Best free option
DIRECTV
DIRECTV carries more regional sports networks than anyone else, so five free days is the quickest way to confirm your team's RSN is actually in your ZIP.
Start free trial →
You don't need a cable bill to keep watching RSNs. 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 · 2 options
Most major cord-cutting services like Youtube TV and Sling TV do not carry Regional Sports Networks like Bally Sports and AT&T SportsNet.
Luckily, you can still watch RSNs without cable on DirecTV Stream, DirecTV Stream Ultimate, Fubo, and Fubo Elite. For many of these offers and depending on your zip code, you might have to pay for RSNs as an add-on.
The Regional Sports Networks on DirecTV Stream are:
The Regional Sports Networks on Fubo are:
The Regional Sports Networks on Hulu with Live TV are:
The Regional Sports Networks on Youtube TV are the same ones on Hulu with Live TV:
The fastest ways to watch RSNs without cable, at a glance
DIRECTV carries more regional sports networks than anyone else, so five free days is the quickest way to confirm your team's RSN is actually in your ZIP.
Start free trial →RSNs are the one category where nothing is cheap: Fubo is the least expensive carrier and it still runs close to eighty dollars.
Get Fubo →A free week is long enough to catch three or four of your team's games and check for local blackouts before you pay anything.
Start free trial →DIRECTV has both the widest channel list and the deepest regional sports coverage, which is the only reason to pay cable prices in 2026.
Get DIRECTV →We routinely follow over a hundred live TV and streaming services in the US, closely monitoring their plans, features, and channel lineups. All of that work is on our cord-cutting hub.
Beyond this, we have been reviewing the best on streaming services since 2013, recommending highly-rated but little-known movies and shows: we find the gems that you haven't yet watched, that you will probably like.
RSNs is on DIRECTV, and you can watch it free for DIRECTV's 5-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
Named the “best all-around streaming service for cord-cutters” by Rolling Stone, DIRECTV tries to be all the good things about cable without any of the hassle. It has a big selection of channels, possibly the best stream quality in the market, and great DVR capability. For example, unlike with competitor Youtube TV, your DVR recordings on DirecTV will be the same quality as the live stream (often in 4K). The service also comes with a decent monthly price tag, and Netflix-style practicality that allows you to stream Live TV from anywhere by downloading the app. Within your home, you can stream on up to 20 devices (!), and from outside your home you can stream on up to three devices.
The price climbs steeply between tiers, and a regional sports fee gets added on top.
DIRECTV plans
RSNs 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
The honest way to watch RSNs 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.
RSNs 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.
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.
Get Surfshark →Whichever you pick, connect to a US city first, then sign in to RSNs or the service that carries it as normal. Choose a VPN with a money-back window so you can confirm it un-blocks RSNs before you commit.
No. RSNs 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 RSNs 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 RSNs through DIRECTV and Fubo. To set it up, add the channel from the Roku Channel Store, sign in, and open RSNs in the live guide.
On Amazon Fire TV, you can watch RSNs through DIRECTV and Fubo. To set it up, download the app from the Amazon Appstore, sign in, and open RSNs in the live guide.
On Apple TV, you can watch RSNs through DIRECTV and Fubo. To set it up, install the app from the App Store, sign in, and open RSNs in the live guide.
On Android TV & Google TV, you can watch RSNs through DIRECTV and Fubo. To set it up, grab the app from the Google Play Store, sign in, and open RSNs in the live guide.
On Chromecast, you can watch RSNs through Fubo. The gap: DIRECTV doesn'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 RSNs in the live guide.
Cheapest is the question everyone starts with, and it's the wrong place to stop. A $35 plan that drops RSNs 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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The people who test, price-check, and update our cord-cutting coverage.
Four criteria, each out of 100. The overall score is their weighted average: content 38%, value 27%, apps 22%, streaming quality 13%.
Value for money
0The most expensive service of its kind.
100The cheapest service of its kind.
Content quality
0None of the ten most-watched cable channels, or nothing from our recommended list.
100All ten channels, or the deepest catalog of titles we recommend.
Apps and devices
0A one-star app that runs on none of the 12 major devices.
100Five-star apps on all 12 major devices.
Streaming quality
0Below 720p.
1004K on the plan we price.
Services are compared only against others of the same type and price range, so a full live TV package is never ranked against a single-channel app. Read the full methodology →