Cheapest way to watch Gopher Football at home?

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Wally

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Planning ahead, I have the most basic basic cable and internet, so no sports channels, basically nothing. Do I have options for watching the games? And which one is cheapest? What networks do I need?
 

My go to in the past was watching at the bar, not sure if I will do that this year....
 

Find a friend who has Hulu plus and get their log in and watch for free.
 


If you want to watch for free then you can use reddit.com/cfbstreams during the year. Then hook a HDMI from your comp to your TV. Or chrome cast it.
 


There's always KFAN and the Gophers Football Network for the Imagination Channel.
 

MNGopher23 said:
If you want to watch for free then you can use reddit.com/cfbstreams during the year. Then hook a HDMI from your comp to your TV. Or chrome cast it.
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yep. always will have a free stream there. if you feel sketchy doing that, just get youtube tv (what I use) or something similar. But I definitely went the reddit route during the college days
 


I like Youtube because you can record them and skip the commercials
 



Sportsurge.net was the people who did the reddit channel but got booted of they also have nfl games.
 

Easiest and best decision you'll ever make: drop cable and get YouTubeTV.

Ideally, also drop the cable company as your internet provider, if you have other options. But a lot of people sadly still don't.
 

Heard my first satellite internet ad yesterday on my amplitude modulation device.

I wondered if heavy snow might interfere with streaming quality.
 

MplsGopher said:
Easiest and best decision you'll ever make: drop cable and get YouTubeTV.

Ideally, also drop the cable company as your internet provider, if you have other options. But a lot of people sadly still don't.
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This. I’ve had YouTubeTV for a couple of years and haven’t looked back.
 



I did a quick search to compare streaming services and now my Facebook feed has ads for SlingTV Arabic and SlingTV Desi.
WTF?
 


The reddit streams and similar sources can be a little dicey.

I've tried to find Gopher basketball games on there, and sometimes games are listed but not shown, or they list one game and show another, so it's hit-and-miss in my experience.

the quality of the stream can also be dicey - if it's a bad source, you can get buffering or interruptions.

FWIW, I still have traditional cable TV, so I only try the pirate streams when a game is not shown on BTN or any of the ESPN's. I was planning to go to a streaming service, but put that on hold due to covid. There are no new games on TV, so it's a moot point until the games return. (or as a friend of mine used to say, a 'smoot' point. This is the same guy who thought Clemson's nickname was the Tide, because he heard 'Crimson Tide' and thought they were saying 'Clemson Tide.')
 


short ornery norwegian said:
The reddit streams and similar sources can be a little dicey.

I've tried to find Gopher basketball games on there, and sometimes games are listed but not shown, or they list one game and show another, so it's hit-and-miss in my experience.

the quality of the stream can also be dicey - if it's a bad source, you can get buffering or interruptions.

FWIW, I still have traditional cable TV, so I only try the pirate streams when a game is not shown on BTN or any of the ESPN's. I was planning to go to a streaming service, but put that on hold due to covid. There are no new games on TV, so it's a moot point until the games return. (or as a friend of mine used to say, a 'smoot' point. This is the same guy who thought Clemson's nickname was the Tide, because he heard 'Crimson Tide' and thought they were saying 'Clemson Tide.')
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I find the pirate streams are almost always better video quality wise. It feels like my Comcast box might be sending me a 10000k signal and it would still be some muddy picture ... in 10000k ;)
 




upnorthkid said:
yep. always will have a free stream there. if you feel sketchy doing that, just get youtube tv (what I use) or something similar. But I definitely went the reddit route during the college days
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Hulu TV / Youtube TV both work.
Hulu TV is $5 more expensive, but has CBS sports network (which was required for the Fresno State game last year), and it's a lot easier to use.
 


hello-world said:
Hulu TV / Youtube TV both work.
Hulu TV is $5 more expensive, but has CBS sports network (which was required for the Fresno State game last year), and it's a lot easier to use.
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Unless something has changed, CBS Sports Network won't be an issue this year. I think the home team owns broadcast rights, which is why they ended up on CBSN last year. All 3 non-conference games are at home, so at worst, BTN or ESPNs networks should cover all games.
 

hello-world said:
Hulu TV / Youtube TV both work.
Hulu TV is $5 more expensive, but has CBS sports network (which was required for the Fresno State game last year), and it's a lot easier to use.
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I disagree, I prefer the YouTube TV menu over the Hulu TV. Both have BTN. I recently left dish after 15yrs and started with Hulu. I found it acceptable except for the DVR. I paid 2 up charges ($65 total, no extra channels) to get full functionality of the DVR and still couldn’t skip at least 50% of the commercials, if you can’t skip commercials, what good is DVR??? I chose Hulu because they have an agreement with Marquee (Cubs) network and 3 weeks ago changed to YouTube TV because there’s no baseball and I couldn’t stand Hulu’s DVR.

Neither Hulu or YT tv menu or functionality are as good as Dish but at more than half the price I’ve learned to be happy with either. YouTube tv is $15 cheaper than Hulu if you include up charges for best DVR functionality for essentially the same channels except Marquee and CBS sports and maybe some others.

Both services have cool functions unique to themselves. Hulu can join a program in the middle of a show and rewind to the beginning. YT has unlimited DVR space and keeps all recordings for 8 mos iircc which means you can record all shows you occasionally watch and not miss much.

I responded here because I’ve been considering cutting the cable for a year or more and found a good education here on the Gopherhole, but not all of my questions were answered till I tried them out for myself.

Thanks all for those previous discussions and contributors!
 

I've been using SportSurge when I want to watch the games (the reddit r/cfbstreams is no longer around). It's not perfect all the time, but I've had good luck getting really high quality HD streams, I also have fiber internet so I don't run into buffering issues too much.

Usually I listen to the game radio broadcast stream while I walk the dog or do errands though. Fall in MN is my favorite time of year and I don't want to spend every Saturday in front of a TV.
 

The great thing about youtubetv is you can share it with your family or friends under the same account. You can have up to 3 streams going at once. So the cost is even cheaper if you share with someone else.
 

GophersInIowa said:
The great thing about youtubetv is you can share it with your family or friends under the same account. You can have up to 3 streams going at once. So the cost is even cheaper if you share with someone else.
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Also, YTTV has excellent video streaming quality. I haven't tried Hulu TV streaming, just the paid service for commercial-free TV/movies and that also does have great quality.

Had tried AT&T TV a while ago, and it was significantly worse.
 

Sharing YTTV with three devices for $55/month total allowed us to drop DirecTV at the lake and Spectrum at home. We use the smart Roku TV in the family room and the old Samsung in the bedroom. We use Roku streaming sticks for the other TVs.
We have DSL at 10mbps at the lake and rarely have a buffering problem. We have broadband at home.
The couple of hundred $$ we save each month was worth the slight aggravation of the learning process.
CNET says YTTV has a far better format than Hulu.
Musk's satellite internet service for the boonies is supposed to start this year.
 


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