Awhile back I wrote an article explaining to all about how a user of XBMC would go about watching live sports through the program. Then there were a handful of plugins available but it seemed almost impossible for the creators to keep up to date with the ever changing locations of where streams were located. If you’re like me you probably don’t care much for watching sports over the internet because you’re picky when it comes to quality and you’d rather settle for watching the Dallas Cowboys every week instead of your favourite team.
Of course you can fork over the dough for such things as NFL Sunday Ticket and NHL Centre Ice like I tend to do but if you’re on the search for where you can watch your favourite teams through XBMC without the necessary need for high definition then check out my suggestions below.
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Sports A Holic
The latest and greatest addon for XBMC users that love sports. This add-on has it all and so far has been a huge success thanks in large part to it’s developer Mash2k3. If you’re fairly familiar with XBMC and it’s add ons you’ll probably recognize the name as he is the same guy who created the massively popular Mash Up add-on.
From my understanding if you already have Mash Up installed the same features you’ll find in it’s live sports section are what you’ll see in Sports-A-Holic.
To Install
First and foremost you’ll of course want to have the wonderful Fusion addon installed to gain access. To do so do the following:
Step 1: Open XBMC on your device of choice.
Step 2: Navigate to the “System” menu in select the File Manager subsection
Step 3: In the File Manager menu you’ll want to click “Add Source”
Step 4: Click on the text box that says “” and “http://fusion.xbmchub.com” without the quotes. Click done and then enter a name where it asks “Enter a name for this media source”, the name Fusion is usually a solid choice.
Step 5: Click OK.
Once you have Fusion installed you can proceed with installing the Mashup Repository and the Sports-A-Holic plugin (and while you’re there you should take a look at Mash Up).
Installing Sports-A-Holic
There is more then one way to accomplish installing either of the aforementioned addons but we’ll choose the simplest.
1. From the main menu screen again scroll to “System” and this time choose “Settings”.
2. Inside here you should have the option to “Install From Zip File”. If not you may have to “esc” back a few screens to get there.
3. After selecting install from zip you’ll choose “Fusion”
4. Once inside of Fusion you’ll want to scroll down to “Video”.
5. From there choose “repositories”.
6. In this list there should be one called “mashup-repository.mash2k3” or something very similar you’ll want to select.
7. After that all of Mash’s addons should be enabled.
(you can continue back from the system menu to install his add-ons if you’re familiar but I’ll try to make this as easy as possible).
After the repository has successfully installed you can add Sports-A-Holic via:
1. From the main menu screen scroll to “Videos” and underneath choose “Add-ons”.
2. Depending on if you have any add-ons currently installed you’ll see them or “Get More”. Regardless choose “Get More”.
3. The next screen should show you a long list of add-ons that you can install. If you’ve properly installed the Mashup repository you should be able to scroll down and see “Sports-A-Holic”. Once you select that choose install and you’re done.
From here you can now go back to the VIDEO>ADD-ONS screen and you should now see Sports-A-Holic listed.
The rest is up to you now to figure out on how to use and find which sports you’d like to watch.
Other XBMC Sports Add-ons
As mentioned earlier in this post you could always install the Mash up following the same instruction as above. Instead of choose Sports-A-Holic you’d want to choose “Mash Up”. Mash up will open up a plethora of other options available to you in terms of content and you may want that. Still either or should work however you may find it easier to watch sports by just browsing sports.
Another option available is Navi-X. Since coming across Sports-A-Holic I haven’t seen much need for Navi-X in regards to the sports content.
Sportsdevil
Like Navi-X I havent even opened Sportsdevil since the launch of Sports-A-Holic. At one time it was the best add-on available but now it appears to be struggling to stay afloat. A lot of users have mentioned they can no longer find streams through the plugin and have claimed it’s been broken for months. Still others have still be able to watch some content. It certainly won’t hurt to checkout to add to your library.
Thats About It
There are others of course but for the scope of this article I’ve mentioned what I feel would work best for those living in North America looking for an option. If there are others I’m missing please feel free to mention them below in the comments section for other readers.
Of course if you’re looking to get started with XBMC be sure to check out my latest favourite device the Mk809. If you have any questions please ask!
