As a casual fan in the USA, I need Prime, Peacock, ESPN and ABC to watch playoff games.
I know this was also true in the regular season but for casuals who tune into playoffs. it’s just crazy to me that games are spread out on so many platforms.
NBC and ABC are broadcast networks
I can’t watch ABC bc of a contract dispute btw cable company and TV corporation. And I pay for cable, like an idiot.
Just buy an antenna.
People have no clue that ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX are free. You don’t need to stream. Just buy an antenna for 10 bucks and boom, done. Forever. (If you’re in the US)
Or, shit, just stick a paper clip in the receiver. Works decently well if you’re in an area with strong signal.
Depending on where you live and your local topography it’s not that simple. Some people are going to need to install a roof antenna.
Not everyone lives within range
While I understand what you’re saying, the traditional alternative was just needing to pay $100 bucks a month for a cable package with sports. Being a sports fan has always been expensive for watching games.
It was $100 for just the basic cable and additional for more sports content
And now it’s $57/m for all the streaming services. Significantly cheaper today.
And it’s so much more content.
Well now you also have to pay for internet separately that used to come with cable
YouTube tv alone us more than that
You don’t need yttv to watch nba.
Really? Im tripping i guess lol been sailing the high seas too long
Yep for a long time my best option was a \(100 internet/cable bundle, and then they wanted an extra \)50/month just for FS Oklahoma.
Absolutely go fuck yourself, Cox.
Weren’t all sports playoffs on broadcast TV as recently as ~20 years ago? Before RSNs and ESPN took over and put games behind paywalls? (I get that RSNs were mostly for regular season coverage and not playoffs so maybe not apples-apples comparison)
The NBA playoffs haven’t always been on broadcast TV entirely. They often wouldn’t show first or even second-round games nationally, or they’d be on a big tape-delay, which was annoying. There was a time in the 1990s when NBC was showing a ton over the air. But once ESPN/TNT/ABC got their hands on it, it started gradually shifting to being on cable, and now that’s shifted again to being on streaming services.
2006 NBA playoffs had games on ESPN, TNT, and NBA TV
Were those espn games simulcast on ABC? I’d bet yes
You would lose that bet
I’m at least partially correct. See TV coverage:
First and second-round games were televised on ABC, TNT, ESPN, ESPN2, and NBA TV in the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_NBA_playoffs
And to watch all of them you’d need a satellite package. Dad owned a sports bar and that would be like $250+ in today’s money
it was way more than $100 if you adjust for inflation
True, but at least with cable you got everything in one place. Now it feels like we’re paying the same amount but having to juggle five different apps.
I think I I’m happy saving $70 a month and clicking two extra buttons to switch between apps.
Yeah but I could switch back and forth between whatever I wanted. Now I am captured when on Peacock etc. it’s so much worse.
In europe I pay 100€/year to watch all the NBA games
no you dont you can sail the seven seas.
It’s still a pain if you want to watch on your TV
I have yet to find one that is dependable not choppy or otherwise terrible. I dont know what Im doing wrong, everything else I stream is fine, but those sketchy sites just are not good enough quality in my experience.
I have a couple reliable sites which are very good for when I use my computer, and would honestly be fine on my Xbox or TV if I could load them up with ad/block up poppers tio
Dm?
I use my Xbox 😂
Just cast it from your phone?
Yeah until you’re watching with your family and a random NSFW ad pops up in the of the stream. Brave browser can only block so much. Lol
Sadly my iPhone doesn’t show the video when I airplay. I’ll get audio but that’s it
Buy a mini pc or a raspberry pi
This is it. Mini pc and Brave browser means pirate streams and no ads from YT or other streaming services.
Web Video Caster FTW
HDMI cable homie it ain’t nothing but a thang
Air play anyone? 🤨
Mini pcs are like \(200 and a wireless keyboard with a track pad is like \)20.
I can get a new rpi3 for \(35. Double that for some accessories like wires, m&k, and a case. So you're right, not cheap, but not \)220. Like a 1⁄3 of that. Agreed it’s not the cheapest or most convenient though.
Yo ho! Yo ho!
A pirates life is a life for me!
Garrr! 🏴☠️
League hates fans
Do they? It’s like \(60 a month to watch these. If it was prior to the new deals, you would need a tv subscription which starts at \)80/m to get a package with TNT espn and abc.
Only annoying thing about this is switching apps. It’s a pain but no you’re paying less than what it traditionally was.
You also still needed league pass or the NBAtv add on as well for the first round
League hates the fans so much that they figured out a way for me to watch more games than ever before
tbf it costs the same as when you needed to buy some stupid cable package to get TNT
HBO max had the tnt games
So you’re saying you needed to get subscription before either way right?
Yeah but hbo max was like \(15 and a cable package was like \)200…
That was towards the end right? i remember it tho, much better than some crazy cable package
For me to get a cable package that had TNT here in Tennessee it was mad expensive and had a bajillion channels I would never use.
That’s definitely not true lol. First of all I have Amazon prime for quick delivery, not television, so I don’t even include that in the pricing - it’s like it’s free for me.
Peacock is $12 a month.
Also peacock is free for most people who use xfinity/comcast for their internet
Yeah but at least with cable you got all those channels in one place, now it’s like five different apps to juggle.
ABC is free
It’s not free if you’re somewhere with bad antenna signal
That would’ve impacted OP for the last 20 something years of games being on abc?
you can watch abc on the web, too, right? chromecast or hdmi get it on your tv if your tv doesnt run the internet/vlc. i wouldnt know, because i watch most of the matches for free in legally dubious ways
They usually don’t have sports broadcasts on the web
i meant the .m3u8, which appears to show me the current broadcast for ABC. never used it for sports like i said so i thought it would work
ABC is available to everyone. I pay $100 a month for streaming, it doesn’t include ABC and such. So free is a relative term.
You think that’s bad, I can’t watch Clipper games even on local channels bc they moved all their games to their own shitty channel.
Needing basic cable for the Chicago Sports Network to watch Chicago Bulls games in Chicago has pissed me off so much this season. Not even a winning team for Christs sake.
The fan experience this year has gotten so dumb I’ve just stopped watching. Was gonna watch the playoffs but now that I know you still have to have multiple subscriptions even for the playoffs fuck it. Adam silver would be more useful as a crash test dummy
more platforms means more money for the league
I watch piracy
Everyone has ABC
I don’t and I have Disney+ and Hulu
they air it for free, you just need an antenna
sure IF you get good reception. otherwise, S.O.L.
You gonna complain next that you need to get a job to buy things?
ao many miserable bootlicking comments here shits wild
If you dont have good reception or good internet you are shit out of luck, yes.
And would you believe it? The newspaper doesn’t get delivered until the next morning!
99% of Americans live somewhere where they can get decent reception. My folks live way out in the sticks and they get reception fine.
person invents problem that doesn’t exist and is upset about it
If it wasn’t for Youtube TV I wouldn’t have local channels.
I live 10 minutes East and South from 2 big towns.
Unfortunately my town is downhill enough where ota’s (using an antenna) either don’t come in at all or are so choppy it is pointless.
So no, that user did not ‘invent a problem that doesn’t exist.’
Lots of America is super fucking rural dude. Antennas don’t always work.
So like… the same as last year?
You don’t even live in the US so no one really knows or even cares how to watch in your country so you can stop being cringe now.
And how much were you paying for TNT??
I’m tired of this complaint. The NBA has never been more accessible than it is right now. More people have Amazon Prime than Cable.
Their ratings don’t seem to indicate this is as widespread a complaint as posts here make it seem. Amazon Prime games averaging just about what TNT and ESPN have averaged for years.
Everythin’ be free in the seven seas
And NBA TV and NBA LP.
I watch for free, just have to know where to look.
Whats this??? This is a joke right?? Why pay when you can sail the sea… 😂😂😂
Get a VPN and switch to India to watch the matches in YouTube for free
Youtube TV isn’t available in India, how are you watching it by setting location to India?
I’m an Indian 🫡 just spreading the gospel. The match is telecasted thru YouTube app here..doesn’t work on YouTube via a browser tho
I am from India too, where in youtube app do you see the option to watch the live match for free?
Go to the youtube page. Live option will show in the DP like a new instagram story with live written in it or you can see it in the live tab
Oh i thought those just show the scoreboard not the actual match, will check out tomorrow. Thanks.
It was like that last year with only some matches live. But to promote nba here they’re telecasting all matches for free for now.
I have nba league pass and can watch every game, but am in New Zealand. If you have league pass in the US can you get all the games or are there blackouts?
in the usa league pass doesnt get you the playoffs
That is fucking crazy
You also can’t watch your local team during the regular season, if you are in California you can’t watch clippers, lakers, kings, or warriors games due to blackouts.
You also can’t watch any game that is also being nationally broadcast - so any game that would be on espn, peacock, prime, etc. is not available
National TV games are blacked out so the whole playoffs. You can get a VPN (some of them don’t work anymore)
Legit me. Who as every streaming mechanism known to mankind.
“Why cant I find the Nuggets v. TWolves game”.
theres a website with a cardinal direction in its name that offers these things for free
I’m sad with the way this has gone down, but I also feel free. I’m a big basketball fan, but between the nickel and diming, staggering inconvenience and poor quality of product, I don’t need this anymore. 2K sucks, but I can at least 70 games out of AD.
Prime and Peacock cover most of it and cost less than $30 a month. Also prime has other benefits where you save that on delivery fees.
I have youtube tv, prime, peacock and league pass, and I still can’t watch some local warriors games when i’m at home. it’s a fucking joke. clearly i’m willing to pay to watch but it has to be easy and intuitive…
Still cheaper than the old school cable TV package you needed not long ago…
As an older fan who’s been watching NBA since the early 90s it’s better now than it’s ever been. Whenever I see people complaining about how hard it is to watch the NBA now I assume they never realized how much their parents spent on cable TV for them to watch “free” before…
Maximizing profits. Nothing more, nothing less.
I will say I find the streaming services (Prime, Peacock) to be far better quality in terms of graphics than anything we’ve seen from ABC or ESPN.
Is prime in 4K? Switching over to ABC last night was brutal, looked so low quality.
I guess I don’t know enough to say for sure but I would guess it is. The difference is night and day
You only need an antenna for ABC games. It’s pretty cheap
We are a milk cow for these companies. They want us subscribing to everything. That’s why they intentionally fragment it. WWE has gone down the same path.
It is what it is. I watch without paying.
Huh? Before you’d have to get a contract with a cable company and pay $100 a month and be locked in for a year or two to get the “good” price before you wait another year to threaten to cancel where they then just let you keep your current price. Now you can just sub for like a month or two.
No, you need League pass and a VPN
YouTube TV bro
Or just get IPTV it’s been around for like 15 years now.
The continued splintering of the media rights has resulted in a massive spike in revenue. But I do think it could result in long term damage to the brand. The more you hide your most important games in random services the less people will watch.
The good thing about the old cable model was that people could stumble on content and become fans. This especially worked for sports where the content was basically had an infinite timeline.
Now I have to subscribe to the prime app and open it and find the game. Also the prime app is probably the worst streaming app available.
I just hope this splinterfication doesn’t continue.
Like 70% of people I know already have Amazon prime for deliveries. What is this “signing up for the app.” Who signs up for Amazon prime so they can watch TV lol. Being able to watch NBA games is just a sweet add on to an essential service I already had.
Viewership in the US is UP this year, this is obviously a better strategy since people buy prime and peacock for other reasons
I will never in my life see the TNT or any other turner network again thank fucking god
The prime app is terrible. It does an awful job of surfacing new content. And mostly tries to get you to rent or buy crap since it merges both the prime content and the amazons video sales store.
But let’s look at this process with the WWE. They went from being network tv + peacock. To Netflix plus espn unlimited. And basically tripled the consumer costs.
My favorite daily activity for watching the NBA is - “Let’s go open YouTube TV to watch the game. Oh damn it’s not on tv, let me go open the NBA app and use my League Pass to watch it. Oh damn, it’s on Peacock/Prime so now kwet me close this and open ANOTHER app to see if I can watch”
You ever inspire to be part of the straw hat crew??
Adam Silver did say it was a highlights league, so…
No, you only need streameast
Yarr list
You can see 90% of the first round playoff schedule with a broadcast antenna and Prime. If you don’t have a cable package and don’t get NBCSN or ESPN then you lose that 10% but y’all need to relax.
Except I already had prime and peacock, now I don’t need tnt anymore
This year is a huge W to me, I’ve had access to way more NBA games without sketchy streams
They are destroying the fan base with this BS, it’s so frustrating. Especially living just outside the area of your closest team where all the local broadcasts are blacked out so you get nothing.
i know
dont they already have enough money?
WTF
Call me Monkey D Luffy cause I’m king of the streaming pirates. No way I’m paying all.these companies to watch my shit.
Need? You do know there are alternatives right…
🏴☠️
Yeah I’ll prolly just buy an antenna and I have prime for this month. Once we get to mid May it’ll prolly be easy enough to get them for free and I’ll cancel. I’ll miss a few games but I think I’ll mostly get buy spending like $50 combined? Not a big deal, less than I spent any other nba year
At this point, I would rather just have cable back. Literally have to keep an Excel spreadsheet just to track subscriptions now lol
Won’t you think of the millionaires and billionaires?
An antenna should get you ABC and ESPN, USA too iirc
Yarrrrr
I’ve had prime, league pass, YouTube TV for NBC games etc but going forward I’m going to hold off on all of this until the Play-In games because I found the regular season to be absolute TRASH. The competition level in the regular season was an abomination and will only get worse. I will only be paying money to watch playoff games going forward.
Just buy a vpn and go to free streaming services online.
I don’t think you need any of these actually. Everything is on NBA league pass. You might just have to wait 3 days at times for it to appear.
Alright I got a great idea guys. What if we take all these networks/streams and bundle them together into one service? Don’t that sound like a great idea?
🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Yes and I’ll be dead in a grave before I pay for Netflix too
stream east
Boo who
Maybe if you were a VIP in a LEAGUE working for the DOT in LA
Welcome to sports
Or a single IPTV subscription.
I have peacocks and prime and will just subscribe to sling for 3 months for the playoffs
Prime has been the worst for league pass.
Prime and Peacock are the only ones that aren’t regular networks, if you have basic cable
I detest the NBA. They have ruined the pro game.
The NFL is being investigated for this, I expect NBA is next.
Well Fox isn’t involved with the nba, so the Murdoch’s aren’t going to push trump and the doj to go after the nba like they are the nfl
Yeah it’s a joke and you still get ads shoved up your asshole
Buy a league pass…?
You can watch espn and ABC both on ESPN by the way but nice try CBS/skydance bot
I used to watch any NFL/NBA I could find time to watch, not just my home team. Havent been able to do that in years.
You don’t need Peacock and if you have ESPN then you probably have access to ABC
Fans now don’t understand how spoiled they are either with access to all the playoff games nationally
Lakers vs Rockets
Exactly you can watch on NBC which is a free broadcast network you can pick up with an antenna in most places. There aren’t any playoff games exclusively on Peacock they’re either on NBC or NBCSN
There is no free when the antenna reception is bad
So move? What would your solution be if your internet was bad? Complain that they dont play the game on your driveway?
Fuck Boston!
Sounds to me like you’re looking for excuses to complain
it’s not an excuse. It’s great that you can get the games free with good reception, but for those that don’t get good reception, your solution doesn’t solve anything. If the NBA wants more fans to watch, they should just make the games available on multiple streaming services at the same time or just award the games to one service. It’s not clear to me why you’re against more accessibility when it won’t affect you.
He’s a Lakers fan, he hates poor people. It’s that simple, hope this helped.
It’s a free broadcast. There is no cheaper delivery method of sports.
Then move to where it’s good? Not sure what point you’re trying to make?
[ Removed by Reddit ]
So either you need Peacock or you need both NBC and NBCSN
You don’t need Peacock. That’s what I said and it’s true. I don’t have Peacock and I can watch all the games. You have needed some kind of paid service to watch the NBA playoffs for almost 30 years since it moved to ESPN and TNT and back then they didn’t broadcast all the series and all the games.
TO BE FAIR, there’s a handful of games (idk how many but Sixers Celtics game 2 is one of them) that’s listed as Peacock/NBCSN. So either you need Peacock or you need to upgrade your cable package to the sports package to be able to watch it. Now as a to be fair counterpoint, functionally this isn’t any different than like 5 games total in the first round in previous years being on NBA TV behind a cable package paywall I’m not willing to pay. It’s one of those things where I understand it’s technically cheaper, but Peacock feels like such a bad value for shows that paying for a handful of live sports events feels like a waste.
You don’t need Peacock
Everyone has Prime already (for shopping purposes), and YouTube TV gets you the rest.
And you don’t even need the full package. Just the sports package. So a little bit less $. I wish league pass just had a postseason package. I’d gladly just pay an extra 50 bucks to just get the post season added on once I knew my team had made the playoffs.
some people shop in stores still actually
It’s fucking insane man. Never thought I’d miss basic cable
You miss paying \(100 instead of \)50 today?
It’s not just about watching basketball games, it’s about streaming in general. You want access to all the shows you wanna watch? Cool, get Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Apple TV, HBO Max, Disney Plus, Peacock, Paramount Plus… did I miss any?
I dunno, I only watch nba so I only pay for 3 services (espn, peacock, and prime) and have an OTA antenna so I don’t really care about the other ones. Just because the streaming apps exist, doesn’t mean you have to pay for them.
Stay in school, fam. 🙏