How To Watch Winter Olympics: Live Stream, Antenna, Cable Alternatives

In the age of streaming services, there are only a few televised events that can draw a huge audience, but the Olympics is one of them. The Winter Games are set to officially begin Friday after the opening ceremonies, but some of the events are scheduled to be televised as early as Thursday. They continue until Feb. 25 when the closing ceremonies are scheduled to take place.

NBC Universal offers most of the Olympic coverage there is, available across their channels NBC, NBCSN and others within the Universal company, according to NBC. Those with cable either on their televisions or a cable login online will be able to watch live or stream most any event they’re looking for.

A schedule of every channel that will carry coverage is available on the NBC Olympic site. Those channels are NBC, NBCSN, USA, CNBC, the Olympic Channel. Anyone with cable can tune into these channels while the games are on and see the scheduled events. Those with cable but who aren’t in front of their tv can watch the live stream online, the schedule for the live stream can be viewed here. This coverage is a bit more complete and all in one place, so there are no channel changes necessary. The third option is to log into the NBCSports app and view the games through that on Apple TV, Roku, Chromecast and others. All of these options require a cable login, though.

Olympic fans have another option for ways to watch the games. A digital TV antenna could allow viewers to watch if they can pick up NBC and its Universal channels. The antennas essentially pick up what the broadcasters send over the air. Most antennas offer the same sound and image quality but signals weaken when there are a lot of buildings, trees, hill and other objects that can obstruct the signals.

If none of these options are available to viewers, there are a few free trials they could sign up for. YouTube TV offers a free trial period, as does Hulu Live and Sling TV. The only catch with activating one of these free trials is that users have to remember to cancel them before they renew and the company charges for another month of service.

Other than these options to watch the games live, users can check live stats on the games online or use other sites like Twitter to keep up with live tweets and video clips of the events.