Live streaming TV disputes are basically games of chicken, with viewers stuck in the middle. For the latest skirmish, we have Disney squaring off against Google, and unless something happens soon, the latest edition of ESPN’s Monday Night Football won’t be airing on YouTube TV.
Now, it could well be that Disney, the owner of ESPN, and Google, YouTube’s parent company, will settle their differences before kickoff, but what if they don’t? And of course, there will be more fights between streaming TV operators and the networks, which may again leave viewers in limbo.
In any event, what should YouTube TV viewers who want to catch Monday Night Football do if the Disney blackout—which includes both ESPN and ABC—continues?
Luckily, there are three alternatives: One is completely free, the other costs about as much as a streaming movie rental, and the third entails handing over a moderate chunk of change to a player in the current dispute, which you may or may not want to do.
Get Monday Night Football for free with an over-the-air antenna
Monday Night Football has been an ESPN property for nearly 20 years now, but since the pandemic and recent TV production strikes, ABC has been simulcasting an increasing number of MNF games on its local broadcast channels.
Not every Monday Night Football game is simulcast on ABC—you can check ABC’s MNF broadcast schedule here—but roughly half of them are. For instance, of the remaining nine MNF games in the 2025 season, four will be broadcast on ABC.
So if ABC is carrying Monday Night Football on a given week (it is for tonight’s matchup between the Arizona Cardinals and the Dallas Cowboys), you can watch over-the-air for free. Check out our favorite TV antennas if you don’t have one.
Stream Monday Night Football with a Sling TV day pass
Is MNF not on ABC for a particular week? Or maybe you don’t want to deal with installing a TV antenna. Either way, no worries. There’s another option for getting ESPN access, and it’s remarkably cheap.
Sling TV recently began offering a $5 “day pass” that gets you 24 hours of access to Sling Orange, a Sling package that includes ESPN.
That means you could stream Monday Night Football on Sling Orange for a mere five bucks, about the same amount of cash that a streaming movie rental might cost.
Sling also offers a weekend pass for $9.99 or a week pass for $14.99, and all three Sling passes also include access to CNN, TBS, TNT, HGTV, and about two dozen other channels.
Sling’s new day pass option is a great deal—too great for Disney, which has already moved to quash the short-term subscription plans.
But for now, Sling’s day pass is still a thing, and it’s a terrific alternative for streaming MNF if an over-the-air antenna won’t work for you.
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Stream Monday Night Football on the new ESPN streaming service
There’s one more way to catch Monday Night Football when faced with a streaming blackout, but you might not like it.
I’m thinking of the new streaming version of ESPN, which Disney launched this past summer. For $30 a month or $300 a year, you can get the run of all things ESPN, including all its linear networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ESPNEWS, and ESPN Deportes) along with all ESPN broadcasts on ABC, ESPN+, ESPN3, SECN+, and ACCNX.
That would give you access to Monday Night Football, as well as plenty of pre- and post-game analysis on SportsCenter, Get Up, First Take, NFL Live, and so on.
Of course, it would also mean handing over a chunk of change to a (likely) player in the streaming blackout that’s blocking your Monday Night Football.
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This story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best live TV streaming services.
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