Watch live NBA games with League Pass Mobile for iPhone

I've subscribed to NBA League Pass Broadband for 2 years now. It's a love-hate thing with them. The service, basically, sucks and is totally overpriced. The quality of the video improved this year, but the streaming is way too glitchy and full of hiccups. The interface and user experience are terrible: too much wasted real estate, the scorebar at the top is completely unnecessary and regularly wrong, the software often crashes or stops feeding video, and the whole "console" concept and watching 3 games at once is idiotic. For the person watching on a computer in the living room, there needs to be a faster way to switch between games. Going back to a console and switching is dumb. There's a reason that flipping through channels on TVs works... because it's fast... up and down... that's all you need... maybe a last button as well.

In addition, I've complained to the NBA via email about the number of blackouts. I think the lawyers have really screwed up there... the broadcasters' lawyers did a great job... but ultimately, if I'm buying from the NBA, I expect to get everything from the NBA... why should I care if a local guy wants to air a game? I don't live there and don't get their channel... how are they losing out?

The sad thing is that, in the end, when the paid broadband service doesn't work well or is blacked out, I can go to justin.tv or another one of those sites and essentially watch the real game in real time, often with better quality and fewer hiccups, for free... illegal for the guy sharing his TV screen over the Internet? maybe... that's something for the lawyers to work out, but at the end of the day, when I can get a better product for free than buying an inferior, but official, product, then clearly the industry is failing. This is why piracy inevitably occurs and why slow-moving corporate behemoths fall behind.

Too bad I enjoy basketball enough to waste my money on the NBA.

I assume you can't just turn off location services as a workaround for blackout games?

The NBA packages are all overpriced. They keep talking about how they're embracing the digital age, but basically, they keep prices high, exclude fanbase, and alienate fans from countries interested.

If David Stern really does want to bring NBA to Europe or China, he better start building up fanbase in those countries by releasing applications at afforadble prices.

$39.95 and compared to MLB@Bat. It's true that MLB was mostly audio for it's $9.95 but...

- they offered 1 or 2 games a night on TV for free
- you can use your Online account to get the videos
- all Playoff and World Series TV is free
- free video highlights while the game it happening
- unlimited audio for any game!
- 99cent TV for one game

If league pass can get 4 of these then I might come back to the NBA.

+1 for an NFL app.

NFL plz…

So can I watch this on my tv through the video out? Not worth it?

I don't mind the blackout rules for live games, but they even blackout the replay of those games! I mean if the game on TNT ended 24 hours ago, what is the use of not showing a replay??? That means since the Lakers and Cavs are on cable every week, you can expect to not be able to watch half their games on Broadband or the iPhone.

I'm all worked up now. Anyone know where to write to complain about this? :(

The blackout rules are ridiculous, especially if, for example, you get the broadband League Pass because you don't have (or want) cable TV service.

If you are thinking about using this app to avoid blackout restrictions, note that the description says that all of the typical blackout and local market restrictions apply to the iPhone version. They even apply to archived games.

The NBA has an audio app that is supposed to be blackout free, but that app gets terrible reviews for crashing constantly. Or rather, it evidently crashes constantly, thus it gets terrible reviews.

I don't think this app is going to keep you out of the bar.

Let's see, the NBA increased the prices on its full broadband package from $85 in 2008 to $135 in 2009. Now, League Pass broadband subscribers still have to pay $40 to watch games on the iPhone. At least MLB didn't make you pay again if you already purchased a broadband subscription. Talk about being reasonable in a down economy...