Alright, let me tell you about trying to catch that UNLV vs Oregon State game the other day. It turned into quite the little project, not just kicking back and watching, you know?
So, I first heard about the matchup, sounded like it could be interesting. The first step, obviously, was figuring out when it was actually on. Pulled out my phone, did a quick search. Found the date and time easy enough. Okay, cool.
Then came the real challenge: where to watch it. This is where things always get messy these days. I don’t have regular cable, haven’t for years. So it’s all about streaming.
My brilliant plan went something like this:
- Check the main sports channels on the streaming services I do pay for. Went through the guides. Nothing.
- Looked it up specifically. Saw it might be on one of those conference-specific networks. Pac-12 Network, maybe? Or some Mountain West thing? Who knows. Point is, not something standard.
- Okay, next step: check if any of my services offered that as an add-on. Nope. Of course not.
- Saw some chatter online suggesting a specific streaming service might carry it. One I’d never used. Went to their website.
- Clicked around. Looked kinda clunky. Saw they had a free trial. Okay, maybe? Started the sign-up.
- Then it wanted location confirmation, credit card details just for the trial… the usual runaround. I hesitated. Seemed like a lot of effort for one game.
I remembered the last time I signed up for a “free trial” for some obscure game. Took me forever to figure out how to cancel it, almost got charged. Not doing that again if I could help it.
Seriously, I must have spent a solid half hour, maybe more, just trying to figure out a legit way to watch this one game. It’s just college ball, right? Why does it feel like you need a PhD in broadcast rights to find anything anymore?
In the end, you know what I did? I gave up. Completely gave up on watching it live. Just pulled up a score tracker app on my phone and followed along text updates while I was doing other stuff.
It wasn’t the same, obviously. But honestly, it was less frustrating than jumping through all those hoops. So that was my big “practice” related to UNLV vs Oregon State – practicing the art of finding out I couldn’t easily watch the game. Pretty lame, I know, but that’s how it went down over here.