A Cord Cutter’s Life is a series of guest posts by Greg Baker, featuring stories on the motivations, challenges, and benefits to cutting cable. If you’ve considered cutting the cord, let our visiting Cord Cutting Guru show you how in this fun, helpful series.
Sports: the source of the most painful and celebrated moments of our lives. ESPN has been there to cover or jeer these parts of our lives, and like it or not they’re back with even more coverage. All kidding aside, the release of ESPN+ really changes the game on how we do and will continue to watch sports. The name really says it all, it’s the ESPN you’re used to plus a little bit more.
Here’s the main takeaway for all the sports fans out there: for five bucks a month you get extra baseball, hockey, and more soccer than you could have the patience to watch. Their app functions as an addition to the content they have for free, so much so that they didn’t even make a new app for it, it’s just a tab on the existing ESPN app.
As far as live sports, you’re getting more MLB, NHL, MLS, Boxing, PGA Tour, Grand Slams, and college mid-major sports. Breaking it down, you’re gonna get one in-season MLB and NHL game per day. Hockey fans have gotta wait for next season to capitalize on that, but baseball fans, we get to take advantage right away. Additionally, you can add on MLB or NHL streaming packages to your ESPN+ but the jury’s out whether it’s a cheaper option than going through the league. However, it is a month to month subscription which adds flexibility for people like me who are more paycheck to paycheck.
And have I mentioned the soccer? You’re getting all the soccer. All of it. I know that’s an overused phrase nowadays, but I’m literally serious. You get every single MLS game (no lie). You get Premier League games. As far as I’m concerned, that’s about every soccer game that exists, that’s by my math about four million hours of tie games. If that’s your thing, jump aboard the ESPN+ bandwagon right away.
Moving on to more of their content, you’re gonna get access to some PGA Tour and Tennis Grand Slam action. Now, these are what I consider “background sports” stuff you just kind of switch on while you’re checking twitter or hanging out, and that’s not any kind of diss. I love these sports. It’s like you’re just hanging out and then all of a sudden you watch a putt from 80 yards out, or you see a great tennis serve or whatever. I live for this.
Additionally, I’ll have you know that watching mid-major D1 sporting events is incredible. The passion of these fans, (maybe you’re a fan of one, too) these are some of the most invested fans I’ve ever watched. Screw small city pro sports teams, I’d rather watch a dedicated Northern South Dakota State vs. Eastern West Missouri University softball match than a Miami Marlins game any day. Those fans get it. Shout out mid-major sports.
Here’s the best part, I saved the best for last. You get 30 for 30s. Every single one. I know I’m not the only one obsessed with ESPN’s hour long sports docs, and now you’ve got access to any of them you want, any time you want. If you haven’t seen any 30 for 30’s yet, get on the page. They’re not just for sports fans, they’re for movie fans, too. I can’t get over how good these docs are. They take such seemingly small or forgotten or huge sporting events and remind you of them, and for nostalgia alone, they’re worth a seven day free trial at least.
While ESPN+ may not be the best thing since sliced bread (tough act to follow), and while it may not be The Ocho, it’s an important stepping stone for sports streaming content, and for Disney as well. Give me the MLB, NHL, and 30 for 30 now, give me some Katie Nolan and NBA later on so that this app goes from a bargain to a steal.
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