Best streaming services for watching live sports in 2025
If you don’t want to splurge on a full live TV cable replacement service, ESPN’s recently revamped streaming service offers some bang for your buck. Whether you want to stream NFL Monday Night Football, college football, NBA, WNBA, college basketball, NHL, tennis, or just about any other niche sport, ESPN Unlimited probably has what you need. As an ESPN+ subscriber for years, I’m excited that the new offering is finally unblocking live streams of ESPN channels.
ESPN has dominated sports coverage since 1979, providing 24/7 coverage of professional sports in the United States. In August 2025, the network’s new and improved direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming service arrived and opened up a world of sports streaming potential. The relaunched service offers the full suite of ESPN networks and services, including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, ESPN Deportes, SEC Network, ACC Network – in addition to ESPN on ABC, ESPN+, ESPN3, SECN+ and ACCNX. The overall tier is now called ESPN Unlimited, while the old ESPN+ has been renamed ESPN Select.
With the Unlimited plan, which will cost you $29.99 per month or $299.99 per year, you’ll be able to watch NFL Monday Night Football, plus tons of college football, NBA, WNBA, college basketball and NHL games live without cable. Add to that programs like 30 for 30 And Sports center and ESPN+ originals, and you have a complete sports offering. The ESPN Select tier costs $11.99 per month and is essentially just renamed to ESPN+. It includes access to PGAT Live, LALIGA, tennis, select NHL sports, and select college sports live. For a look at everything you’ll be able to watch, check out ESPN’s full schedule.
For a limited time, you also have the option to bundle ESPN Unlimited with Disney+ and Hulu for the same price as ESPN alone. Talk about best value for money.
As a recently launched service, it has a few issues and quirks that it needs to work out, which is to be expected. The website, TV app and mobile app are not fully synchronized yet. For example, when I was trying to watch a live game on ESPN2 on the mobile app, I was prompted to sign in to my cable provider instead of being prompted to sign up for the Unlimited plan. We have high hopes that ESPN will resolve the issues in the coming weeks, making it the sports streaming service to beat.
