Best way to watch Spurs in Boerne area? (Dallas, Howe: 2013, home)

[loves2read]

My sister lives north of SA and loves the Spurs...
She is on limited budget--has wifi but no cable

Anyone know a streaming service that I can pay for a subscription for her to watch the games live?
NBA League Pass won't let her IP work w/Spurs and not sure if she can use a VPN wo dropping off too much...

Direct TV would be too $$ I think

[ged_782]

Well, as far as the games that are broadcast on KENS TV channel 5, those can be received free of charge with an appropriate antenna, and a digital tuner (which is built into most newer TVs). Probably need an outdoor antenna in the Boerne area.


As for the games broadcast on Cable/satellite channels, that could be more of a challenge. ESPN & ESPN2 are in the $20/month SlingTV streaming package. As for games on FOX Sports Southwest, not sure about that one, without some kind of subscription.


Until we get to the playoffs, it seems like most of the games are broadcast on KENS TV.

[loves2read]

Forgot about Sling we have sling box for watching. Dallas Cowboys when we are in FL

I bought her a Roku streaming stick and signed on to several of my streaming sites like Netflix and Acorn tv for her to use but remote is dead after 6 wks of use--not happy about that and leery of buying another stick for that reason

[ged_782]

Originally Posted by loves2read

I bought her a Roku streaming stick and signed on to several of my streaming sites like Netflix and Acorn tv for her to use but remote is dead after 6 wks of use--not happy about that and leery of buying another stick for that reason

Roku remotes are notorious for becoming non-responsive after a while (and it's not the batteries), but there is a reset procedure you can try, before you go out and buy a new remote. The reset worked for me, when it looked like mine had gone dead.
Roku How To: Roku Remote Stopped Working - Easy Solution

[spursfan]

I've heard good things about Ballstreams, you might want to check that out.

[Bo]

Originally Posted by ged_782

Until we get to the playoffs, it seems like most of the games are broadcast on KENS TV.

Far from it. The handful of games KENS carries are Friday night home games. The rest are on FSSW or ESPN or TNT.

[ged_782]

Originally Posted by Bo

The handful of games KENS carries are Friday night home games. The rest are on FSSW or ESPN or TNT.

You are correct that KENS doesn't carry that many Spurs games, but I know the game last Wednesday before Thanksgiving was on KENS, and that got me to look more closely at the broadcast schedule for the season.


It turns out most of the games are broadcast on FSSW. Some are on TNT, and at least a couple are on CW35 locally, and maybe two or three more are on ABC network (KSAT 12 locally). The KENS games can be any night of the week, and could be home games or away games.


TNT is also part of the basic SingTV package, but if the OP is wanting to see as many Spurs games as possible, it's going to mean access to FSSW programming will be needed, and that may be tough, without a Cable or satellite subscription.

[CyVaquero]

Buy an Amazon Fire Stick for $40 and then google 'Amazon Fire Stick Kodi Sports Devil'.

Neither advocating nor condemning watching games through other than official channels. However, if the NBA didn't blackout the in-market teams on NBA League Pass they might find themselves with a few more $120/year customers.

[loves2read]

Can she do that with her Roku
As one of the "independent" channels you can add?
Not sure if she CAN do it
I find stuff like this complicated and often more trouble than it's worth if you have glitches in process

[CyVaquero]

Originally Posted by loves2read

Can she do that with her Roku
As one of the "independent" channels you can add?
Not sure if she CAN do it
I find stuff like this complicated and often more trouble than it's worth if you have glitches in process

Unfortunately no. SportsDevil is a Kodi specific add-on. The Amazon Fire Stick is Android based which Kodi supports (along with iOS. Windows, OS X, & Linux). The Roku runs on a proprietary Linux derivative called Roku OS which is not currently supported (there may be 'unofficial' ports but then you are running into the realm of complicated and unsupported). If you want to try before you buy you can install Kodi & SportsDevil on a computer. I haven't had to do any configuration beyond the initial install, everything worked out-of-box. My only gripe is that navigating to the Kodi app through the FireTV interface is kind of cumbersome, Kodi gets buried in the Settings>Applications>Manage Applications menu. There are hacks you can apply to move Kodi to FireTV main menu but I haven't taken time to sit down and do that yet.

While I play a Sr. Linux SysAdmin at work, at home I'm husband and dad to 4 non-techies. So anything I implement has to be simple to use. For example, I run nothing but Apple at home because it just works and I don't have to spend weekends cleaning up digital messes. If 'I' want to do something complicated, I spin up a VM.

I cut the cord (again) this fall and finding a way to watch Spurs games was the hardest part, everything else we watch is on Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, or CBS Now. If not one of those we can always buy on iTunes. Short of going to sports bars for the games, the only other way I found to be able to watch ALL of the games (TBS and FSSW being the big gotchas, ESPN can also be tricky depending on your service provider) was to get a VPN account ($5-$12/month) and NBA League Pass ($120/yr for 1 team live games + playoffs). I tried this route for a week last month (NBA League Pass free trial) - it was always choppy or heavily pixelated, I'm leaning toward the VPN bandwidth, though it is possible it was the League Pass app, as the culprit. Unfortunately, VPN is required if you want to watch the Spurs live on League Pass and live in the SA TV market.