How to watch Monday Night Football without starting a new live TV trial: The $5 Sling TV day pass hack
WATCH MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL FOR $5: Sling TV offers no-strings day passes for various channels, including ESPN, getting you 24-hour access to stream ESPN-exclusive MNF. You can also bump the pass up to a full weekend for $9.99 or a full week for $14.99.
The ongoing drama between Disney and YouTube TV is interrupting the second week of Monday Night Football in a row. As a birds fan, this was hitting close to home as my household scrambled to find an alternate way to watch the Eagles vs. Packers game on Nov. 10. I found a hack that doesn't involve starting a trial of a different live TV streaming service, and doesn't involve going to a bar where it'll be on TV: A $4.99 Sling TV day pass for ESPN.
Sling TV offers short-term passes for a variety of channels in its Sling Orange package, from AMC, Lifetime, and Freeform to ESPN, ESPN 2, and ESPN 3. You can pay $4.99 for 24-hour access, $9.99 for weekend access, or $14.99 for access for an entire week. This wouldn't be cost-efficient to keep up on a regular basis, but it's a clutch option to tide YouTube TV subscribers over until it's (hopefully) able to bring back Disney-owned networks. You'll have to create a Sling TV account for a day pass, but no recurring payments are involved.
Disney hates this, of course. The company sued Sling TV at the end of August when the short-term pass system was announced, because why would we make it easy for viewers to watch a singular football game or two? In the meantime, temporary ESPN passes are still alive and well on Sling's website.
YouTube TV is offering subscribers $20 as an inconvenience fee of sorts, which is nice, I guess... but it still doesn't help sports fans trying to watch an important game on ESPN.
A Sling TV day pass won't unlock NFL games on other days, as Thursday Night Football is strictly on Prime and NFL Sundays fall under NBC and your local FOX broadcast zone. But temporary access to ESPN would unlock several NBA games throughout the week, if you're sorely missing those, too.
Leah Stodart is a Philadelphia-based Senior Shopping Reporter at Mashable where she covers and tests essential home tech like vacuums and TVs, plus eco-friendly hacks. Her ever-evolving experience in these categories comes in clutch when making recommendations on how to spend your money during shopping holidays like Black Friday, which Leah has been covering for Mashable since 2017.
