Stream ESPN For $20 a Month, No Cable Subscription Needed

Sporting nirvana is coming.

Dish today announced Sling TV, a new web-TV service that will offer 12 channels, including CNN, Travel Channel, Food Network, and, most significantly, ESPN, for $20 per month. (Also included: ESPN 2, ABC Family, Cartoon Network, Disney, HGTV, TBS, TNT, and Maker.)

The move addresses head on what has long been the immovable elephant in the streaming room—the reluctance of sports fans to cut the cable and lose access to live action.

Unlike, say, Breaking Bad, sports are intensely time-sensitive. The bingeing concept simply doesn’t apply to NFL playoff games, March Madness, or October baseball.

And while not ALL live sports are on ESPN, of course, the network is the Everest of sports programming. Suffice to say, many casual (as well as serious) sports fans previously wary of cutting the cord may see this as a long-awaited opportunity to finally take the plunge and cancel cable.

There are caveats, of course. Sling TV will not offer a traditional DVR service. It will be available on only one device at a time (you won’t be able to simultaneously watch CNN on your tablet and ESPN on your flatscreen). And with only a small number of channels, it’s obviously missing quite a bit of content, both cable and broadcast.

But the idea is that de-bundling is what customers who loathe paying for content they’ll never consume ultimately desire.

ESPN was always going to be the obstacle to an unbundled future. That domino is now falling.

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