Long-time foes Manchester United and Liverpool will meet in the FA Cup for the 19th time today, this one offering a semifinal berth for the winner. The Red Devils are attempting to reach the semis in consecutive campaigns for the first time since 2005, while Liverpool are looking to keep alive their quest for four trophies this season.
This one is kicking off soon, at 11:30 a.m. ET, and will stream exclusively on ESPN+ in the United States. That means you can’t watch for free, but it does give you a chance to discover arguably the best value in sports streaming right now.
Again, there’s no ESPN+ free trial, so if you were hoping to watch this one without having to pay anything, that’s unfortunately not possible in the United States.
No matter, though, because ESPN+ is definitely worth having for the long-term anyways. For just $11 per month, you’ll get to watch every FA Cup match, as well as Bundesliga (Bayern plays Dortmund on March 30, so you’re going to want it for that), La Liga (hello, Real Madrid vs Barcelona on April 21), Copa del Rey (the final is on April 6) and DFB-Pokal action, as well as other smaller leagues and various international competition.
And if you ever get bored of all the soccer–unlikely–then there’s still plenty of other live sports: The PLAYERS Championship–golf’s “fifth major”–is available on ESPN+ this weekend. Or you can watch any out-of-market NHL game. Or any number of college sports. Or UFC and boxing pretty much every weekend.
Let’s say you manage to uncover one of the few hours of the day when there aren’t any live sports on. Well, then you can watch any of the excellent 30-for-30 documentaries, or other original shows and on-demand content.
It’s a stampede of content, and for just $11 per month (or $110 for the year, which basically gives you two months free), it’s a fantastic value.
If you’re trying to access ESPN+ from outside the United States, you’re going to need a virtual private network (VPN) to do that. ESPN+ blocks you if it recognizes you’re abroad, but a VPN hides your IP address/location and connects you to a digital server in the US (or whatever country of your choosing), allowing you to bypass those location-blocks.
NordVPN has over 6,000 servers worldwide and over 2,000 in the United States alone, making it easily one of the best options for connecting to ESPN+ and watching Man United vs Liverpool from abroad.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.