It can be a pain in the ass to stream live sports, but this year’s Super Bowl 50 will be easy to watch on February 7, even without a cable subscription. This is a fantastic innovation, because it means cordcutters will spend less time agonizing over how to watch the Denver Broncos play the Carolina Panthers and more time crafting delicious cheese-based dips, as God intended.
If you own a Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Xbox One, or Amazon Fire box, you can download CBS’s Sports or National Football League apps and watch the game for free that way, even if you don’t have a cable subscription. The commercials played on TV will also play through the app.
If you want to watch on your laptop or tablet from within the US, you can go to CBSSports.com. Verizon customers can stream the game on smartphones through its NFL Mobile app. It’ll probably destroy your data package if you’re not using wi-fi, so be careful.
If you’re not in the US, though, it’s much harder to see the game for free. As The New York Times points out, international football fans will need to pay for access:
International fans cannot stream the game without a subscription to N.F.L. Game Pass, a $99-a-year video service for watching football games, according to the N.F.L.
That doesn’t mean Broncos or Panthers fans overseas are screwed. It’s just harder, and (in some cases) less legal to get the game digitally without paying for Game Pass.
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If you know someone who has a TV and a Slingbox, you can use the Slingbox to stream the game to your device, though it’s not really free because a Slingbox is pricy. I can see this option appealing to Americans who happen to be traveling during the Super Bowl, and who already own a Slingbox, but it’s definitely not ideal.
Cult of Mac has another option—in theory, someone could use the service Uno Telly to spoof a US IP address, which would allow international viewers to use the CBS Sports app on Apple TV as though they were within the US. (Gizmodo has never tested the service and cannot recommend it.)
And I’m probably not supposed to tell you this but if you Google “stream Super Bowl” you’ll likely find a malware-riddled stream that you can play directly in your browser. I have done this before in times of desperation, but the buffering situation was NOT ideal, also there’s a roughly 89 percent chance a ring of Russian hackers has been reading all my emails. THIS IS NOT ADVICE DON’T DO THIS I’M JUST SAYIN’ YOU PROBABLY COULD.
Image: AP
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