Account, payments & subscriptions

[johnak]

I purchased RUKU/ESPN in order to watch major sporting events. When I tried to watch such I was told they were not part of my service. I did get a hockey game which I could care less about but NO college football games. The second scam was I signed up for the $9.99 per month fee. While trying to set up programing that would not come in up pops a new plan for $99.99 for the year so I signed up for that hoping I would NOW get the programing I wanted. NOTHING happened, still could not watch college football. They don't tell you that you only get select programing and not all of ESPN programing. Back to the fees. When I signed up for the $99.99 yearly fee they still charged me the $9.99 monthly fee. I was able to cancel the $9.99 going forward but no way to cancel the $99.99 fee for something I can not watch. SCAM !!

[davidjazz]

Getting college football can be tricky, depending on whether or not you already have cable or an online cable replacement service and what games you want to watch.

This recent Roku Blog details some of the ins-and-outs:

https://www.roku.com/blog/college-football#!

[andyross]

You can't blame Roku. They just supply the hardware to watch. It's up to the networks and developers to offer programming and create the channels. When it comes to sports, it is VERY expensive at all levels. I plan on cancelling my regular TV service soon due to the obscene RSN (Regional Sports Network) fee and high costs of carrying sports networks that I don't give a bleep about.

Basically, most sports still have ties with cable/satellite/broadcast services that highly restrict what can air and who can see it. You need to carefully research any subscriptions before paying any money. That $99 you spent was probably for the annual plan.

Also, NEVER subscribe through a 3rd party like Roku. ALWAYS go to the service's WEB SITE and subscribe there, after carefully reviewing what is actually available and if it's what you want.

[Strega]

The ESPN app in the channel store does say “CABLE OR SATELLITE SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED”.  If you sign up for ESPN+, then they give you some other/additional stuff that is generally not on cable or satellite, but you still need your "TV provider" for the "cable stuff". 

You should be able cancel the annual plan, but since a lot of TV subscriptions are prepaid/nonrefundable, cancelling now may mean simply not being billed next year. I’m afraid you kind of scammed yourself on that one, “hoping” that the annual and monthly plans had fundamentally different programming.

[HDMIGuy]

@johnak Unfortunately ESPN advertising can be very confusing.  ESPN+ is a subscription service which carries many NHL Hockey games, many mid level college basketball games, and many mid level college football games.  An ESPN+ subscription does not allow access to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, or ESPN News which require a TV service.  To make it more confusing you access ESPN+ using the ESPN app which allows access to all ESPN content if you have a TV service like a cable company.  I would contact ESPN at  1 (888) 549-3776 and see if they can help you.  Even though you subscribed through Roku I doubt Roku can assist you because you did get the service you paid for but not the service you thought you would get.  Good luck.