"At last, Houston Astros and Houston Rockets fans will be able to watch the teams’ games on their regional sports network without needing a subscription to a cable or satellite provider.
Space City Home Network on Wednesday announced a new direct-to-consumer offering called SCHN+ that will allow fans to subscribe to the network with either a monthly or annual plan. That includes access to all network programming, not just the teams’ games.
Rates are $19.99 a month or $199 per year, plus tax. The SCHN+ app will be available on iOS, Android, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV devices currently, with more platforms to be added. Fans can also watch via a web browser at schnplus.com."
I wonder if the blackout rules still apply, though. Even with a VPN, I can’t watch Rockets games on SCHN because my billing zip code is in one of those gray zones. I’m going to try it on the app for tonight’s game and see what happens.
I’m guessing that dedicated streaming somehow gets around the blackout rules, kind of like paying for NBA League Pass.
Another weird observation: when I had Fubo last year and early this year, I was able to watch Rockets games on SCHN, but when I switched back to DTVStream, they were blacked out. Same address, same billing address, etc. - doesn’t make sense.
In any event, I was happy to see that the blackout deal is no longer a thing when streaming through their app, and I didn’t have to pay anything extra.
The black out on baseball was one of the biggest downers of my summer. If I can avoid that then things are heading in the right direction. I might even start watching the Rockets again
I’m in the Spurs “donut” so that interferes with Rockets games. I had bought League Pass a couple of years ago, but that’s stupid-expensive and the Rockets kind of sucked then, so I dropped it.
I have no trouble with the Astros, but I only had two carrier choices to get SCHN- Fubo or DirecTV.
Hopefully this means that SCHN remains viable and can keep the regional sports network model alive. I like our Astros TV crew.