YouTube TV Ratings

YouTube TV gives you access to all sorts of channels and live streams, meaning you can watch almost any sporting event that is broadcast on television. Sports you can watch include football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf, and many more.

Many of the channels offered on YouTube TV include the most popular sports-focused networks such as ESPN, Fox Sports 1, and more. We’ll cover channels in more detail further down in our review. For now, let’s focus on the sports you’ll be able to watch. 

Having a YouTube TV account means you’ll be able to access many NFL games, but not all of them. As long as a game is airing on a network channel such as CBS, ABC, ESPN, or others, you should be able to watch it with your YouTube TV plan. 

MLB games are included on YouTube TV channels if they’re airing nationally on ESPN, FOX, FS1, MLB Network, and TBS. The service does not provide streaming of regional sports network programming. 

The same goes for NHL games on YouTube TV. Many of the networks that broadcast NHL games—ABC, FOX, CBS, NBC—are available to watch on the streaming service. 

Because it functions like a cable service, YouTube TV has NBA games available as well. 

Those are just the four biggest US sports. YouTube TV offers a plethora of others, including golf, tennis, and many more. 

YouTubeTV costs $72.99 per month for a base plan, which grants you 100+ live channels, unlimited DVR space, and other special features. 

It may appear as if YouTube TV is not as economical as the other options on the list, but that’s not true. YouTube TV is essentially a replacement for cable like you might get from Comcast Xfinity or DirecTV. Considering this aspect of YouTube TV, it’s fairly reasonable. Many of the cheaper options on the list are specifically for streaming with little or no live streams. Meanwhile, competing cable companies might charge upwards of $100 per month or more. These services tend to come with the same features and functionality as YouTube TV—DVR, hundreds of channels, etc. For the price, YouTube TV is an excellent value.

The advantages of YouTube TV are fairly obvious once you get a chance to use it. First and foremost, it functions a lot like the core YouTube app. If you’re already familiar with YouTube, then the YouTube TV app will feel super intuitive and easy to use. 

Once you know how to stream YouTube TV, you might wonder how many teams can be going at once. The answer is three. The base plan for YouTube TV allows up to six household accounts and three streams. For example, you could stream on your phone while someone else uses a computer in the other room with no problem.

YouTube TV’s three-stream limit is fairly standard, as the table above indicates. Only a few services allow more concurrent streams. 

Wondering how to watch YouTube TV without cable? It’s simple, as YouTube TV functions as a replacement for traditional cable. 

Fans of niche sports will want to consider this plan, as it offers many unique options. 

In short: yes. YouTube TV has the best DVR option of any streaming service we’ve reviewed. Why? Because it has unlimited space. There’s no need to carefully track the hours you’re recording or sacrifice certain games or shows. 

To record something on YouTube TV, find the show or event you wish to save, then add it to your library. YouTube TV will automatically record it, and you can watch it back whenever you wish. 

The YouTube TV app is one of the service’s best selling points. If you’ve used the YouTube app before, the YouTube TV app should feel very familiar to you. 

The homepage is easy to navigate, with various options available. Sort by network, category (sports, movies, etc.) trending, popular, or specific league. The search option is unsurprisingly fantastic, considering YouTube is a Google company. 

Everything we discussed about the YouTube TV app goes for the website as well. It is clean and simple, making navigation a breeze. However, we will say the webpage feels a tad empty, if only because YouTube TV feels designed as a mobile-first experience. There’s nothing wrong with that, per se, but it does make the website feel sparse, even though all the same content is available there. For some users, this could be a good thing. YouTube TV doesn’t muddle the experience with unnecessary details or widgets. 

One thing that’s easier on the website is searching and sorting. If your goal is to sift through content to find something to watch, then YouTube TV’s website is the best way to do it. This is simply due to the bigger amount of real estate available on a larger screen.

YouTube TV is far from a sports-only streaming service. A base plan gets users more than 100 channels:

Beyond the base plan, YouTube TV offers channels as part of its add-on subscriptions. For example, the Sports Plus add-on provides access to 13 other channels, including NFL RedZone. 

YouTube will generally block you from accessing the platform if it detects a VPN. This is true of many other live TV networks, as seen in the table below. 
Even the services that do allow VPNs may block certain services or generally discourage VPN use. For these reasons, we don’t recommend using a VPN to access sports streaming sites.

You can stream YouTube TV on various devices. Let’s first take a look at the compatible options. 

To start streaming, power up your compatible device and open the YouTube TV app. Log in if you haven’t already, then find the show, movie, game, or channel you’d like to stream. Select it, and you’re all set.

It doesn’t feel fair to compare YouTube TV and standard streaming services. What they’re offering is so different, the comparison points don’t always track. With that in mind, we’ll compare YouTube TV with DirecTV Stream, another cable replacement service. 
Let’s cover the basics. DirecTV Stream offers three plans at different price points, from $79.99 to $94.99 monthly. Even the cheapest plan is more expensive than the YouTube TV base plan. DirecTV’s cheapest plan gets you 75+ channels. Plus, the more expensive plans are offered at introductory rates for DirecTV Stream, increasing in price after your first two months to $108.99 or $119.99, depending on the plan.

Compare this to YouTube TV’s pricing, and it’s not that different if you consider the price of add-ons. 

DirecTV offers streaming on up to 20 devices in your home and three on the go. YouTube offers a blanket of three devices. 

As for DVR, DirecTV Stream’s allowance depends on your plan and tends to limit you to a certain number of episodes per TV show. YouTube TV’s base plan offers unlimited DVR.

Finally, DirecTV Stream has a five-day free trial. So does YouTube TV. 

While the services are fairly comparable, we prefer YouTube TV for its more forthcoming pricing models and overall user experience

Overall, we give YouTube TV an easy 9.5 out of 10. It’s about as close to perfect as a sports streaming service can get. The only reason it falls short of sheer perfection is the requirement of add-ons for obscure sports networks. Otherwise, YouTube TV knocks everything out of the park, from compatible devices to pricing and overall ease of use.