But why should anyone have to break the law to watch the Mets?
I think the reddit streams pages (RIP /r/nbastreams, /r/soccerstreams, etc) were the peak of stream accessibility and quality for me. I have some go-to sites now, but those subreddits were so convenient and easy.
Agreed, those subs were easily the best.
A lot have moved into Discord, which makes these things even more difficult. In general discord servers are insular little clubs. They tend to have strange unique rules and require you to jump through so many hoops to get initiated.
The Discord format is like plugging into a stream of consciousness, so doesn’t exactly lend itself to info-seeking like the forum format does.
any links to said discords?
No, I got rid of my discord so don’t have any. But you’d have to find new links anyway. The invites all expire after a while. Another reason why discord sucks.
/r/soccerstreams was the best of times. I mostly watch Dutch football which has way fewer streams than the big European leagues. Since /r/soccerstreams closed I haven’t been able to find streams nearly as easily.
I’ve been using sportshub for a few months now, it seems decent so far.
Awesome!! Looks clean. Will check it out once the season starts 🙂
For a couple seasons, there was a private subreddit where they had extracted the official streams of every NFL game, and you could just open it in a web browser and watch in full quality for free with no ads other than what was in the actual broadcast. And for a while, there was a promotion in a few European countries for free NFL Sunday Ticket access, and if you started the stream over a VPN connection into one of those countries, you could turn the VPN off and it’d continue working. Then some online magazine published the trick and it stopped working the next week.
I’ve a friend who knows all the resources to watch soccer where I live (Europe), but all the sites you talk about here are blocked by my gov (for sports).
Interesting to have a big magazine that is The Atlantic this topic in this light. People are absolutely fed up with the fragmentation of services and then how many restrictions there are around viewing LEGAL streams.
When illegal streaming ends up being more convenient, easier to setup and have more features, it’s not at all a surprise that people flock to it.
I mean if you’re going to break the law at least do it for a decent team.
Because I don’t want to have to pay a service just to watch my entire team suck.
This article really doesn’t say much of anything, does it?
Either way, yeah I’d argue that for as bad as TV/movie streaming has gotten, sports have actually gotten worse. The NHL, for instance, requires ESPN+ but you can’t watch your local team. If you aren’t in your local teams area, you can’t watch any nationally broadcasted games on ESPN, TNT, or NHL Network, which accounts to many games a year if you’re a fan of a big market team.
With that in mind, finding the right stream is honestly harder than many people say. No, lots of streams out there aren’t in high quality, many are choppy, and some will crash at random moments. Once you find the right stream, hold on to it close to your chest.
We haven’t been able to watch our local NBA and NHL teams in 4 years on most major cable/satellite providers in the area because of a contract dispute (that’s what happens when the same guy owns every team AND the sports network). Last season, one of our team’s games was nationally televised on TNT - and you STILL couldn’t watch it in our area because of blackout restrictions. It was an away game that was not airing on the local sports network…it was literally only on TNT, and you still couldn’t watch it.
Now even my 73-year-old dad is proficient in finding illegal sports streams.
The other question is how many people that read this actually payed for Atlantic’s subscription.
Seeing these types of articles in publications like The Atlantic makes me dread a coming crackdown.
It’s always better when this type of stuff is unknown in the mainstream
I have been able to follow all racing events I wanted for the past couple years through a few trusted restreamers that I found, sadly now, via Reddit on r/motorsportsstreams. They don’t have a community in the Fediverse yet (some of them opting for very badly managed and unmoderated Discord servers) but I hope that they do, soon. Their streams are very good and often better quality than official sources.
lmao i misread the header and spent a hot moment wondering “what’s an illegal sports team?”
What’s an illegal sports team?
I’ll have a crack at that: it’s Manchester City.
What’s illigal about Manchester City?
Not illegal, per se, but by all indications they’re going to fail FFP
No they’re not! They have the highest revenue in world football, and have one of the lowest ‘net spends’ (as useless as that metric is) of all the ‘major teams’ over the last 5 yrs. They are nowhere near failing FFP!
I mean I’ll be honest that I don’t follow Premier League stuff as much as I should (I’m more a fan of the Championship) but they’re definitely being investigated: https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11679/12804623/man-city-premier-league-charges-explained-what-are-they-what-could-punishment-be-whats-the-timescale
If that investigation is over, I’d love a link. Otherwise I’m pretty sure it’s ongoing. Like the Everton investigation.
You are correct, and the outcome of the hearing won’t be known for a couple of years. However indications are that the PL is basing their charges on the Der Speigle documents (out of context, doctored emails stolen from MCFC and released by a convicteded fraudster and blackmailer). UEFA based their case on the same emails, and the CAS (European sporting appeal court) found that there was no veracity to them and no evidence of any wrong doing on MCFCs part, apart from non cooperation with UEFAs ‘investigation’.
Thanks for the information! Like I said, I definitely don’t fully know the ins and outs here, I just know that both they and Everton are being investigated for FFP violations. Whether there’s veracity in those claims I guess we’ll find out. Sounds like some committees have already indicated that there may not be.
I’m curious about UEFA’s…integrity? with this. I have no evidence to back anything up with respect to this, but I’ve been under the impression that UEFA has taken money under the table for various things in the past and wondering if this could be a similar situation. I’ve got no horse in the PL so I’m not biased against Man City in any way (at least I like to think so, there may be some latent bias, I have to admit), but no matter what we have to admit that the ownership of Man City is kind of sketchy. I know they aren’t state owned, but IIRC the group that owns them is an entity of Qatar? And if that’s the case I’d be surprised if there isn’t money changing hands all the time that isn’t accounted for. I’m still convinced they bought the World Cup, though I have no evidence.
I’ll also be the first one to point out that even if that’s true, Man City isn’t the first and won’t be the last to make such a deal. There’s tons of Saudi and Qatari money in football.
what’s an illegal sport?
Skateboarding or parkour in some places I guess.
My son loves football (aka soccer) and I signed up for Paramount+ so that he can watch match replays and highlights. Their Android TV app is utter trash. It’s impossible to actually find anything without scrolling forever.
I was able to use my phone to play the stanley cup playoffs almost instantly on the porch this summer thanks to my good ol pirate website. Honestly, at this point, why would I ever pay for it?
Watching sports in the US is now an exercise in frustration
Much the same as watching the Premiere League considering the majority of it is only on Sky.
My wife really needs to watch the Ravens game this weekend. From California, because not everyone is a fan of their regional team, and apparently if you are a fan of a faraway team, that means you are a super-fan and should be charged extra money.
I, personally, am not a sports fan, so I’m happy to watch things at later times and dates than the very moment when they’re happening. But knowing what’s happening RIGHT NOW is important for those who are True Believers™
Is there a fast way to surf the streemz like a gentleman of fortune, or do I need to pay my dues and do the research on my own?