How to watch the 2024 College Football Playoff games: Every streaming option

With over 100 channels, YouTube TV offers more of the most popular channels than its competitors. By CNET’s count, out of the top 100 networks, YouTube TV offers the most channels, 78, of any streaming service.

YouTube TV enables you to watch your local ABC, CBS, Fox, PBS, and NBC channels in most areas. It also includes the ESPN family of channels and TNT. That means you can easily watch the playoffs on the service with its lowest-priced plan, the YouTube TV Base Plan, for $72.99 a month. Unfortunately, YouTube TV’s price goes up to $82.99 per month starting on January 13, 2025.

The service also has unlimited cloud storage. You’ll get six accounts to share with your household. YouTube TV supports 1080p/60fps HDTV live streams. When you want to see exactly what happened in a given play, this level of quality makes a difference. 

ESPN is also expected, but hasn’t confirmed yet, that it will be showing some of the national championship game in 4K. However, watching the game in 4K on YouTube TV requires paying an additional $19.99 monthly for its 4K Plus add-on. 

YouTube TV also offers a new feature that may make watching the game more enjoyable. All TV broadcasts have delays between the live action and what you see on your TV. As you may know, live broadcast delays on streaming services are longer than OTA delays. They can range from six to 60 seconds. This latency results from transmission slowdowns between the cameras and your screen. 

Now, most YouTube TV apps come with the option of reducing this delay. The new option is available in the YouTube TV app under the “More” menu > “Broadcast Delay.” You can choose between “Default” and “Decrease for 48 hours.” You’ll see the game a few seconds faster if you choose to decrease. But Google warns, “The lower the broadcast delay, the less buffer the video player will have. You’re more likely to experience playback interruption with a lower broadcast delay.”

In my experience, I have yet to see any playback interruptions. But, then, I also have a 2 Gigabit per second Internet connection. Still, even my friends with far slower connections also tell me they’ve yet to see any problems.

Hulu + Live TV offers ABC, ESPN, and TNT on all its packages. The least expensive option is Hulu (With Ads) + Live TV for $81.99. But for just $1 more a month, you can get it bundled with Disney+ and ESPN+. All of these come with ads, but since all the college games will come with ads anyway, it’s not like this will make much of a difference. if you can’t stand ads like me, you can pay $95.99 and avoid as many ad as you can.

With any of these packages, you can stream two sessions at once. For another $10 a month, you can play as many streams at once at home. But you’re still limited to three screens while away from home. 

Another nice plus is you can store unlimited videos in your cloud DVR archive for up to nine months. 

While you can watch the games in HDTV 1080p/60fps live streams, Hulu doesn’t offer live TV shows, including the college championship games in 4K. 

DirecTV Stream has gone through an amazing number of name changes. In the past, it’s been AT&T TV, AT&T TV Now, and DirecTV Now. Whatever you call it, you’ll get your local ABC station, ESPN, and TNT on even its cheapest package: the $86.98 Entertainment + Sports Pack.

DirecTV Stream shows live TV, when available, in 1080p/60fps. When shows are available in 4K, such as some of the championship game, you can watch it without paying an additional fee. Win!

In addition, DirecTV Stream includes generous unlimited Cloud DVR storage. At home, you can watch the game or any other show on up to 20 streaming devices at once on your home network. Away from home, you can share your stream with three other devices.

You can also watch all the games on Sling TV, but to do that, you’ll need Sling Orange and Sling Blue. This package costs $60 monthly. This makes Sling TV your best choice if you’re on a budget. 

Broken down, Orange ($40 a month) includes seven channels, such as the Disney Channel and ESPN Blue ($45 a month), which includes local channels like ABC, Fox, and NBC, as well as 14 more premium cable channels like FX, Bravo, NFL Network, and FS1. Both plans include 25 base channels like AMC, CNN, Comedy Central, TBS, and TNT. You also have the option to combine both plans for $60 a month. 

By default, Sling TV broadcasts are 720p and 30fps. It also offers 1080p and 60 fps for some shows and sporting events. So, I’m sure that for the playoffs, it will show the games in its possible stream. That also means, since SlingTV finally started streaming in 4K this summer, you’ll be able to watch some of the championship game in 4K.  

Where Sling TV falls short compared to other services is its DVR offering. It only includes 50 hours of DVR storage (unless you pay extra). It also doesn’t come with many local channels, though the platform suggests adding on an antenna for that.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for a basic and affordable live TV streaming service that still gets you a good number of channels and an easy-to-use interface, Sling TV is a great choice. 

FuboTV is best known for its sports coverage. But it’s not just sports. It’s also a full-fledged streaming service with all the usual networks, including the ones that matter for these games.

FuboTV’s starter plan, Pro, has 183 channels and comes with 1,000 hours of cloud DVR storage. You can stream to up to 10 screens at once on your home network and three screens at once away from home for $74.99 a month. One big plus about FuboTV is that it offers 4K streaming as part of its base package.

FuboTV’s other packages — Elite, $89.99, and Premier, $99.99 — include additional channels. 

This service also encourages new users to sign up for the big game with a free seven-day trial. FuboTV is convinced that once you’ve tried their service, you’ll stick.