fubo is a no-go for Sports Fans

Ah March. Spring and Madness are in the air. Even casual sports fans breakout their brackets along with their umbrellas. As I write this, both the Men’s and Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournaments are in full bloom. Since all of the Women’s games are being broadcast on some iteration of ESPN (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU or ESPN News), this post is about watching the Men.

On the Men’s TV side, it’s a bit more complicated as the Tournament is being shared among four networks – your local CBS Network station, TBS, Tru and TNT. If you subscribe to a cable or satellite service, you are likely to have all four of those channels in your plan, so it's all good. However, if you're a cord-cutter, this is where it's easy to call a technical foul because some streaming services have run afoul to technically and legally air those channels.

Let’s start with the streamers that will give you all four channels. Those are DirecTV Stream, Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV. All of those services offer access to your local CBS TV station plus TBS, Tru and TNT, so you’ll be able to watch all the games.

After that, it gets a bit dicey. With Sling, you will need their “Blue” plan but even at that, they don’t offer CBS local stations. So anything on that channel is out unless you have an antenna hooked-up to your TV. As for lower-level streaming services such as Philo and Frndly, forget about them as they don’t air any of the channels that the Men’s or Women’s games are on. You get what you pay for with those services.

Then there is fubo (yes, they spell it in all lowercase). If you search the web, you can find them saying, “fuboTV is the world’s only sports-focused live TV streaming service with top leagues and teams, plus popular shows, movies and news for the entire household.” This is not exactly truth in advertising. In fact, if you like basketball and hockey, fubo should be one of your last choices to choose. That’s because they don’t carry TBS, TNT or Tru. They dropped them, along with CNN, back in July of 2020. While there was a rumor this past January that those stations would be returning, that did not happen. So, the only NCAA Men’s games you will be able to watch will be on whatever is being aired on your local CBS TV station.

But that’s not the only sports area in which fubo is a no-no. If you’re an NBA or NHL fan, forget about watching all the playoff games for those leagues. While ESPN and ABC/ESPN will air some NBA and NHL playoff games and fubo has those channels, TNT will also carry a bunch of those playoff games. In fact this season, TNT is the exclusive home for the Stanley Cup finals. So, that’s a whole lot of missing sports for a streamer that claims it's the world’s only sports-focused live streaming service.

It should be noted that there are a few other options to watch the NCAA Men's games. They include a subscription to the Paramount+ Network or trying to beat the system by signing-up for free trials to some of the above services and opting-out when your trial ends. Just don't let the free trial end before you cancel your subscription.

Following all of the broadcast comings-and-goings of sports leagues and teams is enough to drive a person mad. Not only do you need to know which system carries which games, but things are constantly changing and often times, there are hidden costs. I started Lower Tech Bills because since I retired from Radio, I found myself with the time to keep up with the ever-changing world of TV, Cellular and Internet services. Visit www.lowertechbills.com or email hmwellsradio@gmail.com for a free look at your tech bills. I’ve been able to save people hundreds to even thousands of dollars with some savings ongoing. I’ll also answer any questions that you may have in order to give your household a sporting chance to keep your bills from marching to the brink of madness.