Bally Sports Plus Goes National With NBA & NHL Teams
Sinclair today has begun taking orders for its Bally Sports+ cord-cutter app in all 19 Bally markets with NBA and NHL teams. However, as expected, MLB teams are only available in five of those markets.
The service, which has been available in five test markets (Kansas City, Detroit, Miami, Milwaukee and Tampa Bay) since June, enables fans to subscribe directly to their in-market Bally Sports channel without a subscription to a pay TV service such as cable or satellite or a live streaming provider.
Bally Sports+ costs $19.99 a month or $189.99 per year. There is also a free seven-day trial.
Fans in the 19 Bally Sports markets now can watch their in-market NBA or NHL team without a subscription to a cable or satellite service, or a live streamer such as DIRECTV Stream. For instance, fans in the Los Angeles area can now subscribe directly to Bally Sports West which carries the Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Kings games. They also can get Bally Sports SoCal, which has the Anaheim Ducks and Clippers games, for a separate $19.99 a month or $189.99 a year subscription.
If they want to bundle the two channels, the cost is $25.99 a month. Other areas, such as Miami, which also has two separate Bally Sports channels, and a MLB team included, the bundle cost for both channels is $29.99 a month.
As of now, Bally Sports+ offers just five MLB teams — Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers. The company has announced it has rights deals with all NBA and NHL teams it offers in the 19 Bally Sports markets, but it only has agreements with the five MLB teams. With the MLB season ending in less than two weeks, it will appear that Sinclair will not add additional live baseball games until next season, if then.
The nine teams that Sinclair has not secured deals with are: Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Guardians, San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks, Cincinnati Reds, Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins, St. Louis Cardinals, and Los Angeles Angels.
Bally Sports Plus is not available on Roku yet, but is available on Apple TV, Android devices and BallySports.com.
Update: Sinclair announces this morning that Roku has been added to the approved devices list.
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Just a quick FYI…as of Friday, Sept. 23rd, I was able to receive Bally Sports Plus broadcasts on my Roku Ultra device. I subscribe to Bally Sports Wisconsin to watch the Brewers broadcasts, and discovered I was able to enter my subscriber info and watch the games on my Roku since last Friday. The app seems to work much better on the Roku than it does on my AppleTV. Hope this helps!
Thanks. Still not listed as an approved device at their website.
The Bally Sports+ website suggests it may be available but the placement comes right next to “Connect TV Provider”.
For a standalone app I’d expect to see wording declaring cable or satellite not required.
Not exactly a polished website.
https://www.ballysports.com/packages/
That doesn’t specify no need for cable or satellite. Nor does the screen accessing via Roku.
Not worth the $$… no way I’m paying $20 a month just so I can watch local Dallas Stars games.