A Cord-Cutter’s Quest to Catch the NBA Finals and How the Equation Changed

Last week I wrote about how much effort it is for a cord cutter in Florida to watch the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals. I walked through my options of live TV streamers, the potential antenna experiment and the shrinking free trials. By the end of it, I was no closer to watching the Finals. In the days since, I was leaning toward the path of least resistance: sign up for YouTube TV and pay $83 for the month to watch my Knicks.

When I checked last week, the trial was five days.

That was far too short to cover the entire series (even if it were to end in a four-game sweep). I considered the antenna route, but after viewing RabbitEars.info and learning about VHF versus UHF bands and how far away my home is from my local ABC’s broadcast tower, I decided to go with the road most traveled. The $83 for YouTube TV looked like the rational, reliable decision.

The equation changed this week as I went back to the signup page and discovered that YouTube TV is now offering a 21-day free trial.

“What luck!” I thought to myself. Then I wondered if I had it wrong last week.

According to IGN, YouTube TV's free trial can fluctuate between two days and 21 days. Whatever drives those fluctuations, the trial available to me this week happens to cover the exact window of the series I want to watch.

(Image courtesy of StreamScoop)

The data behind that "luck" is not encouraging.

Samsung Ads' State of CTV 2025 report found that new subscribers who joined streaming services during the NFL season churned at twice the rate of pre-season subscribers: 65 percent compared with 34 percent. Antenna data cited in the same report found that cancellations negate an average of 68 percent of new subscriptions across major streaming services. As the report said: "Sports is not a magic bullet for streaming churn."

I am likely to be one of those cancellations.

The product is not just the content. ABC has carried the content the whole time. The product is the acquisition window: a free month coincidentally timed to a championship, used and discarded one playoff run at a time.

When someone signs up to watch one playoff series, the platform has them for two weeks. This is not unique to sports. LendingTree found that 53 percent of consumers had signed up for a streaming service in the past year to watch a single piece of content, and 72 percent of that group canceled after watching it. Parks Associates found that in 2025, 30 percent of consumers cited cutting household expenses as the top reason for canceling a streaming service, up from 26 percent in 2020.

Game 1 was last night. I watched on a 21-day trial that did not exist when I wrote about it last week. I’ll be a part of next year’s data.