Can I get rid of cable?

[Modular]

It also depends on your cable provider. We have comcast TV and internet. I called once to inquire about dropping TV and just keeping internet and was told that dropping TV would disqualify me from my "bundle" pricing on the internet. I would have been saving $5 a month by dropping TV. So I still have TV. I watch it maybe once a month.

 

[MotionMan]

Sports bars... of course once you get the tab when the game is over you will find it much cheaper to pay $50/month for cable. And you can't kick out the dumbasses rooting for the other team.

I watch sports at all times (especially after the kids go to sleep). I am not planning on leaving my family and moving into a sports bar.

MotionMan

 

[BrokenVisage]

Sports bars... of course once you get the tab when the game is over you will find it much cheaper to pay $50/month for cable. And you can't kick out the dumbasses rooting for the other team.

Then you have to drive/walk home.. or even call a cab/friend if you're drunk (and responsible).. not to mention if your team loses you might not be in the bestest of moods.

 

[bignateyk]

Sports bars... of course once you get the tab when the game is over you will find it much cheaper to pay $50/month for cable. And you can't kick out the dumbasses rooting for the other team.

I can make it through a game on alot less than $50. Even if I drink 2 pitchers of beer and eat 2 dozen wings, it's still only about $15. I guess that's the benefit of living in a college town.

 

[Elganja]

I can make it through a game on alot less than $50. Even if I drink 2 pitchers of beer and eat 2 dozen wings, it's still only about $15. I guess that's the benefit of living in a college town.

that's really not a good comparison unless you only watch one sporting event a month

 

[AMCRambler]

You can drop cable and do streaming but the cable companies are working on new billing schemes to cover their lost business on their cable packages. Your bandwidth usage is going to shoot up once you start streaming all the shows you normally watch on television.

Most cable companies have implemented download caps of so many gb per month. Go over the cap for your tier and they will throttle your connection down. Not a big deal if it's just you watching. But if you have other people that will be using the connection you could easily go over your cap and they will cut your connection speed making streaming impossible. Before you make the leap you should do the math. Find out what cap your cable provider has in place and determine how many hours of tv you watch a month. I think the figures for Netflix are 1 hour of HD streaming is around 1gb of download. I don't know what Hulu or any of the networks streaming shows would equate to.

 

[bignateyk]

that's really not a good comparison unless you only watch one sporting event a month

The only thing I miss out on is college football games, so that's only about maybe 6 a year (Penn State games) that are broadcast on ESPN. All the other Penn State games are on local channels, and all the Steelers games are on local channels (except for 1 or 2 MNF games). Beyond that I don't watch much sports.

So that leaves about 8-10 football games/year that I miss out on by not having cable. Of those, I might go to a bar for half of them, the other half I'll just go to a friends place and watch it.

 

[dfuze]

I'm looking to drop cable tv soon too after building my HTPC last week.

One thing you should do is list the shows you watch. You may be surprised to find out like my wife and I did that 80% of them were available OTA, 15% on netflix/hulu etc, and would only miss out on a couple shows that make it not worth keep cable around once the year deal expires.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I just suck it up and pay the bill. Love watching the NBA in HD and having it recorded so I can just skip the commercials. It sucks but it sucked much worse not being able to watch my favorite team and feeling like crap. I'm a hardcore Dallas Mavs fan.

 

[MotionMan]

I can make it through a game on alot less than $50. Even if I drink 2 pitchers of beer and eat 2 dozen wings, it's still only about $15. I guess that's the benefit of living in a college town.

Assuming you only watch football, how much would four trips to the sports bar a month cost you?

Of course, baseball, basketball and hockey are on almost every day/night during the season. How often are you planning to watch those sports?

MotionMan

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

If you're a sports fan especially a NBA, MLB, and NHL fan you can forget watching them without cable. In my case I looked at the Dallas Mavs tv schedule and there was maybe 10 games out of 81 games that would be aired on local tv. All the rest were on cable. So some of you guys think it's possible for me to go to sports bars for 70 games this season? That's not including playoffs either. Get real.

 

[Capt Caveman]

If you're a sports fan especially a NBA, MLB, and NHL fan you can forget watching them without cable. In my case I looked at the Dallas Mavs tv schedule and there was maybe 10 games out of 81 games that would be aired on local tv. All the rest were on cable. So some of you guys think it's possible for me to go to sports bars for 70 games this season? That's not including playoffs either. Get real.

Yeah, in Boston I'd estimate:
Patriots - All games OTA
Celtics- 4 games OTA
Bruins - 2 games OTA
Red Sox - 8 games OTA

You're looking at almost 300 games that you'd need cable or have to go somewhere else to watch.

 

[bignateyk]

Assuming you only watch football, how much would four trips to the sports bar a month cost you?

Of course, baseball, basketball and hockey are on almost every day/night during the season. How often are you planning to watch those sports?

MotionMan

Like I said above, I really only watch football, and NFL is almost always on local channels, and about half of my college games are on local. That leaves 8-10 games/year I need to watch elsewhere. Not worth paying an extra $50-75/month, which translates to $900/year for those games, or about $90/game.

 

[dfuze]

I'm in the Boston market as well, are the 8 or so Sox games the ones on Saturday on Fox or is there another channel that broadcasts it?

 

[Capt Caveman]

I'm in the Boston market as well, are the 8 or so Sox games the ones on Saturday on Fox or is there another channel that broadcasts it?

Yeah. Weekend Yankee/Red Sox games are usually on Fox. It was just a guesstimate.

 

[EagleKeeper]

If you dump cable; hopefully you have some other method for the Internet access

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Yup, if you want sports you pretty much need cable unless you want to watch the game the next day after which is never fun.

go to a bar or a friends house.