College football is back for Week 4! Some major non-conference games and more minor college and mid-major gridiron showdowns will be streaming-only events this week, airing live on ESPN Plus — ESPN’s direct-to-customer, low-cost live sports streaming service. Now, you may have questions about which teams are playing on ESPN Plus in Week 4, what the service is, what channels it airs on, and what an ESPN+ subscription costs and includes.

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Which American football games are airing on ESPN Plus this week?

Below is a summary of all the matches that will be streamed live on ESPN+ this week on Saturday, September 21 (all times Pacific):

09:00 Lafayette vs. Columbia

09:00 Stetson vs. Harvard

09:00am NC State vs. #21 Clemson

09:00 Princeton vs. Lehigh

10:00am Fordham vs. Dartmouth

10:00 am Ball State vs. Central Michigan

10:00am Cornell vs. Colgate

10:00 AM Brown vs. Georgetown

10:30am Norfolk State vs. VMI

11:00 AM Saint Francis (PA) vs. Eastern Michigan

11:00 AM Yale vs. Holy Cross

11:00 AM Arkansas State vs. #20 Iowa State

11:00 am Virginia vs. Coastal Carolina

11:00 am San Diego vs. North Dakota

11:00 am St. Thomas-Minnesota vs. Lindenwood

11:00am Towson vs. North Dakota State

11:00 AM Drake vs. South Dakota

11:00am Roosevelt vs. Valparaiso

11:00 am Utah State vs. Temple

11:30 am Tennessee State vs. Tennessee Tech

12:00 Mercyhurst vs. Montana State

12:00 Western Carolina vs. Montana

12:00 PM Southern Miss vs. Jacksonville State

12:30 Central Connecticut vs. Massachusetts

12:30pm Buffalo vs. #23 Northern Illinois

12:30 p.m. Youngstown State vs. Pittsburgh

12:30pm Houston Christian vs. UTSA

12:40pm UCLA vs. #16 LSU

1:00 PM Mississippi Valley State vs. Nicholls

2:00pm Lane vs. Miles College (AL)

3:00 PM Southern Utah vs. Idaho State

3:00 PM Morehead State vs. Eastern Kentucky

3:00pm East Carolina vs. Liberty

3:00 PM Monmouth vs. Florida International

3:00pm The Citadel vs. Mercer

3:00pm Richmond vs. Delaware State

3:00pm Marist vs. Bucknell

4:00 PM Eastern Illinois vs. Illinois State

4:00 PM Southern vs. Prairie View A&M

4:00 PM Weber State vs. Northwestern State

4:00 PM Gardner-Webb vs. Presbyterian

4:00pm New Mexico State vs. Sam Houston

4:00pm Texas Southern vs. Lamar

4:00pm Wyoming vs. North Texas

4:00pm Virginia Lynchburg vs. Morgan State

4:00 PM Alabama A&M vs. Austin Peay

4:00 PM Southeast Missouri State vs. Southern Illinois

4:00 PM North Carolina A&T vs. North Carolina Central

4:00 PM Jackson State vs. Grambling

4:00 PM South Dakota State vs. SE Louisiana

4:00 PM Tulsa vs. Louisiana Tech

4:00 PM Missouri State vs. UT Martin

4:00 PM Sacramento State vs. Texas A&M Commerce

4:00pm Toledo vs. Western Kentucky

4:00 PM Northern Arizona vs. Incarnate Word

4:00pm Tarleton State vs. North Alabama

4:00 PM Florida A&M vs. Troy

4:30 PM Bowling Green vs. #25 Texas A&M

4:30pm #6 Tennessee vs. #15 Oklahoma

5:00pm Alcorn State vs. McNeese

5:00pm Northern Colorado vs. Stephen F. Austin

5:00pm Idaho vs. Abilene Christian

5:00 PM UL Monroe vs. #1 Texas

7:00pm Utah Tech vs. UC Davis

• Full program: These college football games are on ESPN+ in Week 4

What is ESPN Plus? Is it a TV channel?

ESPN Plus is a live sports streaming service available through ESPN, but is not available through your local cable provider. ESPN Plus is NOT a TV channel and is not available on cable and satellite packages from companies like Comcast/Xfinity, Verizon, Frontier, and DirecTV. ESPN Plus is not included with those services because the service is a direct-to-consumer platform, which helps keep costs down and available to everyone regardless of location.

Whether you’re a soccer fan looking to supplement your current local and national sports offerings on cable TV, or just an average fan looking for help catching that can’t-miss game or event, ESPN+ has a lot to offer for a very reasonable price.

How much does ESPN Plus cost per month? What does it cost?

ESPN Plus is just $10.99 per month for the 2024 season (you can cancel anytime, so if you sign up to watch just one game or event, you’ll only pay for one month). You can also get the service at a slight discount if you sign up for an annual subscription for $109.99. So for under $11, you can try it out for a month and see if it’s for you, or just wait until the platform has something you want to watch and give it a shot then.

• Try it: Get access and start watching ESPN+ now for less than $11

How do I get ESPN Plus for free?

Unfortunately, there is no way to get ESPN Plus for free and there is currently no free trial offered. However, there are sometimes promotional deals offered by some phone services or internet providers to entice customers to sign up with these companies. For example, providers like Verizon or AT&T have previously offered deals to entice new customers to switch. ESPN+ is not currently included with Amazon Prime, but you can save some money on ESPN+ if you sign up for a Disney bundle deal that includes access to Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+ for less than $15/month. This is a fantastic deal if you have a family and already pay separately for Disney Plus or Hulu. If you have separate accounts for these services within your family and want to merge them, you can call Disney directly (800-727-1800) and their customer service team will find a way to merge the accounts for you. I have personally done this and it was a breeze.

Which games and teams can you watch on ESPN+ this season?

ESPN+ won’t have all of the biggest nationally televised games, but it will have a huge selection of college football games to watch Thursday through Saturday each week during the 2024 college football season. ESPN Plus will essentially air any games that aren’t big enough, or aren’t on the schedule, for ESPN’s major networks to air live. For example, there are a ton of non-conference games this season featuring SEC and Big 12 teams like Auburn, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky and more. If you’re a fan of a smaller team, programs like Harvard, Yale and other Ivy League schools are also featured on the service each week.

ESPN Plus also has the media rights to broadcast several other mid-major college football leagues and teams. This includes teams from leagues such as the America East, MEAC, Atlantic 10, Patriot League, Conference USA, the Sun Belt, SWAC, the MAC, and many more. If your team is a mid-major, chances are good that ESPN+ will broadcast their games. Here’s a look at the ESPN+ college football broadcast schedule as an example of the types of teams you’ll see each week.

While ESPN Plus gives you access to a large selection of live games from professional and college sports, the service does not give you access to live sports and programming that airs live on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, ESPN Classic, and ESPN News. To watch these channels, you will still need a cable, satellite, or live TV streaming service provider login. In this case, consider using live TV streaming services like Fubo or DirecTV Stream, or the cheapest option in Sling (there’s currently a promotion going on, with the first month being as low as $25, depending on which package you select).

What is included in ESPN Plus? What sports does it include?

ESPN Plus is great if you like to watch a lot of live college sports, including smaller events like volleyball, gymnastics, basketball, soccer, and more. But that’s not all they have to offer. What makes ESPN Plus so worth it is that they offer so much more than that. ESPN Plus offers UFC and other mixed martial arts events every week, as well as a slew of professional soccer offerings including Italian Serie A league matches, German Bundesliga matches, English FA Cup matches, and other tournament matches, as well as regular live streaming of Major League Soccer and Major League Baseball games, NHL hockey, and much more. ESPN Plus is essentially an on-demand sports streaming service that airs live games and events of basically anything that ESPN can’t fit on their regular channels due to scheduling conflicts. ESPN Plus also has a growing list of original shows and programming that is exclusive to the ESPN+ platform, such as documentaries, athlete profiles, original shows, and more.

With an ESPN+ subscription, you also get free access to ESPN Insider on the ESPN website, where you can find exclusive content and stories that you wouldn’t see without that account.

How do I get ESPN Plus on my TV?

ESPN Plus isn’t a TV channel, so you’ll need to access it through the ESPN app. If you have a smart TV that’s connected to Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable to the internet, you shouldn’t have any problems downloading the ESPN app. If you don’t have a smart TV but do have a streaming device, you can get ESPN Plus by adding the app to any of the following streaming devices that you currently use to watch TV and movies:

• Apple TV
• Roku
• Amazon Fire TV
• Android TV
• Xbox One or Xbox Series X
• Playstation 4 or 5

You can also watch ESPN Plus using the app on your desktop computer, or with your internet browser by going to plus.espn.com.

In short: is ESPN Plus worth the money?

What makes ESPN Plus so appealing to cable subscribers and cord cutters alike is the ease with which a customer can tailor the service to their needs. For example, if you’re a college football fan who never gets tired of watching the game, you have plenty of options to watch college football Saturdays through the fall and can cancel the service once the season is over without penalty. On the other hand, if you’re a football fan who just wants to watch a specific game that’s not available through your local provider, ESPN Plus often has a lot of high-profile games on it. If the game is available on the service, you can sign up for a month for less than $11 to watch the game and still have access to the platform for the rest of the month until your login expires. Either way, you’d only have to pay about $10 to watch your team play instead of going through the hassle of finding an illegal live stream on some sketchy website full of annoying pop-up ads.