Welcome to The Holy Land of Hoops

Gotta be honest, while I know having nearly every game on national TV is better for exposure, I'm a little jealous of the ESPN+ deals going around. Big East basketball is currently the only thing keeping me tied to a TV subscription. Everything else that interests me (mainly baseball, hockey, soccer) is covered by a cheaper service, all of which add up to less than half of a cable or streaming live tv service. I would love the ability to subscribe just to Big East basketball games.

I got rid of cable. I have You Tube TV. I get ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC, ACC, BIG TEN Networks. FS1, FS2 and CBSSN for all my college football and college basketball needs. Plus, I get games on ESPN3. I save $65 a month since dropping Spectrum Cable in February 2020.

I tried YouTube TV but then realized they didn't have History Channel so I went back to Hulu...it's $65/ month for the live TV and movies/shows on demand package with cloud DVR. I do like streaming, but it still has a few drawbacks that cable is still better at: 1) sometimes it takes 3-4 seconds to buffer when clicking on a channel even with good WiFi 2) it's not truly live compared to cable...there is a clear and noticeable 4-5 second delay for sports. So if your friend is watching from their house and you're watching in your house, you may know if a basket went in or missed before it happens on your TV. That is truly annoying. And if you follow with other fans on social media, you may see fans posting "YES! Huge 3!" before the guy even takes a shot on your TV. Those are the downsides...but it's very easy, cheaper than cable packages, and you don't need some bulky box like it's the 90's. Much cleaner look.

I also have YouTube TV (should probably downgrade to something like Sling), but as someone who exclusively watches sports, I'm quickly realizing the Big East basketball is the only thing preventing me from dropping even that. Personally, my interests are mainly NHL, MLB, global soccer, and Big East basketball. ESPN+, Paramount+, Peacock and MLB.tv would combine to cover all of those except Big East basketball. And they total roughly $30/month. Then throw in an antenna for NFL games.

Problem with Sling, the picture is poor.

We switched from PSVue to Hulu and it’s pretty good. I get a little irritated with the time involved changing channels and I hate being behind live TV because I’ll get a text from a buddy about something during a game that I won’t see for probably 15-20 seconds. But I cannot complain about the value compared to cable. I don’t use all of the streaming options but it’s pretty nice to be able to quickly log into Hulu from a phone if there’s something you need to watch.

That's the WORST! It's like a friend telling you what happens next in a scary movie with a plot twist before it happens. Kind of ruins the experience. I wonder why there is still a delay? Kind of surprised with all the tech these days that they haven't figured out how to close the gap between live cable and streaming so that it's live too. Sometimes with Hulu it seems to lag behind more and more over time in small increments and you realize you're 10 minutes behind live. This is probably the worst part about streaming live sports.

I've got a funny story about that scenario, though it was with cable rather than streaming.

Back in my college days, I was in my dorm watching a world series game with some friends and roomates. From where I was seated, I could see through the window that the TV in another room had the exact same game on - and for whatever reason, their feed was a few seconds ahead of ours.

I proceeded to amaze my friends by predicting the results of at bats with 100% accuracy. They're just lucky I was nice enough not to take their money lol