Amazon Fire TV or something else for live sports?

July 12, 2016 8:12 AM

I want to cancel my U-Verse subscription and still have access to live NHL and MLB games. Would the Amazon Fire TV work for me or is there something better? More details about my TV preferences inside.

My boyfriend and I use an Amazon Fire stick and Netflix account to watch most of the shows we like. Aside from sports, we watch fairly limited TV (local news, History Channel type stuff on weekend mornings, we record Orphan Black). Sports are the main reason we keep U-Verse: live access to NHL and MLB games is non-negotiable.

A friend showed me her Amazon TV with Kodi installed, and the show and movie catalog was impressive, but she didn’t know about sports.

The Fire TV is on sale today, and I am tempted to buy it. Is it a good option for us? Up-front and low monthly costs are both fine.

posted by a moisturizing whip to Technology (8 answers total)

Not the best app in the world, but we have Amazon Fire TV and subscribe to Sling TV so my husband still has access to ESPN and a few other live channels. Take a look and see if it has what you need?
posted by xicana63 at 8:31 AM on July 12, 2016

Best answer: For NHL games (if you live in the US) you would need to pay for NHL.TV to stream games. It's mostly a pretty cool service, I think it's $150-180ish or something for the whole season and most of the games for every team. However, the most annoying thing about it is that they will blackout any games broadcast nationally (on NBC Sports, NBC, and even NHL Network). They will also blackout any games broadcast in your local market, so if you want to watch the home team, you're out of luck, and if you are a fan of the Penguins or Blackhawks or other teams that are frequently on national broadcasts you'll probably be pretty frustrated. Also all of the playoffs are blacked out, I think.

You can get around the blackout using VPN services but that can add another level of pain in the butt to it and you never know when the provider might crack down or whatever.

I don't think NHL.tv is officially available on Amazon Fire but it looks like some people online have got it working via Kodi. Keep in mind, the NHL streaming service switched in January 16, so any info older than that probably isn't useful. It's officially supported on these devices.

I've never used the MLB product but it's done by the same company as the NHL, so there are probably similarities.
posted by ghharr at 8:41 AM on July 12, 2016

MLB.tv is similar - it's great, but only as long as you live out of your team's market.
posted by something something at 8:43 AM on July 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: MLB.tv is offered at a discount this time in the year; for the rest of the regular season it's $80 to watch all games and $60 to just follow one team. BUT, they do block out games if your IP address is in the region of one of the teams. (For example, I'm a Royals fan living in Portland, Ore. – so it's usually great for me. Except Royals-Mariners games are blocked for me even if they're being played in Kansas City, not just in Seattle.) You can enter your ZIP code here to see which teams are blocked there. And most playoff games are blocked if your IP is in the United States. Some people use VPN services to get around this.
posted by lisa g at 8:53 AM on July 12, 2016

Response by poster: We live in our NHL and MLB markets.
posted by a moisturizing whip at 9:18 AM on July 12, 2016

If you live in your MLB market, all games are blacked out for you with the MLB.tv app.
posted by jillithd at 9:26 AM on July 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

See if PlayStation Vue works for you.
posted by evoque at 10:35 AM on July 12, 2016

Best answer: I have a Fire Stick with Kodi installed. I can get baseball and hockey streams. It's not 100% reliable (about as reliable as when you go looking for streams on the internet), but it hasn't been a major problem for me. So you could put Kodi on the Fire Stick and see how you like it, before upgrading to the box, or you might not even need to upgrade to get what you want.
posted by miles1972 at 11:53 AM on July 12, 2016