So I've committed the football fein's cardinal sin... I'm going to a Fall wedding Labor Day weekend (in Hooville, nonetheless) and I'm going to be flying across the country, home to Ft Worth, TX during the Hokies' season opener against FSU. The flight couldn't really be at a worse time, with kick-off scheduled for 1 hour into the 3 hour flight.
My question for TKP:
What's the best way to follow a football game on an airplane? The plane is a 737-800 operated by American Airlines. I don't believe seat backs with live TV are available but I have the option to splurge on in-flight WiFi. What's my best shot? Video stream (not getting my hopes up but you never know), audio stream (through HokieSports?), or will I have to rely on refreshing the box score in my browser? I've never used in-flight WiFi before but I've heard it's about as slow as dialup.
Thanks and Go Hokies!
Comments
Personally, I'd do the IMG audio stream to be safe.
Is there a recommended app for that or would that be through a browser?
I think either the TuneIn or HokieSports app should work.
1. Go here and put in your flight details to see what you have access to: https://entertainment.aa.com/en/
2. download the requisite apps
If you have seat-back entertainment, you might get lucky and have access to live TV.
Great link! My flight will have seatback screens (I assume in economy too?) apparently! How do I determine if that includes ESPN?
Edit: Joking aside, those in flight entertainment options usually are on demand shows and movies. I can't recall the airline that had live tv so have your tuneIn or hokiesports app ready to go! Unless you choose to volunteer your seat if the flight is overbooked.
Naw alot of them have live TV, espically United Flights. It ain't free though.
My mistake. Thx for the correction.
the Ammbassador to Lot 18 has spoken
I had to fly during basketball tourney time once. It was quite a relief sitting there watching basketball the whole flight.
Each airline is different in terms of what is available and on what type of plane.
As of the beginning of this year, AA said that they want to have live TV in all of their planes (via seat back or personal device) for domestic flights by the end of the year. But I am not really sure where they are in that.
*edited to clarify that live tv is only available on domestic flights
I think it also depends on where you are. Flying back from Cancun earlier this year, we had the services available to us but weren't allowed to use it over International Waters or some bull spit like that.
you're right. I should amend the statement to mean all domestic flights.
I remember flying United to Shanghai during the Boston College game in 2013 thinking I could watch the game, but because we flew west out of San Francisco, we were immediately in international waters.
Landed 16 hours later to find out we lost...so that was fun.
License agreements for that spectrum has not been worked out internationally other than Canada. Its really killing the in flight data connectivity in Europe where each nation has to agree.
Delta is free live TV
The only flights I've taken that have offered live TV were on JetBlue, and it was free. Dunno if that's changed at all.
I've only ever flown Delta. On their flights in the features list there will be a different icon for seat back entertainment and live TV. They usually need to be 4 + hour flights though, but maybe youll get lucky. 3 is borderline. As far as in flight internet I've experienced both. I have youtube TV and I've been on flights where I can stream live TV no problem. I've also been on flights where I can't download an html file.
I've had to stream it via the hokiesports app on my iPhone. Not sure if there's a droid version but I'm sure there is.
Virginia Tech HokieSports by IMG College, LLC
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/virginia-tech-hokiesports/id1269613171?mt=8
you can listen through browser on the hokiesports page, but I haven't had luck in the past getting it to handle mobile well. TuneIn has Hokie sports and an app.
link to our IMG page: https://tunein.com/radio/Virginia-Tech-IMG-Sports-Network-s230249/
game page
https://tunein.com/radio/Virginia-Tech-Hokies-at-Florida-St-Seminoles-Se...
Sometimes American Flights have the Tv's in the headrest. You could potentially get lucky..
You wont be able to stream video on wifi alone. If you get lucky and can find one with monitors in the head rest you should be ok. DL speeds are horrific and a lot of times they've blocked streaming services anyway.
You may be able to find an audio only stream but TBH you're likely going to be better off just following a play by play on espn or twitter.
Fly Southwest and get live TV for free in flight
So I have a very similar issue as the OP and I am flying SW and have their app to get live TV. How good is it in your experience?
I've watched football games before without a hitch, I don't really recall being disappointed with what I got
If I were in your situation, I would turn off my phone and avoid social media. Record it, and watch it when I get home. I've done it before the entire next day. Sounds like you would only have to wait a couple of hours.
Until you glance at a TV while walking past the Chili's in the Ft Worth airport and see the score with 3 min left in the 4th.
I have done what you described and I will add, leave your phone off so you don't get the text messages from your buddies as well.
I'd turn off my phone too. And then I'd close the blinds and lock the doors and watch football all weekend.
I did that for the WVU game last year. It was tough, but doable.
I did this while I was out of the country last year and I almost made it until we got back and I turned my phone on to see my mom had left a VM (she was dog-sitting) and at the very end of the VM mentioned we had won. I still watched it to see how we looked, but there was zero suspense.
Call me crazy, but this is how I've watched sports for years, if I'm not at the game. Build up at least 90min of buffer and fast forward through commercials and halftime/intermission. This is especially helpful for basketball, where the last two minutes of game clock can easily take 15+ minutes. The only exception is when there are multiple games on and I want to flip between them.
As others have said, streaming video will not turn out too well. I tried two years ago for the playoff games and it was atrocious. Quality sucked, constant buffering. The speeds just aren't there and when I looked into it earlier this year they weren't any better. I'd honestly just ignore it until you get back and can either stay up late thanks to the extra hour.
You might get lucky and not lose too much time due to limited commercials on a stored stream somewhere.
How close are you to the bride and/or groom...
It can't be very close or they wouldn't have scheduled their wedding during football season.
This is why
Iwe had a spring wedding!You'd think that, but my sister got married on homecoming weekend, the ceremony was during the first half.
I'll hold that grudge until I am good and dead.
If they ask for volunteers willing to give up their seat, you should run up to the gate counter to be the first and ask for a bar stipend.
I DEMAND CHEESE FRIES AND BOTTOMLESS BEER!
Download the ESPN app just in case it works, but also download the Hokiesports app in the likely case that the ESPN stream doesn't work at all.
I think most Delta flights >2 hours have the seat monitors with live TV. Not sure if American does the same thing.
Think back to the issues with ESPN3/WatchESPN streaming that everyone had the first few weeks of last year, on hardwired internet, with (i'm guessing) most on here with internet at least 15-30 mbps. I can only imagine how horrible it'll be at 35k feet on a crowded plane with internet that would only get you 9mbps at the best of times.
The problems with WatchESPN were on ESPN's end and had nothing to do with your bandwidth. Friend of mine had a 100 Mbps connection and it was still garbage.
No, completely agreed. I have 300Mbps from Spectrum with a wifi router that can handle it, and I couldn't stream a damn thing for a long while last year. I'm just saying, combine ESPN's spotty track record on a good internet connection with ESPN's spotty track record on a spotty internet connection, and you're asking for trouble if you're counting on watching the game on the plane without a backup alternative.
To be fair, they switched to an entirely new streaming system under the hood, and by the end of the season it seemed that they had most of the wrinkles worked out (I didn't experience any significant issues watching the Bama-UGA game). I don't expect to have any issues this season.
That said, terrible decision to make such a major change right before the 4 busiest months of their year.
That's why we scheduled ours for Saturday afternoon. Ceremony is around 5 pending the conclusion of the PSU game (all 4 parents went to Penn State) and the 'reception' will be watching the Michigan Notre Shame game at the bar. My stepmom is not thrilled.
My fiance just set our wedding date for August 17th, 2019.
OP. I would suggest going to https://entertainment.aa.com/en/ and select "Whats on my flight", and see if that gives you idea if live tv is available. Googling "live tv american airlines" doesn't make it look promising for narrowbody planes, but some of that info might be outdated. You can also try posting on flyertalk.com, lots of frequent flier nerds over that will be well versed on the current options available based on aircraft type.
As others have said if live TV isn't available on the aircraft, streaming video is very unlikely to work on in flight wifi. Audio streaming hopefully should work.
We scheduled our wedding for a bye week way back when. My sister complained about missing the NCSU game. My response was, "it's not my fault you picked the wrong school."
My dad was amused. My mom...less so.
I regret that I have but one leg to give.
I've been tasked determining the internet/entertainment solution for work which is an aircraft solution. Definitely billing time spent reading this thread at work as part of understanding customer expectations. Thanks guys. Legit reason to read TKP at work.
Update: Shoutout to CarryMeBack! My fiance and I are listening in on the TuneIn app (as suggested). There are seatback monitors but no live TV unfortunately. Go Hokies!