Not Quite Ready To Cut The Cord

There is an ever-growing community of people who have quit getting their TV from the traditional cable and satellite providers and instead rely on the internet for their programming.  With Netflix and Hulu and smart TVs it is becoming increasingly easy to do this.  With the recent arrivals of HBO Now and Sling I am almost ready to cut the cord myself.  There is just one major hurdle that is preventing me from doing this - live sports.

Over the past few years we have progressed a lot towards delivering television content over the web.  Sports are progressing much slower, however.  MLB.TV is amazing and is the model with which I think most leagues will follow in the future.  In fact, the NHL just partnered with MLB's technology services to offer a similar service for hockey games (who has ever heard of competing leagues joining forces for broadcasting?).  The NFL, auto racing, and most other sports are a no-go as of now.  If the game is on ESPN and you have Sling, or if you can pick up local networks in HD over the air, those are pretty much your only options right now to watch live sports if you cut the cord.

There is one other major problem, even if streaming options for sports were ideal.  We bought the rest of the baseball season for $25 on MLB.TV.  We have three devices connected to the service - a 2013 Panasonic smart TV, an ~2010 Panasonic Blu Ray player, and a 2015 Samsung TV (all three devices had the MLB.tv app pre-packaged on the device, which is amazing).  None of these devices can consistently stream the games in HD, and there are frequent buffering times.  The Samsung TV, which is the newest, does the best, but it still doesn't compare with regular TV.  We currently have 10 MB down for our internet speed, and admittedly it is sluggish at times and suffers from congestion slow down.  Regardless, it can't seem to provide a reliable HD signal.  Is it my overall internet speed or my devices (I don't think it's my router - it is brand new and wasn't cheap.)?  Time will tell as we are being upgraded to 50 MB down in the near future.

Additionally there is something that traditional TV offers that thus far I do not think internet TV can match and that is convenience.  I can switch through channels quickly, pull up the guide quickly, pull up shows from my DVR quickly, and easily record programs.  My experience with watching TV through apps is that it is a bit clunky and disjointed when switching from program to program.

I think sometime in the future, probably the near future, most American's will be getting their TV through app services similar to MLB.tv.  For me, I am not ready to make the switch yet.  Traditional TV is too reliable and convenient, and the lack of competing sports packages makes the switch unrealistic.  I will be watching as new technology and packages are released.  I predict sometime within the next 10 years I will be making the switch as well.  I probably would already switch if it weren't for live sports.