Is ESPN's new standalone streaming service a viable option for South Carolina fans?

For South Carolina fans who are only hanging onto traditional pay TV services or their streaming clones just to watch the Gamecocks, ESPN’s new standalone streaming service could be a viable option.

The four-letter network last week announced details of its new service — simply named ESPN — aimed at providing a true a la carte option ($29.99/month for its unlimited plan – complete details at this link) to sports fans who for years have had to purchase bloated plans to watch most live sports.

Streaming services like YouTubeTV, Hulu Live, and Fubo were supposed to replace those expensive cable and satellite providers, but the monthly costs of the streamers have steadily risen into cable and satellite territory.

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ESPN’s new service, which launches this fall, and in particular its “unlimited plan,” provides an interesting option for South Carolina fans who want to cut the cord completely.

That plan offers every channel the network has to offer, including most importantly to those fans, SEC Network, SEC Network Plus, ESPN, and “ESPN on ABC.”

That means fans would get every single South Carolina football game and most if not all of the Gamecocks’ men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, and softball games in a given year. At the very least, all SEC contests would be covered in each sport.

For example, this past season, fans would have been able to watch every men’s basketball game except for three games — a random matchup on Peacock (which would have required a separate subscription even if a viewer had cable/satellite) and two on FS1.

In women’s basketball, fans would have been able to watch every game except the opener on TNT, the UCLA game on FS1, one game on Fox, and another on the Women’s Sports Network.

In baseball, every game that was broadcast would have been available, even the rare ESPN Plus-only games such as the one at Winthrop, which would now be covered under ESPN’s streamer but wouldn’t have been included with YouTubeTV or the like.

So for sports fans who are truly only still paying those monthly bills for the Gamecocks, the new service could be a perfect and much cheaper solution than what’s available now.

But here’s the rub — and there always seems to be a but with the current live TV structure — ESPN’s service alone may not prove adequate for those college football fans who want to enjoy games beyond the Gamecocks and the rest of the SEC.

What about major Big Ten games broadcast on CBS or Fox? Or NFL games on one of those two networks or NBC?

Those CBS live games could be added to the fold by getting Paramount Plus (their most expensive package) but now we’ve added $13.99/mo. to the fold. Fox Sports does not currently have a dedicated standalone streamer but will soon launch “Fox One,” though a price point has not been announced.

But even at a conservative $10/mo. for the Fox add-on, we’re now at $54/mo. for our make-shift college football viewing package. Want to add NBC, which would require the Peacock service ($7.99/mo.), and now we’re at $62/mo. — still cheaper than the cable TV clones but inching ever closer to YouTubeTV and Hulu Live’s $83/mo. price.

So, for South Carolina sports fans who only care about the Gamecocks and the rest of the SEC, ESPN’s new service could provide an excellent option at just $30/mo. But for fans of the other conferences and the NFL, there may be better options.

However, one extra frugal method could be to combine the old school with the brand new. Fans within shouting distance of the local broadcast towers, could pair the ESPN streamer with an over-the-air antenna to get local channels like Fox, CBS, and NBC for free, potentially providing access to all the desired games at the lowest available price point in years.

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