ESPN3 / WatchESPN
 

I understand ESPN moved all of the TV airing content to Watch ESPN and away from ESPN3.

Fine. Squeeze your cable providers.

I can't seem to figure out, now, how to find just ESPN3, though. Granted this may be a firewall or cookie issue on my end, but I can't get the old ESPN3 interface to load. Anyone seeing the same thing?

Its effectively the same thing as far as i can tell. Except anything good is blacked out unless you are logged into Watch ESPN.

(Anything on an ESPN network is only available on Watch ESPN. ESPN3 is for "exclusive" events, like Central Florida - Akron.

ESPN3.com re-directs to WatchESPN, but from there, you can pull up any game that's listed as airing on ESPN3. And you may not even have to verify your internet provider anymore.

OK, I think it must be a firewall issue for me.

As a cord cutter, this was awful news for me today

ESPN3 was too good to be true. This is going to get more and more exclusive to providers as more and more people decide to watch ESPN3 or other sports online. They're paying too much money to not lock it up in super exclusivity contracts for big bucks

SI

Definitely not the same thing, although the second paragraph pretty much sums it up. ESPN changed it last week where anything airing on the ESPN family of networks is available on WatchESPN. ESPN3 is only for "exclusive" programming that ESPN has rights for that don't air on the networks, such as international soccer, cricket and regional college. Most of its college games this year will be of the Sun Belt variety and out-of-market PPV games.

I imagine that if the same standard is used for college basketball, the lineup will be better. A lot of schools like Kansas use ESPN to distribute their regional package (think ESPN Plus).

ESPN3 was definitely too good to be true because it allowed you to get ESPN live content without subscribing to ESPN. The cable companies have negotiated with ESPN to require you be a subscriber to get the content.

Unfortunately, ESPN3 is now a steaming pile.

Yeah, I guess I'm happy I'm with a provider that gets it but ESPN will just negotiate for that much more next time around and my bills will go up more...

SI

Does anyone know of a relatively easy way to stream ESPN3 to a TV using a wireless modem? With college football season coming up, there are a lot of games I'd like to watch on my HDTV instead of sitting at the computer.

Amazon.com: Google Chromecast HDMI Streaming Media Player: Electronics

May not be available again by the start of college football season, but it looks like it may be the best option for this sort of thing.

It frustrates me that I have AT&T but not U-Verse so I can't get ESPN3. I checked and was told I couldn't get it where I lived despite not being out in no man's land and actually by a major exit for the area.

I've heard the audio sync is pretty bad on this.

Couldn't you just run an HDMI cable to the TV and use it as a second monitor? That's what I do. It depends on how old your TV and computer are though.

I'm guessing he was trying to avoid that, which is why he referred to his wireless modem.

ROKU maybe...
if you have a smart TV, isn't there an app for it?

WatchESPN isn't on Chromecast yet, and ESPN hasn't said whether it will or not.

From what I've read, the only way in theory you can watch ESPN3 content is to mirror it in a Chrome tab on your computer. That is theory, I don't see a reference to anything confirming you can do that. But if you're mirror a Chrome tab in a browser, I'm guessing the quality would be suspect.

It works on a google tv through its chrome browser. The only problem is the browser is crap and crashes a lot.

Apple TV has an app.

Xbmc on a computer can stream it with a plugin.

My Chromecast is on backorder, but I found some additional info.

Apparently, ESPN3 streams well through Chromecast if your PC has at least a 2GHz processor. Also you'll need a good, fast wireless connection (the PC can cast through an ethernet connection to the router, which actually works better because it won't be using the wireless router to receive and retransmit the signal to the Chromecast).

Also, if you merely open the ESPN3 event and cast it directly to the TV, the resolution will be poor. However, if you "right click" the top bar of the window and select "show as tab", and then cast the tab, you'll get HD quality resolution on the TV.

I'll let you know as soon as my chromecast works. Tried for 3 hours last night, but it kept saying I had no Internet connection. Which is odd, because the Internet was working fine on all my devices.

On a related note, if I have the Directv sports pack and ESPN3, would that eliminate the need to subscribe to ESPN Gameplan to see all of the available games that are shown on Gameplan?

Following up: RE Directv Sports Pack

I thought I'd pass this along. I researched the first two weeks of televised games, and if you have the Directv Sports Pack plus ESPN3, there's no reason to waste money on ESPN Gameplan. The Gameplan games are shown in SD, and every single game on Gameplan is also available in HD either via the RSN's on the Sports Pack or on ESPN3.