Watch TV without paying for cable

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On Monday, CBS and Time Warner Cable finally ended their contract dispute, restoring CBS' networks to subscribers in New York, Dallas and Los Angeles after a monthlong blackout. For football fans in those markets, the decision came just in time: The NFL season officially kicks off this week, and CBS carries many of the games.

I'm a football fan in New York, but the decision didn't really affect me, as I'm not a Time Warner subscriber. In fact, I don't subscribe to any cable provider: When I moved into my latest apartment I decided to "cut the cord" and go without cable.

It's a decision that's saved me a substantial amount of money on monthly bills, and I've managed to get by with a Netflix subscription and other streaming options. But there's one very big downside of cord-cutting: You can't watch live sports. And now that football season is upon us, I'm weighing the options to determine the most cost-effective strategy for watching football without cable.

Option 1: Watch at a friend's apartment. I call this the "freeloader" option. But it's not exactly free. Because I don't want to be the guy who just mooches off his friends' cable subscriptions, I do feel an obligation to bring over a six-pack of beer or some snacks for every game. That's going to run me in the vicinity of $10 for every weekend, which adds up to about $40 a month - around what I'd be paying for a shared cable subscription. Still, that's not a big downside: Even if I were watching at home, it's likely that I'd be snacking and having a couple beers. At least this way I'm doing it with friends.

But it's not a consistent option. Not all of my friends are going to be planted on the couch at home every Sunday, and even when they are, they don't necessarily want to have guests. So I'd like to find a way that I can watch at home.

Option 2: Get an antenna.Unlike baseball, which is typically carried by regional cable sports networks, most football games are carried on the networks: CBS or Fox for the Sunday games during the day, and NBC for the Sunday Night Game. That means you can get them over the air with a digital antenna that can get an HD signal, most of which will run you in the $35 to $60 range.

That comes to about $10 per month of football, though the actual per-use cost is much lower if you're going to use it for subsequent seasons (and for watching non-football network television).

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