You don't need a cable bill to keep watching ESPN3. Here's every way to stream it online, and how to do it for free.
Reviewed and updated September 2026 by our cord-cutting team · 5 options
Watch thousands of live sports events and shows from ESPN’s third network, and never miss out on any of the latest scores and highlights.
ESPN3 is available without cable on Fubo, Sling TV Orange, YouTube TV, or ESPN Unlimited.
The cheapest way to watch Espn3 is Sling TV Orange for $45.99/month.
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Yes, with a free trial. ESPN3 is on DIRECTV, and you can watch it free for DIRECTV's 5-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
DIRECTV plans
No, not free. Sling TV carries ESPN3 but has no free trial, so you pay from day one. At $45.99/mo it's the cheapest way to watch ESPN3 on this list.
Sling Orange is one of two plans from cord-cutting alternative Sling.
Channels that Sling Orange has and Sling Blue doesn’t have include: Disney Channel, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, Freeform, and MotorTrend. Sling Orange has mostly the advantage of channels owned by Disney.
One stream at a time, capped at 720p, and the price has crept up over time.
Sling TV plans
Yes, with a free trial. ESPN3 is on Fubo, and you can watch it free for Fubo's 7-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
Fubo is a live TV and on-demand streaming service. The platform had it beginning as a soccer stream service, but it quickly became popular as a viable alternative to expensive cable subscriptions in the U.S, offering an attractive bundle of more than 100 live channels as well as an endless array of on-demand movies.
It leans heavily on sports, and a regional sports fee of a few dollars up to about $17 by ZIP gets added on top.
Fubo plans
Yes, with a free trial. ESPN3 is on YouTube TV, and you can watch it free for YouTube TV's 7-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
Youtube TV has quickly grown into one of the best choices for Live TV, offering both local and national channels like ESPN, CNN, Comedy Central, and others. Youtube TV’s marketing claims that by getting the platform, you could save up to $500 a year on cable. One major draw of the platform is unlimited cloud DVR storage that’s included in the $82.99 plan.
It’s also one of the most widely available Live TV streaming services, as you can get it on virtually every device from Fire TV to XBOX to Smart TV brands like LG.
At around $83 a month it's one of the priciest options, and add-ons push the bill past $100 fast.
YouTube TV plans
No. Philo doesn't carry ESPN3.
No. Hulu + Live TV doesn't carry ESPN3. Similar channels it carries: Fox Sports 1 (FS1) and ESPN2.
No. Paramount+ doesn't carry ESPN3.
No. Peacock doesn't carry ESPN3.
No. Frndly TV doesn't carry ESPN3. Similar channel it carries: Outdoor Channel.
No. Spectrum TV Choice doesn't carry ESPN3. Similar channels it carries: CBS Sports Network and ESPN.
Yes. ESPN3 is ESPN’s streaming-only feed, and it now lives inside the ESPN tile Disney added to Disney+ in 2025, so those extra live events stream right in the app.
Disney+ merged with Hulu into one app in 2025, so everything Disney owns now streams here on demand.
No. HBO Max only streams the Warner Bros. Discovery family (HBO, Discovery, HGTV, TNT, CNN and the rest), and ESPN3 isn’t part of it. The best way to watch ESPN3 without cable is Fubo above (free-trial).
No. There’s no Prime Video Channels add-on for ESPN3, so Prime can’t stream it on demand or live. The best way to watch ESPN3 without cable is Fubo above (free-trial).
The honest way to watch ESPN3 for free is a free trial, and the trick is not to spend them one at a time. Start one, then start the next when it ends, and you can string together a few weeks of free live TV back to back, usually enough to cover a tournament or a playoff run without paying for a month.
If you're cutting cable for ESPN3, odds are you want ABC too. It's a sister channel, so every service above that carries ESPN3 carries ABC as well, and the same free trials get you both. See our full guide to watching ABC without cable for the per-service breakdown.
| Service | From | Free trial | Plans | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DIRECTV |
$89.99/mo | 5 days | 4 | Get it |
| Sling TV |
$45.99/mo | None | 3 | Get it |
| Fubo |
$79.99/mo | 7 days | 2 | Get it |
| YouTube TV |
$82.99/mo | 7 days | 2 | Get it |
ESPN3 and the US services that carry it are geo-locked to the United States, so your login stops working the moment you leave the country. A VPN fixes that: connect to a US server and the service sees a US address again. The catch is that streaming platforms actively block most VPN traffic, so the VPN you pick matters far more than the service does. These three reliably get back in:
A huge US server network (thousands of IPs across 15-plus cities) with SmartPlay DNS baked into every server, so streaming just works without extra setup. The best value of the top tier on a two-year plan.
Best for streaming ESPN3 with: Sling TV
Get NordVPN →The budget pick, and the one to get if the whole household travels: it allows unlimited simultaneous devices on one account, plus a Smart DNS for TVs. Reliable with the on-demand and lifestyle services.
Best for streaming ESPN3 with: YouTube TV
Get Surfshark →Whichever you pick, connect to a US city first, then sign in to ESPN3 or the service that carries it as normal. Choose a VPN with a money-back window so you can confirm it un-blocks ESPN3 before you commit.
No. ESPN3 is a cable channel and doesn't broadcast over the air, so an antenna can't pick it up. An antenna only gets the free broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, The CW), which pair nicely with one of the services above; check which of those reach your address here.
Every service that carries ESPN3 runs on the major streaming platforms, so you can watch on just about any TV, phone, or console. Here's how, device by device:
On Roku, you can watch ESPN3 through DIRECTV, Sling TV, Fubo, and YouTube TV. To set it up, add the channel from the Roku Channel Store, sign in, and open ESPN3 in the live guide.
On Amazon Fire TV, you can watch ESPN3 through DIRECTV, Sling TV, Fubo, and YouTube TV. To set it up, download the app from the Amazon Appstore, sign in, and open ESPN3 in the live guide.
On Apple TV, you can watch ESPN3 through DIRECTV, Sling TV, Fubo, and YouTube TV. To set it up, install the app from the App Store, sign in, and open ESPN3 in the live guide.
On Android TV & Google TV, you can watch ESPN3 through DIRECTV, Sling TV, Fubo, and YouTube TV. To set it up, grab the app from the Google Play Store, sign in, and open ESPN3 in the live guide.
On Chromecast, you can watch ESPN3 through Sling TV and Fubo. The gap: DIRECTV and YouTube TV don't offer a Chromecast app. To set it up, cast it from your phone or use the built-in Google TV app, sign in, and open ESPN3 in the live guide.
On Samsung & LG smart TVs, you can watch ESPN3 through DIRECTV, Sling TV, and YouTube TV. The gap: Fubo doesn't offer a Samsung & LG smart TVs app. To set it up, install the app from your TV's own store (Tizen or webOS), sign in, and open ESPN3 in the live guide.
On phones & tablets, you can watch ESPN3 through DIRECTV, Sling TV, Fubo, and YouTube TV. To set it up, download the app from the App Store or Google Play, sign in, and open ESPN3 in the live guide.
On game consoles, you can watch ESPN3 through Sling TV and YouTube TV. The gap: DIRECTV and Fubo don't offer a game consoles app. To set it up, download the app from the Xbox or PlayStation store, sign in, and open ESPN3 in the live guide.
Cheapest is the question everyone starts with, and it's the wrong place to stop. A $35 plan that drops ESPN3 the month after you sign up hasn't saved you anything. So the first number we pay attention to is the real one, what you owe after the introductory month ends, not the figure in the ad. From there it comes down to whether the channels you actually want sit in the base plan or get stranded in an add-on, how the service behaves day to day (a slow app and a useless DVR wear on you faster than you'd expect), and how much of a fight it puts up when you decide to leave.
Whatever lands at the top of a list like this is the service that gets most of that right for the most people. Once in a while that's also the cheapest one. Usually it isn't.
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