(Newswire.net — January 28, 2021) — We don’t know about you, but we are missing our live events, football stadium and mad football chants. With no end in sight for the lockdown in various places around the States, everyone is getting a little stir-crazy. What streaming apps and sites are out there to help us lessen the tedium and get us through this national crisis. See this article about the joys of having a streaming app.
The Sports Networks and Their Offerings
The big sports channels all have their live streaming feeds now, on a digital box or through a website. One of the biggest and most popular is ESPN+ which is available on Android TV, Apple TV, Fire TV, Xbox, Roku devices, and on your web browsers. But even the big boys have problems with the bandwidth and technology.
This weekend’s much-anticipated return of McGregor to the Octagon was heavily subscribed. But the Pay-per-view event UFC 257 was marred by intermittent connection problems for many subscribers who had paid a flat fee of $70 for the privilege. Thankfully it only affected the undercard and the main event of McGregor vs Dustin Poirier wasn’t interrupted. But nevertheless, ESPN has been forced to issue partial refunds for the debacle. See the Verge for more information on how this unfolded.
And it wasn’t just in the US, People in the UK watching on Virgin Media and BT Sport in the UK had similar connection problems suggesting it was a problem with the production company and their live feed going out to the networks. Thankfully the Brits were only paying about $27 for the same event.
Pirate Live-Streaming
These problems are few and far between but show you how precarious the streaming technology can be, especially when set against the fight against illegal streaming. The UFC was making a big thing about making this UFC event free from illegal streaming sites and then this happened. BeoutQ in Saudi Arabia is a direct rip-off of BeIN sports of Qatar and continues to illegally stream all the same English Premiership content without paying for any licensing.
Aside from these channels that seem to be coming into questions, there are football streaming and news sites like 101greatgoals.com live streaming that show us that there are plenty of ways to get private streams to watch football. And many of these live streaming options are affordable without being tied into a contract that makes you pay through the roof just to watch football.
And there are hundreds if not thousands of other pirate broadcasters who live-stream English football. For some, it’s the democratisation of the most popular sport in the world. Why should it be exclusive to only rich folk who can afford the hefty monthly subscription fees? But others view it as unfair to the clubs, football pyramid and TV companies that pay billions for the rights to the content.
Is the Subscription Worth It?
There is also a distinct quality difference between an illegal stream and a legitimate stream like ESPN+ or BeIN sports. The illegal streams are often lower picture or sound resolution to reduce the bandwidth and will get interrupted several times over a 90 min match.
The legal streams, despite what we said about UFC 257 are much more stable because they are using world-class servers that can handle the data load and traffic. So, viewers paying for their feed will benefit in several ways. They won’t have the constant interruption of having to reload the stream or have to look for alternative ones at crucial moments of the game.
They won’t have to worry about virus’s or clicking on phishing sites. And they won’t be several minutes behind the live-action, because illegal streams often lag the actual live game by minutes so a goal could have happened and you’ve already been text by your pal gloating or you miss a bet on the next goal-scorer.