How to watch the draft without breaking the bank?

[Username]

For free? Without all the obnoxious signups and plans and deals and crapola?

Yeah, it's usually streaming live on their website in a small box in the top right corner of the homepage, that you can expand to full screen. I've watched it like that before, although it's been about 3 years, I've had game pass since

Edited to say I've just checked and apparently there will be a livestream on NFL.com/Watch

 

[Bill Lee]

NFL.com usually stream it live

Interesting article:

NFL Draft live stream: How to watch the 2021 draft for free without cable | Sporting News

www.sportingnews.com

says:

Live streams of the NFL Draft will be available on computers and laptops, with authentication from participating TV providers, at NFL.com/Watch, WatchESPN and ABC.go.com.

So it seems one will need a login from a cable TV provider and the account probably needs to be carrying that service already i.e. you're probably better off just watching it on your TV if you are home.

Other stuff I found interesting was how the characterize the coverage:

ABC, ESPN and NFL Network will carry their own coverage of the event through the first two days, with ABC simulcasting ESPN's coverage on Day 3. Mike Greenberg will debut as NFL draft host on ESPN. The broadcast will feature draft guru Mel Kiper Jr., NFL analysts Louis Riddick and Booger McFarland, NFL insiders Chris Mortensen and Adam Schefter and NFL host Suzy Kolber.

The NFL Network broadcast team will consist of Rich Eisen, Daniel Jeremiah and Charles Davis on the main set, with guest hosts appearing on different days of the draft.

The ABC broadcast will feature a more college football-friendly broadcast, with the "College GameDay" cast of Rece Davis, Maria Taylor, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard and David Pollack providing coverage. Todd McShay and Jesse Palmer will also be a part of the ABC broadcasts as well.

That's some really interesting positioning.

ESPN and ABC are owned by Disney, they could just save themselves some money on production and use the same coverage for both, but nope, ESPN will get the NFL-heavy coverage and ABC will get the college-heavy coverage.

I hope college football fans aren't insulted by this, but IMO the NFL stuff is the premium coverage and college is standard level. I'd prefer to be watching the ESPN coverage but since I refuse to pay for cable I'm gonna take the L. I've watched the ABC level stuff before and while I do think the GameDay crew is talented I am not a CFB fan and I don't find their coverage very engaging. This is why I'll search around YouTube to see who is doing independent live streams, and tune into one of them.

As for NFLN, it does make one wonder where they stand overall.

I found the following article had interesting coverage:

Thursday Night Football: From NFL Network's Golden Ticket to Amazon's Grand Prize

Thursday Night Football’s history could have been much different if it wasn’t for the NHL. You see, TNF was initially not supposed to air on NFL Network, but actually the Comcast-owned OLN. Shortly after NFL Network’s 2003 launch, when discussing carriage for the network, Comcast reportedly...

awfulannouncing.com

A quote:

But with Amazon becoming the exclusive home of TNF in 2023, where does that leave NFL Network? Despite its lack of Thursday games, either original run or simulcast, the network will still be required to have “no fewer than five” live games going forward, likely morning international games and Saturday games, in order to satisfy its carriage contracts with providers.

Will that modest haul of live games be enough for providers? That’s still a question. Dish and Sling dropped NFL Network and RedZone last summer, re-adding the networks barely in time for Week 1 action. AT&T U-Verse and DirecTV Now (now rebranded to AT&T TV) dropped the two networks in April of 2019 and haven’t re-added them. Comcast didn’t drop NFL Network, but did move it to a premium tier back in 2018.

With fewer live games on NFL Network starting in 2023, it wouldn’t be a surprise if more providers put their foot down and demanded to pay lower fees to carry NFL Network. If that happens, combined with the slow churn of providers dropping the network altogether, where would that leave NFL Network in the long run?

In two decades, NFL Network and Thursday Night Football have seemingly come full circle. The TNF package was created, in part, to drive providers to carry NFL Network. With TNF completely departing NFL Network for Amazon in 2023, providers will need a new carrot dangled to continue carrying NFL Network, especially in this era of cord cutting, penny pinching, and streaming. Who even knows what that carrot will be, but nothing can compare to an extra night of NFL games, and it’s hard to see a fourth regular gameday being added to the NFL’s schedule any time soon.

So, it seems unless Rodger has yet another trick up his sleeve, NFLN will be on the verge of irrelevance after the 2022 season.

NFL Strikes New Rights Pacts: Fox Cedes Thursdays to Amazon, ABC Gains Super Bowl Slot

says:

The NFL Network, which had previously shared rights to broadcast Thursday Night Football, will continue to televise a select schedule of exclusive NFL games on a yearly basis, the NFL said.

This is as vague as possible: which games, what time slots? It seems it will be the international ones, since they don't seem to fall into the traditional time slots.

The articles say there will be more 'exclusive' games on each provider 'silo'.

Looks like someone who wants to watch 'all' the football games will need to buy into up to five different silos:



I'm just not that much into football to do that.

You can say 'just buy cable' but nope, after 2022 you need Prime to get TNF, it is 'exclusively digital'.

You can see NFL's take on each package doubled, and guess what, that money has to come from somewhere: cable fees and streaming package fees WILL go up.

So far, it is said they still have to broadcast games in the team's local market over the air, so that's what I'm going with as long as I still live in New England.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Life is full of choices.

 

[denverpatsfan]

Interesting article:

NFL Draft live stream: How to watch the 2021 draft for free without cable | Sporting News

www.sportingnews.com

says:



So it seems one will need a login from a cable TV provider and the account probably needs to be carrying that service already i.e. you're probably better off just watching it on your TV if you are home.

Other stuff I found interesting was how the characterize the coverage:



That's some really interesting positioning.

ESPN and ABC are owned by Disney, they could just save themselves some money on production and use the same coverage for both, but nope, ESPN will get the NFL-heavy coverage and ABC will get the college-heavy coverage.

I hope college football fans aren't insulted by this, but IMO the NFL stuff is the premium coverage and college is standard level. I'd prefer to be watching the ESPN coverage but since I refuse to pay for cable I'm gonna take the L. I've watched the ABC level stuff before and while I do think the GameDay crew is talented I am not a CFB fan and I don't find their coverage very engaging. This is why I'll search around YouTube to see who is doing independent live streams, and tune into one of them.

As for NFLN, it does make one wonder where they stand overall.

I found the following article had interesting coverage:

Thursday Night Football: From NFL Network's Golden Ticket to Amazon's Grand Prize

Thursday Night Football’s history could have been much different if it wasn’t for the NHL. You see, TNF was initially not supposed to air on NFL Network, but actually the Comcast-owned OLN. Shortly after NFL Network’s 2003 launch, when discussing carriage for the network, Comcast reportedly...

awfulannouncing.com

A quote:





So, it seems unless Rodger has yet another trick up his sleeve, NFLN will be on the verge of irrelevance after the 2022 season.

NFL Strikes New Rights Pacts: Fox Cedes Thursdays to Amazon, ABC Gains Super Bowl Slot

says:



This is as vague as possible: which games, what time slots? It seems it will be the international ones, since they don't seem to fall into the traditional time slots.

The articles say there will be more 'exclusive' games on each provider 'silo'.

Looks like someone who wants to watch 'all' the football games will need to buy into up to five different silos:

View attachment 32414

I'm just not that much into football to do that.

You can say 'just buy cable' but nope, after 2022 you need Prime to get TNF, it is 'exclusively digital'.

You can see NFL's take on each package doubled, and guess what, that money has to come from somewhere: cable fees and streaming package fees WILL go up.

So far, it is said they still have to broadcast games in the team's local market over the air, so that's what I'm going with as long as I still live in New England.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Life is full of choices.

Brutal how Amazon is now into EVERY aspect of our lives. I'm not sure that is a good thing. Monopolies are supposed to be discouraged.

 

[Nehalem]

YoutubeTv has NFL network and a free trial.

If you end up like it, you can probably replace your basic Cable deal for $65/moth.

 

[Bill Lee]

Brutal how Amazon is now into EVERY aspect of our lives. I'm not sure that is a good thing. Monopolies are supposed to be discouraged.

Yet we're also supposed to reward excellent performance, and IMO Amazon has been an amazing performer.

I've been a customer since 1996 when they were just an online bookstore. I worked for the late great Digital Equipment Corporation back then, and they were a customer of ours. They had bought some of our biggest servers and they threw us out because to be honest those servers had crappy reliability, mostly due to crappy software. It was pretty embarrassing to be a big established company and get thrown out by a cheeky startup that next to no one had heard of back then, but it turns out they were right and we were wrong.

The fact is they really did outperform the rest of the industry in the basics of ordering stuff online and getting it delivered to our doorsteps, and they still are performing better and innovating faster than anyone else. They have their own bleeping cargo airplanes, for gods sake! They do this because the existing vendors (FedEx, UPS) simply could not deliver the price/performance that Amazon figured they could get if they just did it themselves. Same reason why we have their vans roaming our neighborhoods. They're even playing with drones to drop packages off.

On the computer side, they've been very innovative in the "cloud computing" space. They realized they needed warehouse scale computing to do what they wanted to do, so they just got on with it and built out the hardware and software they needed to get the job done. Now they make tons of money selling cloud services to others. That's what happens when you can deliver excellent price, performance and innovation.

I honestly don't know what could be done to address the monopoly concerns. Is it fair to hobble Amazon just because they are good at what they do?

I felt interesting emotions Monday when I got my vaccine shot in a huge empty building that used to house a major Sears department store. I had been in that very same building when it had been a Sears as far back as the early 90s, and many times since. Sears is used as the example of who could have taken down Amazon in its early days, but they just did not have any instinct to be innovative. They were a massive entity with a lot of inertia, who knows if anyone could have changed their course or not.

 

[borg]

Interesting article:

NFL Draft live stream: How to watch the 2021 draft for free without cable | Sporting News

www.sportingnews.com

says:



So it seems one will need a login from a cable TV provider and the account probably needs to be carrying that service already i.e. you're probably better off just watching it on your TV if you are home.

Other stuff I found interesting was how the characterize the coverage:



That's some really interesting positioning.

ESPN and ABC are owned by Disney, they could just save themselves some money on production and use the same coverage for both, but nope, ESPN will get the NFL-heavy coverage and ABC will get the college-heavy coverage.

I hope college football fans aren't insulted by this, but IMO the NFL stuff is the premium coverage and college is standard level. I'd prefer to be watching the ESPN coverage but since I refuse to pay for cable I'm gonna take the L. I've watched the ABC level stuff before and while I do think the GameDay crew is talented I am not a CFB fan and I don't find their coverage very engaging. This is why I'll search around YouTube to see who is doing independent live streams, and tune into one of them.

As for NFLN, it does make one wonder where they stand overall.

I found the following article had interesting coverage:

Thursday Night Football: From NFL Network's Golden Ticket to Amazon's Grand Prize

Thursday Night Football’s history could have been much different if it wasn’t for the NHL. You see, TNF was initially not supposed to air on NFL Network, but actually the Comcast-owned OLN. Shortly after NFL Network’s 2003 launch, when discussing carriage for the network, Comcast reportedly...

awfulannouncing.com

A quote:





So, it seems unless Rodger has yet another trick up his sleeve, NFLN will be on the verge of irrelevance after the 2022 season.

NFL Strikes New Rights Pacts: Fox Cedes Thursdays to Amazon, ABC Gains Super Bowl Slot

says:



This is as vague as possible: which games, what time slots? It seems it will be the international ones, since they don't seem to fall into the traditional time slots.

The articles say there will be more 'exclusive' games on each provider 'silo'.

Looks like someone who wants to watch 'all' the football games will need to buy into up to five different silos:

View attachment 32414

I'm just not that much into football to do that.

You can say 'just buy cable' but nope, after 2022 you need Prime to get TNF, it is 'exclusively digital'.

You can see NFL's take on each package doubled, and guess what, that money has to come from somewhere: cable fees and streaming package fees WILL go up.

So far, it is said they still have to broadcast games in the team's local market over the air, so that's what I'm going with as long as I still live in New England.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Life is full of choices.

Allow me to customize a solution tailored to your specific needs and budget



Snacks for your football viewing guests

 

[Bill Lee]

Allow me to customize a solution tailored for your specific needs

Snacks for your football viewing guests

There's a difference between price and value...

I spent the price of one month's cable TV bill to build out a good quality indoor TV antenna set up to get most of the value of their service for free month after month after month. Big win for me.

Hard pass on mass produced ramen noodles. Over processed loaded with sodium and/or MSG. Next to zero nutritional value in each serving. Cheap price, but almost no value.

 

[borg]

There's a difference between price and value...

I spent the price of one month's cable TV bill to build out a good quality indoor TV antenna set up to get most of the value of their service for free month after month after month. Big win for me.

Hard pass on mass produced ramen noodles. Over processed loaded with sodium and/or MSG. Next to zero nutritional value in each serving. Cheap price, but almost no value.

 

[borg]

PS....
Email Uncle Joe and request that free 'Amazon Prime For All' be included in his "equity infrastructure" bill.
But don't send it on Thursday, that's his Pudding day

 

[jah]

Yet we're also supposed to reward excellent performance, and IMO Amazon has been an amazing performer.

I've been a customer since 1996 when they were just an online bookstore. I worked for the late great Digital Equipment Corporation back then, and they were a customer of ours. They had bought some of our biggest servers and they threw us out because to be honest those servers had crappy reliability, mostly due to crappy software. It was pretty embarrassing to be a big established company and get thrown out by a cheeky startup that next to no one had heard of back then, but it turns out they were right and we were wrong.

The fact is they really did outperform the rest of the industry in the basics of ordering stuff online and getting it delivered to our doorsteps, and they still are performing better and innovating faster than anyone else. They have their own bleeping cargo airplanes, for gods sake! They do this because the existing vendors (FedEx, UPS) simply could not deliver the price/performance that Amazon figured they could get if they just did it themselves. Same reason why we have their vans roaming our neighborhoods. They're even playing with drones to drop packages off.

On the computer side, they've been very innovative in the "cloud computing" space. They realized they needed warehouse scale computing to do what they wanted to do, so they just got on with it and built out the hardware and software they needed to get the job done. Now they make tons of money selling cloud services to others. That's what happens when you can deliver excellent price, performance and innovation.

I honestly don't know what could be done to address the monopoly concerns. Is it fair to hobble Amazon just because they are good at what they do?

I felt interesting emotions Monday when I got my vaccine shot in a huge empty building that used to house a major Sears department store. I had been in that very same building when it had been a Sears as far back as the early 90s, and many times since. Sears is used as the example of who could have taken down Amazon in its early days, but they just did not have any instinct to be innovative. They were a massive entity with a lot of inertia, who knows if anyone could have changed their course or not.

What about the workers not having time to use the bathroom? Feels like that might be a contributing factor to the company's success.

 

[Bill Lee]

PS....
Email Uncle Joe and request that free 'Amazon Prime For All' be included in his "equity infrastructure" bill.
But don't send it on Thursday, that is his Pudding day

I've paid for my own Prime subscription ever since they were offered, they represent good value for money.

Every day was cheeseburger day for Trump.

Thanks for your great contributions to this thread.

What about the workers not having time to use the bathroom? Feels like that might be a contributing factor to the company's success.

Not a fan of Amazon's overall approach to warehouse workers, but if we're being honest, we've all goofed off a lot at work and would do even more of it if left to our own devices. A happy medium needs to be found. I don't think Amazon has found the right balance. It's pretty clear Sears didn't either.

As for delivery drivers, well, we all know finding a bathroom when one is on the road is a challenge, and it's far worse given how many places were closed for coronavirus. Hopefully a good solution is found soon. It's been an industry wide problem for quite a while now.

 

[borg]

There's a difference between price and value...

I spent the price of one month's cable TV bill to build out a good quality indoor TV antenna set up to get most of the value of their service for free month after month after month. Big win for me.

Hard pass on mass produced ramen noodles. Over processed loaded with sodium and/or MSG. Next to zero nutritional value in each serving. Cheap price, but almost no value.

A couple of questions to determine your exact level of cheapness....

1) If indeed you did splurge for a hot water heater for your home or trailer, does your water heater operate on a timer?

2) Are you concerned about the amount of electricity used by your doorbell?

 

[Bill Lee]

A couple of questions to determine your exact level of cheapness....

1) If indeed you did splurge for a hot water heater for your home or trailer, does your water heater operate on a timer?

Nope

2) Are you concerned about the amount of electricity used by your doorbell?

Nope, although my house is full of IoT (internet of things) gizmos like Amazon Alexa, and I kinda do think about what they use

3) Do you buy industrial grade toilet paper?
Nope, I'm a Charmin guy, life is too short to deal with low-grade bum wipe.

 

[micronin127]

There are several "Live" channels on YouTube that will have NFL Draft specials. I watched parts of the first round via Pro Football Focus this way last year.

The Ringer might have a live stream too.

This assumes you have a Roku, AppleTV, FireTV stick etc... and the YouTube app.

From a browser... nfl.com should allow you to watch on a computer. There is also a "Patriots Draft Party" with Fitzy and Megan Ottolini from 7-7:45 from Patriot Place with special guests.

 

[imahobgoblin]

Most channels are free. You need a VPN for ESPN.

https://ustvgo.tv

 

[Bill Lee]

There are several "Live" channels on YouTube that will have NFL Draft specials. I watched parts of the first round via Pro Football Focus this way last year.

The Ringer might have a live stream too.

This assumes you have a Roku, AppleTV, FireTV stick etc... and the YouTube app.

From a browser... nfl.com should allow you to watch on a computer. There is also a "Patriots Draft Party" with Fitzy and Megan Ottolini from 7-7:45 from Patriot Place with special guests.

I agree. The independent streams are good value for free if you already have internet and an appropriate device. Coverage is typically about the football instead of the fawning non-football stuff BSPN often throws at us.