The Best Streaming Services for Dramas

If you get the Fubo + MLB.TV bundle, you’ll get access to every single out-of-market Major League Baseball game as well as vital highlights and commentary via MLB Big Inning. You can watch on-demand or live (replay is available for 72 hours), and you’ll be able to see 30 individual team feeds on the channel. Blackout restrictions do apply, so you won’t be able to watch your local team here. For that, you can put on the RSNs or national channels available in Fubo’s extensive lineup. MLB.tv itself costs $30/month, so prices start at $110/month when stacked with one of Fubo’s available plans.

Hulu with Live TV is already a pretty packed live TV streaming service for sports. It comes with ESPN+ and has channels like ABC, CBS, FS1, TNT, TBS, and TruTV. But for an additional $9.99/month (that’s about $87/month total if you’re on the basic plan), you get to supplement that with specialty sports channels like NFL Redzone, which gives you access to nonstop and on-demand football action. Along with NFL Redzone, Hulu’s sports add-on comes with MLB Strikezone (if you want a blow-by-blow account of every league game during the regular season), Outdoor Channel, Tennis Channel, Fanduel, Sportsman Channel, MAVTV (for avid motorsports fans), and Fanduel Racing. If you’re a hardcore sports fan looking to cover all bases, then this bundle is certainly worth considering.

A subscription to NFL+’s premium tier costs $15/month and comes with NFL Redzone. That means apart from getting access to the NFL Network and digital exclusives, you also get to watch every Sunday afternoon game during the regular season via Redzone, as well as replay all-22 coaches games and access advanced stats on your favorite players. The kicker is that live local and primetime games are still only available on mobile devices due to blackout restrictions (nothing an antenna can’t fix), but everything else, including Redzone and replays, can be viewed on major streaming devices. Users have reported that the app tends to go wonky, especially on Apple TVs and older versions of the Xbox, but if you don’t mind those issues, this bundle will be perfect for hardcore football viewing.

There are two ways you can get NFL Redzone through YouTube TV. The first is when you bundle it with the NFL Sunday Ticket, a standalone offer that lets you watch NFL Sunday games even without a YouTube TV subscription. But that would cost you a hefty $519 across four months (or a whole season). The second and cheaper way to get NFL Redzone is by purchasing YouTube TV’s Sports Plus Add-on, available only to YouTube TV subscribers. The add-on itself costs $11/month, cancellable anytime, but paired with YouTube TV’s base plan, the bundle will cost you a total of about $84/month. Not bad, especially since Sports Plus comes with 15 other sports channels, including Fox Soccer, BeinSports, MAVTV, and Tennis Channel.

If you have or plan on getting DirecTV Stream, one of the premium channels you can add is Cinemax, a channel dedicated to airing blockbusters, action movies, and even a handful of critically acclaimed indie films since, like Cinemax, A24 is under the larger Warner Bros. network. Cinemax is a premium channel, so it normally costs $10.99/month, but DirecTV Stream is currently offering the add-on completely free of charge for 3 months. After the trial period, if you decide not to cancel, you’ll be charged the regular price on top of your DirecTV Stream plan every month.

Getting cable channel Starz usually means having to shell out extra money, but thanks to this bundle, you can watch blockbusters and Starz original shows like Outlander, Power, The Serpent Queen, Party Down, and Minx at no additional cost for 3 months. The DirecTV Stream + Starz bundle offers Starz completely free during this period, but if you don’t cancel by then, your plan will auto-renew and charge you an additional $10.99/month, which is the Starz add-on’s regular price. You can get this bundle whether you’re a new or existing DirecTV Stream customer. Once you purchase the bundle, you can also use your DirecTV Stream credentials to log into the Starz app and watch it anytime, anywhere.

The DirecTV Stream + MGM+ bundle lets you watch all of MGM+’s on-demand goodies, including the latest Hollywood blockbusters and modern classics, free for 3 months. The offer is available to new and existing customers of DirecTV Stream, you only have to have an account in good standing. After the three months, you’re then charged MGM+’s regular monthly fee of $5.99/month unless you cancel the service. Since the cheapest DirecTV Stream plan goes for $80/month, you’ll only have to pay $86/month for this bundle once the free trial months are up. Aside from getting to watch MGM+ on TV, the bundle also gives you access to MGM+ on any app and desktop on the go.

When you sign up for any DirecTV Stream plan, you get premium channels Max, Cinemax, Starz, MGM+, and Paramount+ with Showtime free for 3 months. You get to save $56 for each of those months, or $168 in total. That’s not bad considering all the price hikes being announced lately. Just make sure you cancel before the trial period is up, or else the plan will auto-renew and you will have to pay the regular monthly fees. For Max, you’ll automatically get the ad-free plan, which DirecTV Stream (as of this writing) still charges for $15.99/month, not $16.99/month as Max does on its platform. The All Specials bundle also lets you access each of the streaming service’s apps so you can watch on the go and outside of the DTV Stream platform.

If you want to watch out-of-market NBA games during the regular season, then you can purchase the NBA League Pass for an additional $15/month on top of your existing Sling TV plan. That could be Sling Blue, Sling Orange, or Sling Blue + Orange, but if you’re a true-blue NBA fan, the most likely bundle would be Sling Orange + NBA League Pass. That way, you get local and national games through TNT, ESPN, and local channels, then out-of-market games via the league pass. There are two ways you can pay for the league pass. The first is to pay for it monthly, which will cost you $55/month if you go with Sling Orange ($40/month). The second and most cost-effective way is to pre-pay $135 for the entire bundle for 3 months. Also known as the Season Pass, this bundle will only have you pay $45/month for Sling Orange + NBA League Pass for those 3 months. That’s not a bad deal, especially if you want to keep close tabs on all 30 teams.

If you’re an NBA fan, the YouTube TV + NBA League Pass bundle is hard to miss. It combines YouTube TV’s multiview and unlimited cloud DVR features with the league pass’ live out-of-market game access to give you possibly the best watching experience this season. The only possible setback here is the price. You can opt for a monthly subscription to NBA League Pass (think of it as an add-on to your existing YouTube TV plan), which will cost a total of $88/month, or you can go for an annual pass, which gives you access to NBA League Pass all throughout the year for an additional $99. Again, you can watch all the out-of-market games you like with the pass, live and on-demand, but you’d still need to tune into RSNs if you want to watch local or nationally televised games. That’s where the bundle comes in handy. YouTube TV already comes with NBA TV, TNT, TBS, ESPN (the good stuff), and a handful of local channels, so the pass is just to enhance your viewing experience. If you really want to follow the ball, then this bundle is one of the best ways to catch all the games, blackout restrictions be damned.