Juan Monroy

It’s been 15 years since I have had a cable TV subscription, and except for one month a year, I do not miss it! The one month a year is around October because of the baseball playoffs. The games are available only on cable networks:

• ESPN for the wild card round
• Fox Sports 1 for the ALDS and ALCS rounds
• TBS for the NLDS and NLCS rounds

The World Series is broadcast on the Fox network so you can watch using an over-the-air antenna.

My strategy usually includes subscribing to an over-the-top streaming television service: YouTube TV, DirecTV Stream, etc. to get the networks for a single month.

Fubo and HBO Max and Rabbit Ears

My cord cutter’s strategy for the 2025 MLB playoffs includes…

• Fubo TV. Fubo carries ESPN, Fox Sports 1, and Fox sports, including 4K feeds for those channels. That will cover just about the entire playoff schedule, except for NLDS and NLCS because Fubo TV doesn’t carry the Turner networks. At the moment, there’s an American Express statement credit on some accounts: $30 off a $70+ one-time purchase, available up to three times for a total of $90.
• HBO Max. The NLDS and NLCS are on TBS and TNT. I plan to watch these games on HBO Max, which carries live sports on the two ad-free tiers: Standard and Premium. I think the Premium plan gets you a 4K feed, but I am not absolutely certain about that.

The World Series is available without a MVPD plan since it’s on the Fox broadcast network. The advantage of watching over-the-air is that you get the game without a significant delay. But the advantage of watching using Fubo, for example, is that there’s a 4K feed available.