- YouTube TV: Starts at $64.99 a month for three months if you’ve never subscribed before and $72.99 after that.
- Hulu plus Live TV: Starts at $69.99 a month, with prices increasing to $76.99 and up next month.
- Fubo: Monthly subscriptions usually start at $74.99. Fubo worked with Spectrum to offer a discount of 25 percent or more for the first two months. Find details here.
- Sling TV: Starts at $20 for the first month and at least $40 after that for a relatively small number of TV channels.
Often new subscribers can watch free for a week or more.
Shop carefully. Those four cable-ish streaming services all have ESPN but they might not have all its sibling networks. Some won’t have the channels you’re used to finding on cable.
Some Spectrum customers say they’ve gotten a $15 bill credit when they complained about missing sports. You need to contact customer service and ask.
Other options to watch select sporting events
U.S. Open tennis matches are available on TV only on ESPN. (I won’t mention pirated websites.)
Your best alternative — other than watching ESPN on the cablelike streaming services I just mentioned — is the ESPN Plus streaming service.
It’s available on its own for $9.99 a month. (The price goes up to $10.99 in October.)
You can also listen to U.S. Open audio broadcasts online. Tennis on the radio isn’t ideal but it’s free.
Saturday college football games: Several big games, including the University of Texas versus the University of Alabama, are airing only on ESPN.
Local radio is your friend. For the Texas-Alabama game, for example, the Alabama stations The Bear and Tide 100.9 will stream free audio of the game.
Before you go to a bar or a friend’s house, make sure they have the game you want to watch. If they’re Spectrum cable customers, you might be out of luck.
Most of the major college games won’t stream on ESPN Plus.
Sports fans pay hard earned money to watch college football on ESPN and we were angry and frustrated when screens went dark for many this weekend. Here’s my letter to Disney and Charter Spectrum urging them to settle this dispute over corporate profits now. – RC pic.twitter.com/dfPb8bEKgH
— Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) September 6, 2023
Monday Night Football: The season opener is on ESPN or ESPN Plus.
The game will stream on ABC’s website and ABC’s apps — but you need a cable password to log in. Spectrum cable customers, you can’t watch or stream ABC or ESPN for now.
If you have a TV, you can try to pick up Monday Night Football over the air on ABC. You might need a TV antenna.
No, the NFL’s Sunday Ticket subscription doesn’t show Monday Night Football.
Check your audio streaming options or the NFL Plus streaming subscription, which shows games only on mobile devices.
Sunday Night Baseball: The Rockies-Giants game is available only on ESPN and not online.
With some geographic restrictions, audio streaming is available from radio stations in the Bay Area and Denver.
The MLB.TV streaming service won’t have this game.
Streaming is not an escape from the cost and complications of cable
If you ditched cable for streaming or never had cable, you’re not out of the woods.
The costs of most streaming subscriptions have gone up recently, and they’ll keep going up. You will at some point be in the middle of the same fights that blacked out channels for Spectrum cable customers.
Sports are the biggest reason that cable bills are so high, whether you watch sports or not. And sports could soon be the reason your streaming bill is so high.
If you’re unhappy with your home internet provider, it’s worth checking this remodeled government website for potential alternatives.
When you put in your address, the website will show companies that sell internet service in your neighborhood. You could be surprised by providers you didn’t know were available.
Or you might find that you don’t have good choices for internet service.
At my home address, the alternatives to Spectrum — the dominant cable TV and internet company where I live in New York — are two companies with slow and expensive internet service over satellite connections, one outdated DSL provider and a newfangled internet provider that recently got out of bankruptcy protection.
The website shows estimated speeds offered by each internet provider. Only use that information as a rough guide. Advertised internet speeds are unreliable.
My choices aren’t appealing, but options vary depending on where you live.
Read more from the Markup about using this government website and how you can help the Federal Communications Commission identify internet service gaps.
I will repeat what I say often: Americans (and Canadians) pay more for worse internet service than our peers in most other rich countries.
