amazon fire tv and watch espn..

This is not limited to FireTV, you can't use WatchESPN on any device (Roku , Apple TV, etc) without a TV subscription.

Sucks there isn't An wAtch espn free like hulu etc

I mean the app being free with a fee to view

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Wtf...I thought the purpose was cutting the cord?

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I think you're a bit mistaken on the concept of "cord cutting," so I'll write a brief overview of what it means and what these types of boxes are intended to do. It refers to doing away with major broadcast content providers who, many feel, overcharge for their services. There is tons of great content that is free and broadcast Over The Air (OTA), like CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox. For many people, the lack of a commercial free, on-demand like service is sub-ideal, and they supplement it with either a large dvd/Blu-Ray selection or online streaming service like Netflix or Hulu Plus. Many others will borrow a login from someone who does pay for premium content that is never available outside of a major broadcast content provider. In every instance, they are violating the borrowed user's terms of use and very likely violating the terms of streaming it themselves. This isn't a discussion about whether you'll get caught or should or shouldn't do it, but it's a clear violation that could result in the loss of streaming priveleges. This premium content is only available through these groups- and it's good enough that many people decide it's worth the high price.

Now, the group that these boxes is fantastic for (while abiding by terms, which is the intent of my post. It should work fine this same way with the use of a login someone else is paying for, but I'm not promising that nor do I particularly care how it works for that group) is DirecTV and digital cable subscribers who pay for a single set top box or have at least one more tv than set top boxes. The second group is people who have a second home/condo/apartment that they pay for Internet but not a major broadcast content provider's services. This will allow them to use their logins for their accounts that they pay for to access premium content without a cable box. The box is just an interface you buy to access content that you pay for or is free in other ways. They are not in any way intended to give you access to content that isn't free unless you are paying for it. There is nothing on any of these boxes that you couldn't do from a Windows or OSX machine, and, in fact, you can do considerably less on them. You're paying for a clean interface and aggregation of content sources.

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I mean the app being free with a fee to view

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In a sense, this is what it is. It's just that the fee is a subscription to a major broadcast content provider at a certain level of service. It's not available to "cord-cutters," if you will accept the premise that the people who borrow logins from people who pay for it aren't "cutting the cord" but more akin to those "cable thieves" there was a push to prosecute a decade or so ago. If you do consider them to be "cord cutters," then it's only available to the subset who accepts violating the terms of viewing who is also friends with someone who doesn't mind also violating their terms of services in the action of sharing a login.


In an ideal world for cord cutters, even most consumers, true a la carte service would be provided and work like you want. That's not the case. It is starting to move that way. It may never go that way fully.

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To me it would seem like espn would be made available to non cable users also who just watch thru internet....

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It does and doesn't make sense. Cable companies pay them enough to not make it worth it to offer standalone services. The way your question was phrased just made it seem like the concept of premium (non standard major news networks) access not being available outside of broadcast providers was new to you. It's one of the older annoyances/preventers of cord cutting.

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Why cant some company pull individual sporting games live like hulu has tv shows that are provided by cable?

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ABC and CBS do offer live prime games for free with an OTA signal. They do offer live streaming in some markets, but it's very limited and requires cable/satellite login, I do believe. The cost to buy the rights to live stream them is probably far too high with way too little of a user base. ESPN especially probably pays top dollar for exclusive rights to broadcast most live events.

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Whomever can do a sports ticket so to speak for internet ....will gain millions in subs.... 

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This, and someone will eventually do it if ESPN does not. I think they will eventually, they have to if they want to continue as the dominating sports media outlet. I think them offering through Sling TV is a step in the right direction.

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This, and someone will eventually do it if ESPN does not

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They will have to come up with some big bucks to pull that off. It would have to be one of the big networks (Fox, CBS, NBC). Not many can outbid ESPN for the exclusive rights to these sporting events. It sounds good on paper, but it's not that easy to implement.