The last time HBO Max subscribers got hit with a price hike, the service was still called “Max.” But following the recent switch back to HBO Max, the streamer’s boss sounds like he’s itching for a price increase.  “The fact that this is quality—and that’s true across our company, motion picture, TV production and streaming quality—we all think that gives us a chance to raise [the] price,” said Warner Bros. Discover CEO David Zaslav during a recent investor conference (as per The Hollywood Reporter). “We think we’re way underpriced. We’re going to take our time.”  When Zaslav says “we’re going to take our time,” I’d interpret that as maybe a month or two, not much more. The last time HBO Max (we’ll just keep calling it that to cut down on confusion) raised prices was roughly 15 months ago, when the streamer hiked the price of its two ad-free tiers by a buck each, while leaving its “Basic with Ads” tier alone.  Here’s a breakdown of HBO Max’s current price structure:  Basic with Ads: $9.99 a month, or $99.99 a year  Standard: $16.99 a month, $169.99 a year  Premium: $20.99 a month, $209.99 a year  As a reminder, HBO Max’s Premium tier gives you four simultaneous 4K UHD streams with Dolby Atmos support plus up to 100 downloads at a time. The Standard plan offers two 1080p streams with 30 downloads at once, while Basic with Ads serves up two ad-supported 1080p streams without the downloads.  While HBO Max’s Basic with Ads tier didn’t get hit with a price hike last June, it did lose access to the Bleacher Report as well as CNN back in February, leaving subscribers with less to stream in terms of live sports and news coverage.  So, when might a new HBO Max price hike arrive? Zaslav didn’t specify during his remarks earlier this week, but streaming price increases tend to land around the same time as quarterly earnings are announced. HBO Max parent Warner Bros. Discovery delivered its second-quarter 2025 earnings in early August, which means we’re due for another quarterly earnings report in November. Look for word of price increases right around then, if not sooner. The good news is that HBO Max does offer annual plans, which allow you to lock in a cheaper rate before a planned price hike kicks in, provided you’re willing to fork over for an entire year’s worth of streaming at once.  Aside from his pricing remarks, Zaslav touched on HBO Max’s password sharing crackdown, which is slated to crank up several notches in the coming months. HBO Max rolled out an “Extra Member Add-On” option back in April that lets subscribers share their accounts with others outside their households for $7.99 a month per sub-account.  While HBO Max has been content with “gentle messaging” towards users that are suspected of sharing passwords, the streamer has promised to get more “aggressive” as the year rolls on.  “We haven’t been pushing on the password sharing and the economics yet,” Zaslav said. “People are really starting to love HBO Max. That’s the key. We want them to fall in love with our content, with our series…It’s all tricky with the password sharing. We’re going to begin to push on that.” Read...

You don’t need a full-priced pay TV package to get local channels and sports anymore. While YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV cost upwards of $83 per month, new skinny bundles from DirecTV, Fubo, Sling TV, and even Comcast offer live sports for less. New standalone options from ESPN and Fox present even more ways to save money. But depending on what you want to watch, some of these bundles will work better than others. The situation reminds me a bit of cord-cutting’s early years, in which every live TV streaming service came with some notable omissions. Below, I’ll help you sort through them all to find the best sports bundle for your needs. Streaming sports packages compared Here’s a chart with all of the sports bundles available as of September 2025: Jared Newman / Foundry You can also view a Google Sheets version of this chart. I took some liberties with which services to include in the chart, most notably omitting full-size pay TV packages such as YouTube TV ($83 per month), Hulu + Live TV (also $83 per month), Fubo’s standard packages (starting at $98 per month after regional sports fees), and DirecTV’s Signature packages (starting at $85 per month). Those packages include a broader mix of entertainment channels, so one of them would be a better choice if you’re trying to fully replicate a cable bundle. For the services I did include, it’s helpful to think of them in terms of what each one is missing. For instance: DirecTV MyNews: Offers local channels, but no other sports channels. DirecTV MySports: No Tennis channel. Fubo Sports: No NBC or other Comcast-owned channels, and nothing from Warner Bros. Discovery (such as TNT and TBS). Xfinity Sports & News: No league-specific channels. Sling TV Select: Only works for sports if the local channels it carries are available in your particular market. ESPN Unlimited bundles: Missing at least two of the big four local channels and many less-popular sports channels. Note that with DirecTV’s skinny bundles and Sling Select, local channels aren’t available in every market, and Fubo is only selling its Sports bundle in select markets for now. In all cases, you’ll need to check their websites for availability in your area. As for Xfinity’s Sports & News bundle, it’s only available in Comcast’s cable markets, although it doesn’t require a cable box. You can also access it via the Xfinity Stream app on Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, Samsung TVs, and LG TVs. If you’re wondering why most of these sports-focused bundles also include cable news, that’s a whole other story. Fox has reportedly been unwilling to uncouple Fox News from its broadcast and sports channels, so there’s likely some reluctance by other programmers to unbundle as well. Which is the best sports bundle? The great thing about these new packages is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer as to which one is best. If you’re only trying to watch your local NFL team and can’t pick up the broadcast with one of our favorite antennas, for instance, DirecTV MyNews will be your cheapest option. Conversely, antenna users might use ESPN Unlimited’s bundles to supplement what they can get for free over-the-air. Fubo Sports’ lack of NBC could also be fine if you can do without Sunday Night Football, while DirecTV MySports comes closest to meeting all your sports needs (albeit at a higher price). What each of these services provide is a modicum of choice and flexibility in an industry that’s long been bereft of it. As such, they’ve recalibrated how much you’ll need to spend to watch both your local broadcast channels and live sports. Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter for more streaming TV advice. Read...

A round-up of sports news from around the region, including Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow being ruled out of playing for Samoa in rugby league`s Pacific Championships. Read...

TechHive Editors Choice At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Roku’s least expensive 4K HDR player Compact design fits behind a TV and is suitable for travel Better performance and Wi-Fi reception than the cheaper Roku Streaming Stick Cons Increasingly cluttered home screen Some old TVs might require a separate power adapter No Dolby Vision or Dolby Atmos support Our Verdict The middle dongle in Roku’s latest streamer lineup is just right. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Roku Streaming Stick Plus Retailer Price $29 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices At a list price of $40—and often on sale for less—the Roku Streaming Stick Plus hits a sweet spot. It’s not the cheapest streaming dongle Roku sells, but it’s the least expensive option with 4K HDR video, and it sports slightly better performance than the $30 Roku Streaming Stick. Its portable design is also an improvement over the Roku Express 4K+, which Roku previously sold at the same price. I still have some misgivings about Roku’s software, which is gradually getting more complicated and bloated. But if you enjoy the Roku experience as it is, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus is a solid option. What’s included with the Roku Streaming Stick Plus The Roku Streaming Stick Plus has the same finger-sized design as the cheaper Roku Streaming Stick I reviewed in July, distinguished only by its embossed black “Roku” logo instead of a painted-on purple one. Its built-in HDMI connector plugs directly into one of your TV’s HDMI ports, and if it doesn’t fit within the spacing of those ports, you can request a free extender cable. Unlike earlier Roku models, the Streaming Stick Plus does not include a power adapter. Instead, you get a five-foot USB-A-to USB-C cable to plug into the USB power port on most modern TVs. The dongle had no trouble drawing enough power this way from the TVs I tested it with, but you might need to go hunting for an outlet adapter for old TVs that don’t provide USB power. For video, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus streams at up to 4K resolution with support for HDR and HDR10+, but not Dolby Vision. You need to step up to the $50 Roku Streaming Stick 4K for that. On the audio side, Dolby Atmos is also missing, as that feature is only available on the $100 Roku Ultra. Jared Newman / Foundry Roku now ships the same basic Voice Remote with all of its lower-end players. Like every other Roku current model, it includes buttons to control your TV’s volume and power, providing a single-remote solution unless you have an external sound system that doesn’t support HDMI-CEC. If that’s the case, you’ll need a separate remote for volume adjustments. (Because the Streaming Stick Plus doesn’t accept IR input, it won’t work with basic universal remotes.) One thing missing from this model is Bluetooth support. You can still connect earbuds to your phone and use Roku’s mobile app for private listening, but the Roku Ultra remains the only player that supports pairing headphones or earbuds directly to the streaming device. Roku Streaming Stick Plus performance and Wi-Fi reception Roku does an admirable job optimizing its software to run on lightweight hardware, so there isn’t a huge performance difference between each of its players. Still, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus does have some noticeable improvements over the cheaper Streaming Stick. In my side-by-side testing, the Streaming Stick Plus typically loaded apps a few seconds faster, and was quicker at filling program guide details as I scrolled through the Pluto TV app. Netflix in particular seemed to benefit, as the Streaming Stick Plus would often would return to where I was in Netflix’s menu system after switching to a different app. (With the cheaper Streaming Stick, Netflix usually needed a full reload.) The Roku Streaming Stick Plus also supports Wi-Fi 5, rather than Wi-Fi 4 as on the Streaming Stick, and I observed better Wi-Fi performance at long range as a result. Testing from the far end of my back yard on a portable monitor, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus maintained speeds around 20Mbps, while the Streaming Stick averaged less than 10Mbps and displayed a weak signal warning. Meanwhile, the $50 Roku Streaming Stick 4K achieved speeds of around 100Mbps in the same test. The improved Wi-Fi won’t matter in areas with solid reception—both models maintained 100Mbps connections in the office where my router is located—but it could make a difference on the fringes. If you want to use wired ethernet, Roku says the Streaming Stick Plus is compatible with USB-C-to-ethernet adapters that supply power, but I was unable to get it connected with several multiport USB-C hubs. The Roku Ultra is a better bet if ethernet is a must. Roku software: Familiar layout, new distractions Jared Newman / Foundry While Roku has traditionally prided itself on simplicity, in recent years that mission has been at odds with the economics of Roku’s business, which calls for ever-more ad revenue and—more recently—a push for more subscriptions. This manifests itself in a bunch of ways: The Home section, which once presented a straightforward list of your installed apps, now includes promotional content tiles and links to various content submenus. The left sidebar menu now has a banner ad at the bottom, which means the default menu options don’t all fit and you must scroll up and down to see them all. The banner ads in both the Home section and sidebar menu now have animations and video. More of Roku’s own apps are now pre-installed, including the recently acquired Frndly TV and the recently launched Howdy. The bottom-left banner covers up some menu options.Jared Newman / Foundry Fundamentally, it’s fine for Roku to try moving past the app grid paradigm and recommending more things to watch from the home screen. People do need help sorting through all their streaming services, and other streaming platforms have been trying to tackle that problem for years. But a lot of what Roku’s doing weighs too heavily on the side of upselling more services instead of helping navigate what you’re already paying for. To wit: Roku has a useful “Continue Watching” feature that tracks all the shows you’re watching across different services, but it’s buried in a “What to Watch” menu that’s all too easy to ignore. Why not put it in the newly-expanded Home section instead? “Continue Watching” is a great feature that’s too hard to reach.Jared Newman / Foundry Roku still deserves credit for nailing a lot of the little things. Many folks appreciate the remote’s dedicated fast-forward, rewind, and play/pause buttons—Google TV and Apple TV devices omit these—as well as the “Replay” button that jumps back in time with closed captions temporarily enabled. Roku also does a great job surfacing free content through its Featured Free menu and Roku Channel app, and support for Apple’s AirPlay comes in handy for sharing content from iPhones and iPads. The experience is overall positive; there’s just so much room for improvement. “Featured Free” is a dedicated menu for free movies and shows (with ads).Jared Newman / Foundry Roku Streaming Stick Plus vs. the rest For most Roku fans, the Streaming Stick Plus is a better option than the $30 Streaming Stick, with speedier app load times, better Wi-Fi connectivity, and 4K HDR video support. It’s also worth considering over the $50 Roku Streaming Stick 4K if you don’t care about Dolby Vision and have a decent Wi-Fi setup. I’d also pick the Roku Streaming Stick Plus over Amazon’s low-cost Fire TV Sticks, because for as cluttered as Roku’s software has become, Amazon’s is still a lot worse. If you prefer a more content-forward interface, consider Walmart’s Onn streaming devices (the $20 Onn box, $30 Onn 4K Plus, or $50 Onn 4K Pro) as alternatives. Otherwise, the middle dongle in Roku’s lineup should be all you need. This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best streaming devices. Read...

Laura Robson, now a courtside reporter for Sky Sports, defied US Open orders not to comment on the boos aimed at Donald Trump. Read...

Video of the moment during the Philadelphia Philliies vs Miami Marlins game showed the woman claiming the ball from the child, who was celebrating his birthday. Read...

Welcome to The Full Nerd newsletter—your weekly dose of hardware talk from the enthusiasts at PCWorld. Missed the latest topics on our YouTube show or the hot news from across the web? You’re in the right place. Want this newsletter to come directly to your inbox? Sign up on our website! I’ve been called “process oriented” more than once in my life. I don’t mind. People take systems for granted, but their structure provides a sense of safety and security. Until they don’t. I feel a lot people missed the point last month, when news circulated about 2.5 billion Google users potentially at risk following a data leak. Everyone immediately jumped to the idea that passwords needed to be changed—not a bad instinct, as we ended up discussing on The Full Nerd this week. But as that very conversation illustrates, people usually focus on the smaller details: who got hacked, if data was leaked, and whether a password change is warranted. (Spoiler: I believe that changing a password takes so little time, you should just do it when the topic ever comes up.) What most folks don’t focus on the fact that Google’s data leak happened through a major third-party vendor—and followed on the heels of other major companies suffering data leaks through the same source. That external company is Salesforce, no small player either. When I hop on my computer or phone each day, I believe in the technology. I assume the services and apps I use won’t add extra demands to my day. But with the ever-expanding scope of data breaches and leaks, that trust is slipping. And perhaps it’s a good thing that it is. A password manager is just one part of keeping on top of security disasters that are out of our control. IDG As end users, you and I have little control over the systems we all rely on. But we do have a say over our response to chaos. Problems occur when I assume peace and tranquility, and then a huge disruption lands on my doorstep. Right now, people focus on what to do in the moment, and breathe a sigh of relief when the damage doesn’t appear to be widespread. For this example, Google ended up clarifying that no accounts were compromised as a result of the Salesforce leak—and the talk started turning to no one having to worry. I’m a contrarian on this point. I say we should keep talking about how to handle online security, especially as the largest players fall victim to exploits. Not just the thing to do at the moment, but how easily a person can enact those changes. So yes, folks should know to update their passwords any time there’s a breach. That’s still vitally important. But a user should ideally be able to rotate a password in just a few minutes, too—they should operate in a way where it can happen fast, without needing to be thought about again later on. Because what happens on the day that Google does fall to a breach? Or DNS finally folds in on itself because hackers are no longer content to mess around for sheer amusement? Most people haven’t planned for such disruption.  How well would you cope? In this episode of The Full Nerd In this episode of The Full Nerd, Alaina Yee, Brad Chacos, Will Smith, and Michael Crider chat about AM4 getting another extension on life and the current best practices for online security. At least, that’s what went on the books—in practice, we squeezed in a bonus discussion about AMD’s ROCm software, based on Will’s recent interview. I may also be sporting a very special new look this week.  (I can’t say it grew on me—at least not literally—but you know what, I’d do it again sometime after Adam returns from his IFA travels.) Welcome to this episode of The Full Beard.Willis Lai / Foundry Missed our live show? Subscribe now to The Full Nerd Network YouTube channel, and activate notifications. We also answer viewer questions in real-time! Don’t miss out on our NEW shows too—you can catch the episodes Dual Boot Diaries and The Full Nerd: Extra Edition now! And if you need more hardware talk during the rest of the week, come join our Discord community—it’s full of cool, laid-back nerds. This week’s wonderous nerd news A long holiday weekend in the U.S. makes for quieter news, but some nifty science, several fun projects (including a retro gaming setup that works off your PC), and a new gaming keypad got my brain going. My wallet is also lighter now, too. It’s pretty, for sure.Keychron An engineer used AI to convert ASCII art to real-time graphics: The concept definitely caught my attention. AI as a “translator” between mediums is an interesting idea. (As for how good the art looks…let’s chalk that up to matter of taste.) Car transmission fluid, the new coolant? I present to you this week’s contender for “Why? Well, why not?” (That said, this experiment netted 7 to 16 percent performance gains. Nice.) You can turn a USB flash drive into a portable games console: This fun project comes courtesy of my colleague Dominic Bayley. It leans on an inexpensive thumb drive and Batocera to work, plus whatever input (controller or keyboard) you like best. And ROMs that you have legal standing to use, of course. I’m onboard for this style of nostalgia: This LEGO concept is neat—and we should push it further. Translucent plastic cases always looked good. Give me more products like the Teenage Engineering PC case, but in original iMac candy colors! This homebrew Commodore 64 Datasette sports 1MB per tape: I can only aspire to this level of ingenuity. Keychron has a new one-handed gaming keypad: But oof, that price tag. It actually made me just bite the bullet on its far cheaper sibling, in order to try my hand at full keyboard gaming. Wish me luck, I’m gonna need it. So much cool science: I’m a simple person. Jelly ice and glowing succulents sound dope. I’m becoming more of a PC gamer for this reason: Console prices have now bucked their historical trends and gone up while aging—a result of U.S. tariffs. Meanwhile, I just bought another Steam license for Untitled Goose Game because I could afford it. (Am I a real PC gamer now?) Catch you all next week—maybe by then, I can report back on how my attempt to transition from my specialized PC gaming controller to full keyboard navigation is going. I have a feeling my initial notes will include a lot of colorful language. Alaina This newsletter is dedicated to the memory of Gordon Mah Ung, founder and host of The Full Nerd, and executive editor of hardware at PCWorld. Read...

Test your sporting knowledge with our weekly quiz on current sports events. Read...

No professional sport has been more savvy and enthusiastic about offering new ways to present football games to fans. There are more options than ever for watching–and streaming–NFL games in 2025. Our in-depth guide will show you all the ways you can watch every game of the season without needing to pay for an expensive cable or satellite TV subscription. Watch football with an over-the-air antenna Unlike the NBA, NHL, or MLB, the NFL plays a simple 17-game schedule, with each team playing one game a week. That lends itself to predictable TV programming. The league splits the Sunday afternoon telecasts by conference: generally, AFC games air on CBS, and Fox televises the NFC games. NBC hosts the popular Sunday Night Football broadcast. Those games generally kick off each week at 8:20 p.m. ET. ABC broadcasts many Monday Night Football at 8:00 p.m. ET, but you’ll need access to ESPN to see every Monday-night game. So, if you have an over-the-air TV antenna and reasonable proximity to a broadcast tower, you should be able to watch most of the NFL action for free. We can help you find the right antenna for your needs. When I want to know which game is on which channel, I consult either 506Sports.com or Sports Media Watch. I suggest you bookmark one or the other for easy access. Amazon Prime Video will stream all Thursday Night Football games for the 2023 NFL season. Streaming services offering NFL games Even if you don’t have a cable subscription or a TV antenna, you still have plenty of options for catching all the pro pigskin action. Streaming options continue to expand each season, and you need only a smart TV or a media streamer and a subscription to access them. These are our top picks in streaming devices If you don’t already have one. Verizon is once again offering a free season of NFL Sunday Ticket to new and existing subscribers who are willing to jump through some hoops, but Sling TV offers the least-expensive means of watching NFL games if you can’t use an antenna. Its new short-term “passes” deliver access to its Orange channel bundle, which includes ESPN. A $4.99 Day Pass provides 24 hours of access, a $9.99 Weekend Pass is good Friday through Sunday, and $14.99 Week Pass covers you for seven consecutive days. Unfortunately, ESPN owner Disney has filed a lawsuit to stop Sling from including ESPN in these passes. Stay tuned. Sling also offers a more complete TV offering with its Orange and Blue packages, which include local broadcast channels (ABC, Fox, and NBC, but not CBS) in some markets. Subscribe to both for $60.99 per month, and you’ll also get ESPN and the NFL Network, while its Sports Extra add-on ($11 a month) includes NFL RedZone. I’ll cover the streaming services that compete with Sling in a moment. NBC-owned Peacock streams Sunday Night Football on its Premium ($10.99/mo) or Premium Plus ($16.99/mo) service tiers if you can’t use an antenna to receive those broadcasts. Prime Video is the home of Thursday Night Football (TNF). Amazon will stream 15 games, including the Black Friday game (Eagles vs. the Bears, in Chicago, November 28) and the Christmas night game (Broncos vs. the Chiefs, in Kansas City, December 25). You’ll need to be an Amazon Prime subscriber to watch those matches. While only the hardest of hardcore football fans will sign up solely for NFL games, membership does offer lots of other benefits, starting with free expedited shipping on Amazon purchases; Amazon music, movies, and TV shows; video games; and a Grubhub+ subscription. Subscriptions cost $14.99 per month or $139 per year. Netflix, now in the second year of its three-year Christmas deal, will exclusively stream two games on December 25: The Dallas Cowboys at the Washington Commanders at 1:00 p.m. ET, and the Detroit Lions at the Minnesota Vikings at 4:30 p.m. ET. Netflix subscriptions range from $7.99 per month for the ad-supported tier to $24.99 per month for 4K resolution and spatial audio. Together with the evening game on Prime Video, this creates a Christmas tripleheader. DirectTVStream offers CBS, NBC, Fox, and ESPN in its $84.99-per-month Entertainment package. New subscriptions come with a $35 discount for a month, before reverting to whatever the current monthly price is. Sling TV’s Day, Weekend, and Week Passes give you access to its Orange channel bundle, which includes ESPN.Sling Fubo will give you CBS, FOX, and NBC for all Sunday games, as well as ESPN for Monday Night Football and the NFL Network as part of its Pro package, which costs $84.99 per month. Currently, it’s offering $30 off the first month. For an additional $10.99 per month, you can also get NFL RedZone via the service’s Sports Plus add-on. Hosted by Scott Hanson and existing only for about a seven-hour window each Sunday, RedZone airs nothing but the day’s highlights (mostly touchdowns, as the name suggests) at a frenetic pace that perfectly evokes the adrenaline rush of a game-winning drive. Here’s an easy guide to signing up for NFL RedZone. Both Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV include ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, and NFL Network in their subscriptions for $82.99 per month each. Currently, New YouTube TV customers can get the first three months for $49.99 before the rate reverts to the regular price. YouTube TV also offers NFL RedZone as part of its Sports Plus add-on for an additional $10.99 a month. YouTube also offers NFL Sunday Ticket, which lets you stream every out-of-market NFL game on Sundays. Returning NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers can add it to their YouTube TV subscription for an additional $47.25 per month for the eight months of the regular season ($378 in total). New subscribers who sign up before September 30, however, will pay $34.50 per month for those eight months ($276 in total). If you don’t want to pay for YouTube TV, returning NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers can sign up via YouTube PrimeTime Channels for $60 per month ($480 for the season). Here again, new subscribers get a break, paying $34.50 per month ($276 for the season). Just be aware that neither of these options can be cancelled and there are no refunds. Netflix, which created the popular Quarterback documentary, has deepened its ties with the NFL through a three-year deal to host the league’s Christmas package. This year, that includes the Cowboys at Commanders at 1 p.m. ET and the Lions at Vikings at 4:30 p.m. ET. Netflix offers three paid plans: Standard with ads ($7.99 a month), Standard ($17.99 a month), and Premium ($24.99 a month), with perks such as additional device support, the ability to add members, and spatial audio tacked on as you move up the tiers. Paramount+ streams CBS’s NFL telecasts to subscribers of its $7.99-per-month Essential plan. We have another story that provides even more details about watching NFL games on Paramount+. Peacock will exclusively carry a Week 17 primetime matchup on December 27, 2025, as part of its “Peacock Holiday Exclusive.” It will also stream all NBC Sunday Night Football games, including the playoffs, and the Football Night in America studio show. A Peacock Premium plan costs $10.99 a month; a Premium Plus Plan, $16.99 per month, removes ads and enables you to download and watch select titles offline. What’s included with an NFL+ subscription? NFL+ is the NFL’s own streaming service, which replaced its popular subscription package, NFL Game Pass. A $6.99-per-month ($49.99 per season) NFL+ subscription allows you to watch local and primetime games live on your mobile devices. It also includes access to live out-of-market preseason games, live game audio, and the NFL Network. If you level up to an NFL+ Premium plan, which costs $14.99 per month ($99.99 per season), you’ll get everything in the standard NFL+ plan; plus, NFL Red Zone and the ability to replay every regular-season game after its conclusion in either full or condensed versions. The NFL+ Premium plan also gives you access to the NFL Pro platform. Targeting the league’s most rabid fans, this offering allows subscribers to dive into the games’ minutiae via the ability to search through the All-22 coaches film, which lets you watch games from different angles to analyze plays in detail. You also gain access to player and performance metrics via NFL Next Gen Stats, which uses sensors and RFID tags to collect data on everything from ball movement to player speed, acceleration, and location. It’s worth noting that you don’t need to purchase a separate subscription to get on-the-go access to live games, as that’s offered with many of the services listed above. NFL+ replaces the league’s NFL Game Pass subscription streaming service. With it, you can stream out-of-market pre-season games live on any device. You can watch live regular-season games on your smartphone or tablet.Michael Brown/Foundry What’s next for NFL streaming? Super Bowl LIX, drew more than 123 million viewers across all platforms, once again ranking as the most-watched broadcast in U.S. television history. That record audience proves fans are willing to follow the league wherever it goes. The bigger question is how far the NFL will push exclusive streaming in future seasons. With multiple platforms now claiming pieces of the schedule, fans already face juggling subscriptions—and rising costs—if they want to see every game. If the league continues down this path, it could reshape how we experience live sports in the 21st century as profoundly as the shift to broadcast television did in the 20th. Read...

If you were paying extra for ESPN+, you might not need to anymore. That’s one key takeaway from the launch of ESPN’s standalone streaming service, which includes all the network’s cable channels along with the service formerly known as ESPN+ (and now called ESPN Select). As more TV providers start bundling ESPN’s new streaming service, they’re essentially adding ESPN+ at no extra charge. So, if your TV package includes ESPN Unlimited, take a minute to make sure you’re not subscribed separately to ESPN+. You’ll only be paying more for the same exact programming. ESPN+ vs. ESPN Select vs. ESPN Unlimited First, a quick refresher on ESPN’s confusing streaming plans: ESPN+ was the previous name for ESPN’s $12-per-month subscription service. It mostly covers live sports that do not air on ESPN’s cable channels, including out-of-market NHL games, La Liga and Bundesliga soccer, and Major League Rugby. ESPN Select is the new name for the subscription with just ESPN+ content, which still costs $12 per month. (The network says it will continue to mark this content with ESPN+ branding.) ESPN Unlimited is the new $30-per-month plan for all of ESPN’s cable programming, including live sports on ABC, extra channels such as ESPN2, and the ACC and SEC college networks. It also includes the full ESPN+ catalog. ESPN Unlimited is a big deal because it means you don’t need a big pay TV bundle to access the network’s cable programming anymore. Even so, several pay TV providers have started boasting about making the service available to their customers. In practice, this just means they’re bundling ESPN+ and allowing customers to stream through the ESPN app. Which pay TV providers include ESPN Unlimited? ESPN’s website maintains a list of providers offering ESPN Unlimited. Here they are as of September 3, 2025: Spectrum TV Select Signature and Select Plus (activate here) Fubo base plans and Sports plan (activate here) Hulu + Live TV (log into the ESPN app with your MyDisney account) DirecTV MySports and Signature plans (streaming only for now, activate here) Starting on September 4, Verizon will also offer ESPN Unlimited to all customers who get ESPN as part of a Fios TV package. DirecTV says it will bring ESPN Unlimited to satellite and U-Verse customers later this fall. What if my TV package doesn’t include ESPN Unlimited? Other providers, such as YouTube TV, Comcast, and Sling TV, haven’t announced any plans to include ESPN Unlimited. But if you don’t care about ESPN+ programming, that’s not a problem. Just like before, you can access ESPN channels via your TV provider’s menu system or log into the ESPN app with your pay TV account. The only practical difference is that you won’t have access to ESPN+ content, which costs $12 per month on its own and doesn’t require a full ESPN Unlimited subscription. Just don’t pay for ESPN+ twice For TV packages that didn’t already include ESPN+, the addition of ESPN Unlimited means you’re essentially getting it for free. Spectrum, for instance, had only offered ESPN+ with its TV Select Plus package, which costs $130 per month. A spokesman confirmed that Spectrum’s $125-per-month TV Select Signature plan now includes ESPN Unlimited as well. DirecTV, Verizon, and Fubo, meanwhile, had not included ESPN+ in any of their standard streaming packages. All three companies confirmed that ESPN+ content is part of their ESPN Unlimited offerings. So if you were paying $12 per month for a standalone ESPN+ subscription, you should be able to cancel it and get the same content through the above TV providers. Likewise, if you’re paying for Disney’s “Trio” bundle with Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, you can save $6 per month by paring back to the “Duo” bundle instead. Occasionally auditing your subscriptions is always a smart idea, but it’s especially important now as programmers start re-bundling their programming in new ways. Otherwise, you might end up paying for duplicates. Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter for more money-saving streaming advice. Read...