NESN Offers New Broadcast Options… But Are They Worth it?

Published: June 1, 2022

STREAMING NESN… NESN 360

The time that Cord Cutters in New England have been waiting on for years. NESN, New England Sports Network which broadcasts the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins is now offering a membership based streaming platform.

For many years now, New England sports fans have not been able to stream Red Sox or Bruins games unless they had memberships to the MLB or NHL season pass. Even with this subscription, you were unable to view local games due to blackout restrictions. The only workaround for this would be the aditional cost of a VPN that would trick the servers into thinking that you were located outside the local market. Even with a VPN, the legality of this situation was being questioned.

NESN is now offering NESN 360. NESN 360 is a streaming service that allow viewers that are currently not Cable TV subscribers the ability to be able to watch all aspects of the network via Apple TV, Roku, iPhone or Android devices. The problem with this service is the cost. NESN 360 currently has two subscription plans for sale… Which they both end up costing the same price. Basically, NESN 360 will cost $29.99/month. At that cost, I do not think that it is worth the price seeing that other services such as NetFlix, Hulu, Disney+ have a much wider library of entertainment and, in most cases, more than 50% less per month.

NESN VR

NESN will have 4 games in September that will broadcast in Virtual Reality (VR). You will be able to choose the camera angle that you watch or be able to see a full 180-degree view of Fenway Park. This may only be viewed if you own a set of Samsung Gear VR headsets which are for sale on Amazon for roughly $30. The games may also only be viewed using a Galaxy Note8, S8, S8+, S7, S7 edge, Note5, S6 edge+, S6 or S6 edge. This broadcast is not supported on iPhones. You will also be a customer of one of the following providers:

• Atlantic Broadband
• Xfinity (Comcast)
• Cox Communications
• DirecTV
• Metrocast
• Playstation Vue
• RCN

NESN 4K

NESN will also be streaming pre and postgame show of the Boston Red Sox in full 4K HDR and home games will also be in 4K HDR. At this time, there are only three providers offering the 4K HDR service… DirecTV, FuboTV and Verizon.