Finding a Good TV for Sports: The Ultimate Guide

One of the most crucial aspects to consider when buying a TV is its ability to display sports in high quality. A good TV can make all the difference between an enjoyable viewing experience and a frustrating one. In this article, we will discuss the key factors to look for in a TV that can provide an excellent picture quality for watching sports.

First and foremost, it's essential to consider the type of panel used in the TV. A 120Hz panel is a great starting point, as it offers smooth motion and fast response time, making it ideal for fast-paced sports like football, hockey, and basketball. However, not all panels are created equal. If you're looking for a premium viewing experience, consider a TV with an OLED or QLED panel, which offer superior picture quality compared to LCD TVs.

Another crucial aspect to consider is the screen uniformity of the TV. A good TV should be able to display consistent colors and avoid any splotches or unevenness. If you notice really bad splotchiness, it may be a sign that the TV has major screen uniformity problems. In this case, it's best to exchange the TV for one with better picture quality.

Color is another critical aspect of a sports TV. A good TV should be able to display vibrant colors and accurate hues, making the viewing experience more immersive and enjoyable. However, many TVs sacrifice color accuracy for brightness, which can result in an inferior viewing experience. To avoid this, try using standard picture modes like ISF bright or Cinema mode instead of Vivid or Sports mode. This will ensure that you get a brighter picture while maintaining color accuracy.

Now, let's talk about how you watch sports and whether streaming apps are better than cable. In my experience, one of the most common ways to watch sports is also one of the worst in terms of picture quality - cable or satellite TV. If you're able to stream the game or match, I highly recommend going that direction for a few reasons. First, compression can be a significant issue with cable and satellite operators, resulting in lower bit rate and bit depth, which means less pixel information and less color information, ultimately leading to a poor picture quality.

Streaming services, on the other hand, often offer better picture quality due to their ability to transmit higher-quality signals. If you're using a live TV streaming app with multiple channels, such as YouTube TV, it can be reliably solid for picture quality. However, some networks may only offer 4K or HDR content via these apps, which is still better than the compressed signal you'd normally get from cable or satellite.

Using an antenna as old-school as it may sound can also be a good option to improve picture quality. ATSC 3.0 broadcasts are now available in many markets, and if you live in one of them, using an antenna might result in a better viewing experience. However, your market may differ from mine, so it's essential to research and find out more about the availability of ATSC 3.0 broadcasts in your area.

In conclusion, finding a good TV for sports is crucial for providing an enjoyable viewing experience. When shopping for a TV, consider factors like panel type, screen uniformity, color accuracy, streaming options, and antenna reception. By following this guide, you can find the perfect TV that meets your needs and enhances your sports-watching experience.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso you're gearing up for the Super Bowl Wimbledon World Cup and you're thinking about getting a new TV to watch it in all its Glory I like it great idea but a great idea needs an equally great plan so don't go buy that new TV for the big game until you've watched this video welcome back everyone I'm Caleb Dennison and if you're new around here I review TVs and stuff actually it's a little more complicated than that but I think it's safe to say that I know a few things about TVs Sports and watching sports on TVs I get asked a lot of questions throughout the year like what's the best TV for sports and what's important to look for when buying a TV if I watch Mostly Sports and hey Caleb where'd you get that sweater also uh I'm at the store right now and I'm about to buy this big TV and am I about to make a really big mistake which by the way I'll never be able to respond to that question in time so probably just don't ask but I get these questions most often right around the middle of January because there's this big TV commercial event that happens in February and they also sprinkle in some exciting football in there just for fun kind of a big deal here in the US anyway let's talk about what makes one TV better than another for watching sports what to look for and what to ignore when shopping for a new TV and also why anyone who says that buying a TV just for sports is dumb probably means well but is also like totally wrong and hey before we get to it if you like what you see maybe slap a like on this video or even subscribe if you want to see more also if you have lingering questions drop a comment down below and I'll do what I can to answer it but if I don't there's a good chance one of my fellow knit nerds can't knit nerds is uh you know what I'll explain that in another time let's talk about sports TVs so I think all of us have been to a sports bar or maybe even a friend's house and watched a game and thought you know that doesn't look great or maybe it was your house that you were watching a game and thought that doesn't look great anyway if you thought that it might have been because the picture was blurry or maybe the picture looked dim or it looked splotchy or the colors just seemed way off naturally you don't want any of that in your new TV I mean you don't have to be a video file to see that a screen looks dirty or your team's colors seem way off bad just looks bad so let's talk about how to find a TV that will not have have any of those four poor attributes starting with one of the most obvious and annoying blurriness there are three things that can cause a blurry or smeared picture when watching fast moving sports one is slow pixel response time where the pixels just don't react quickly enough to the changing instructions from the TV another is a mismatch between the frame rate of the content and the refresh rate of the TV that's how many times per second it draws a picture on the screen and the third is poor motion processing the brains of the TV are just not that sharp not the sharpest tool in the shed is what I mean often though a blurry picture is caused by all three of those things happening at the same time and the most common cause for that is that the TV is well it's cheap and I don't mean that it's just inexpensive a concept by the way that is very relative but I mean it is of generally poor build quality flimsy cheap parts just you get it it's cheap right now to be clear you can get a good quality TV at a low price for instance the 65-inch TCL 5 series that's a pretty solid TV it works just fine for sports good even it's 550 bucks that's a really good price to Performance ratio for a 65 inch TV so if you spend under 400 for a 65 inch TV it's gonna be cheap and you probably won't love the way it looks for sports now if we keep using the TCL 5 series as an example it does Sports well thanks to good pixel response time and good processing two out of the three that I just talked about right even though it doesn't have a 120 hertz panel it does a solid job with the 60 hertz panel that it does have thanks to decent processing by the way those of you in the UK or Australia that would be 50 hertz or 100 Hertz so just keep that conversion in mind for the next bit here which brings me to my next point you don't have to get a TV with a 120hz panel in order for it to be good for sports like I said the TCL 5 series does great with the 60 hertz panel but it's not a bad idea for a 120 hertz panel to be a baseline requirement now I don't want to get too deep into the tech weeds of Y here that's a different video but the takeaway I do want you to have is that 120 hertz panels don't go into cheap TVs TVs with 120 hertz panels need more expensive Hardware to support them so in other words that 120 hertz spec is an indicator of quality and it can provide some assurance that the TV is going to be a pretty good one here's the catch though I'm sorry there's always a catch it has to be a 120 hertz native panel and I mentioned that distinction because TV brands are out there trying to trick you if you see 120 hertz clear motion rate or 240 hertz motion flow or some other such nonsense that's the TV maker trying to trick you look at a spec sheet make sure it says 120hz its panel because the better panel is the indicator that it's a better TV yes it's worth the hassle taking a look at a spec sheet look if you go up to the sales person on the show floor and you ask them if the TV you're looking at has 120 hertz native panel and they look over at the box to check that means they don't know and they are relying on the same BS information on the side of the box that you would be so get on the internet and check it's worth the 30 second or so it'll take to do it now the last thing I want to say about motion and I'm making a big deal about the motion because it's one of the biggest issues when watching sports but the last thing I'll say about it is that if you're okay with motion smoothing that's frame interpolation the stuff they call motion flow or smooth motion or whatever that's fine you can use it and you won't get a blurry picture but just be aware that some people think it makes things look fake or two-dimensional it's the kind of thing that's almost always turned on on the TV in your hotel room and it has sort of a soap opera look to it if you're good with that then almost any decent TV with that feature turned on is going to be able to make fast looking Sports look clear but if you hate that look and you don't want to get it get a TV with a 120 hertz panel and just be safe okay enough about motion what else should you be looking for well let's talk visibility you want the picture to be bright and clear right now most TVs on the market today get plenty bright enough the thing you should be aware of is how reflective the screen might be if you have a lot of light coming into the room from Windows when you watch or if you have a lot of lamps or some other light source behind you when you're watching TV I'm thinking neon signs in your game room right there's a good chance that if your TV is too reflective that bright light is going to kind of wash out the picture and become a distraction again this is only a concern for certain viewing situations but they're pretty common and I mention it because it's basically the only factor that could make an OLED TV not just like the best option which let's just adjust address that right now the best TV for watching sports in almost all cases is an OLED TV instant pixel response time they all have 120 hertz panels they are all very nice TVs so the motion processing and upscaling is about the best you can get from any TV oleds rule for sports unless super bright light is coming into your room from an angle that would cause the glossy screen on that OLED TV to act like a mirror otherwise OLED all day every day but for the rest of you looking at LED LCD or qled TVs just a couple more things to be aware of on the TV side of things and then I want to talk about how you can go about watching the game and how that can make a difference too so the next thing to check for is screen uniformity what you don't want is a splotchy screen and unfortunately you're not going to know whether or not you've got a splotchy screen until you get the TV home yes sometimes getting the best TV for you can be a hassle and I'm sorry that's the case but get the TV home plug it in you don't want to get it all set up or wall mounted yet just connect it to the Internet so you can stream YouTube and then stream one of the screen uniformity test clips that I'm linking down to in the description below if you see really bad splotchiness I mean if it just looks like someone spilled grease all over your brand new white or gray t-shirt here then that TV has major screen uniformity problems and you will see those splotches when watching football golf hockey or anything else with big wide areas of consistent color if you want to know more about dirty screen effect I've actually got a video about that too and finally we land on the last picture quality element and that is color it's so easy to see bad color on a TV when watching sports now fortunately the fix for bad color on a TV is usually just a matter of not using the Vivid or Sports picture mode I know it sounds stupid since I know that you want your TV to look Vivid and you're watching sports so why wouldn't you use those picture modes the answer is because because they are hot trash when it comes to color they sacrifice just about everything about picture quality to make sure that the picture is just bright AF and honestly a big reason brands do this is because they need to stand out among a crowd of TVs with a bunch of fluorescent lights beaming down from the ceiling so try picking the standard picture mode if you must or use something like ISF bright or the cinema or movie preset and then pump up the backlight this will make sure that you get a brighter picture while also maintaining color accuracy and I think you'll be happier in the long run so that's the cheat sheet for finding a good TV for sports 120 hertz panel is a great start make sure it has decent anti-glare or anti-reflectant on the screen if you watch in bright environments and when you get it home check for dirty screen effect and exchange it if you happen to get a bad one which really doesn't happen all that often as I've gathered and then when you do get it set up avoid the Vivid or Sports picture modes now one what about how you watch or get the game are streaming apps better than cable and what about using an antenna so in my experience one of the most common ways to watch sports is also one of the worst in terms of picture quality and that would be cable or satellite now the only way you have to watch is cable or satellite then I mean obviously watch that way but if you're able to stream the game or match you might want to go that direction for a few different reasons also if the game is going to be on a big Network like ABC NBC CBS or Fox then you might want to try picking up one of your local broadcast stations with an antenna the reason either one of those options will probably look at least a little bit better than cable or satellite comes down to a couple factors the biggest one is compression cable and satellite operators have to cram a ton of signal down a pretty small pipe even if you have fiber based cable with loads of bandwidth cable operators are usually still sending that same bundled compressed signal down the same pipe so it's highly compressed so it'll fit and lower bit rate and bit depth mean less pixel information and less color information and that just means your picture isn't as good as it could be don't get me wrong cable and satellite can look very good but streaming if you have a solid connection and good bandwidth can look even better now for streaming if you're going to use a live TV streaming app with a bunch of different channels like my experience has been YouTube TV has been reliably solid for picture quality but the better play would be to use the Network's own streaming app like the Fox Sports app in fact sometimes you'll get an HDR signal that way but don't expect 4K and if you do get 4k just know that it's upscaled 1080p at best which honestly is still better than the 720p or 1080i signal that you'd normally get from your cable or satellite provider also using an antenna as old school as it may sound can also be a good move to get better picture quality it's also less compressed than cable and it's free plus if you happen to live in a market where atsc 3.0 broadcasts are live it might even look just that much better that hasn't been my experience here in Portland Oregon but your Market might be different so there you go some advice on what's really important if watching sports is your first priority and the bonus is a TV that's great for sports tends to be a great TV for just about anything else that you like to watch thanks as always for watching everyone I hope this video has been helpful and I think one of the best ways to hone in on some specific models of TVs is to check out our reviews and hit up others in the comments to hear what their experiences have been like so like comment subscribe I'll see you on the next one and until then here's two other videos I think you might likeso you're gearing up for the Super Bowl Wimbledon World Cup and you're thinking about getting a new TV to watch it in all its Glory I like it great idea but a great idea needs an equally great plan so don't go buy that new TV for the big game until you've watched this video welcome back everyone I'm Caleb Dennison and if you're new around here I review TVs and stuff actually it's a little more complicated than that but I think it's safe to say that I know a few things about TVs Sports and watching sports on TVs I get asked a lot of questions throughout the year like what's the best TV for sports and what's important to look for when buying a TV if I watch Mostly Sports and hey Caleb where'd you get that sweater also uh I'm at the store right now and I'm about to buy this big TV and am I about to make a really big mistake which by the way I'll never be able to respond to that question in time so probably just don't ask but I get these questions most often right around the middle of January because there's this big TV commercial event that happens in February and they also sprinkle in some exciting football in there just for fun kind of a big deal here in the US anyway let's talk about what makes one TV better than another for watching sports what to look for and what to ignore when shopping for a new TV and also why anyone who says that buying a TV just for sports is dumb probably means well but is also like totally wrong and hey before we get to it if you like what you see maybe slap a like on this video or even subscribe if you want to see more also if you have lingering questions drop a comment down below and I'll do what I can to answer it but if I don't there's a good chance one of my fellow knit nerds can't knit nerds is uh you know what I'll explain that in another time let's talk about sports TVs so I think all of us have been to a sports bar or maybe even a friend's house and watched a game and thought you know that doesn't look great or maybe it was your house that you were watching a game and thought that doesn't look great anyway if you thought that it might have been because the picture was blurry or maybe the picture looked dim or it looked splotchy or the colors just seemed way off naturally you don't want any of that in your new TV I mean you don't have to be a video file to see that a screen looks dirty or your team's colors seem way off bad just looks bad so let's talk about how to find a TV that will not have have any of those four poor attributes starting with one of the most obvious and annoying blurriness there are three things that can cause a blurry or smeared picture when watching fast moving sports one is slow pixel response time where the pixels just don't react quickly enough to the changing instructions from the TV another is a mismatch between the frame rate of the content and the refresh rate of the TV that's how many times per second it draws a picture on the screen and the third is poor motion processing the brains of the TV are just not that sharp not the sharpest tool in the shed is what I mean often though a blurry picture is caused by all three of those things happening at the same time and the most common cause for that is that the TV is well it's cheap and I don't mean that it's just inexpensive a concept by the way that is very relative but I mean it is of generally poor build quality flimsy cheap parts just you get it it's cheap right now to be clear you can get a good quality TV at a low price for instance the 65-inch TCL 5 series that's a pretty solid TV it works just fine for sports good even it's 550 bucks that's a really good price to Performance ratio for a 65 inch TV so if you spend under 400 for a 65 inch TV it's gonna be cheap and you probably won't love the way it looks for sports now if we keep using the TCL 5 series as an example it does Sports well thanks to good pixel response time and good processing two out of the three that I just talked about right even though it doesn't have a 120 hertz panel it does a solid job with the 60 hertz panel that it does have thanks to decent processing by the way those of you in the UK or Australia that would be 50 hertz or 100 Hertz so just keep that conversion in mind for the next bit here which brings me to my next point you don't have to get a TV with a 120hz panel in order for it to be good for sports like I said the TCL 5 series does great with the 60 hertz panel but it's not a bad idea for a 120 hertz panel to be a baseline requirement now I don't want to get too deep into the tech weeds of Y here that's a different video but the takeaway I do want you to have is that 120 hertz panels don't go into cheap TVs TVs with 120 hertz panels need more expensive Hardware to support them so in other words that 120 hertz spec is an indicator of quality and it can provide some assurance that the TV is going to be a pretty good one here's the catch though I'm sorry there's always a catch it has to be a 120 hertz native panel and I mentioned that distinction because TV brands are out there trying to trick you if you see 120 hertz clear motion rate or 240 hertz motion flow or some other such nonsense that's the TV maker trying to trick you look at a spec sheet make sure it says 120hz its panel because the better panel is the indicator that it's a better TV yes it's worth the hassle taking a look at a spec sheet look if you go up to the sales person on the show floor and you ask them if the TV you're looking at has 120 hertz native panel and they look over at the box to check that means they don't know and they are relying on the same BS information on the side of the box that you would be so get on the internet and check it's worth the 30 second or so it'll take to do it now the last thing I want to say about motion and I'm making a big deal about the motion because it's one of the biggest issues when watching sports but the last thing I'll say about it is that if you're okay with motion smoothing that's frame interpolation the stuff they call motion flow or smooth motion or whatever that's fine you can use it and you won't get a blurry picture but just be aware that some people think it makes things look fake or two-dimensional it's the kind of thing that's almost always turned on on the TV in your hotel room and it has sort of a soap opera look to it if you're good with that then almost any decent TV with that feature turned on is going to be able to make fast looking Sports look clear but if you hate that look and you don't want to get it get a TV with a 120 hertz panel and just be safe okay enough about motion what else should you be looking for well let's talk visibility you want the picture to be bright and clear right now most TVs on the market today get plenty bright enough the thing you should be aware of is how reflective the screen might be if you have a lot of light coming into the room from Windows when you watch or if you have a lot of lamps or some other light source behind you when you're watching TV I'm thinking neon signs in your game room right there's a good chance that if your TV is too reflective that bright light is going to kind of wash out the picture and become a distraction again this is only a concern for certain viewing situations but they're pretty common and I mention it because it's basically the only factor that could make an OLED TV not just like the best option which let's just adjust address that right now the best TV for watching sports in almost all cases is an OLED TV instant pixel response time they all have 120 hertz panels they are all very nice TVs so the motion processing and upscaling is about the best you can get from any TV oleds rule for sports unless super bright light is coming into your room from an angle that would cause the glossy screen on that OLED TV to act like a mirror otherwise OLED all day every day but for the rest of you looking at LED LCD or qled TVs just a couple more things to be aware of on the TV side of things and then I want to talk about how you can go about watching the game and how that can make a difference too so the next thing to check for is screen uniformity what you don't want is a splotchy screen and unfortunately you're not going to know whether or not you've got a splotchy screen until you get the TV home yes sometimes getting the best TV for you can be a hassle and I'm sorry that's the case but get the TV home plug it in you don't want to get it all set up or wall mounted yet just connect it to the Internet so you can stream YouTube and then stream one of the screen uniformity test clips that I'm linking down to in the description below if you see really bad splotchiness I mean if it just looks like someone spilled grease all over your brand new white or gray t-shirt here then that TV has major screen uniformity problems and you will see those splotches when watching football golf hockey or anything else with big wide areas of consistent color if you want to know more about dirty screen effect I've actually got a video about that too and finally we land on the last picture quality element and that is color it's so easy to see bad color on a TV when watching sports now fortunately the fix for bad color on a TV is usually just a matter of not using the Vivid or Sports picture mode I know it sounds stupid since I know that you want your TV to look Vivid and you're watching sports so why wouldn't you use those picture modes the answer is because because they are hot trash when it comes to color they sacrifice just about everything about picture quality to make sure that the picture is just bright AF and honestly a big reason brands do this is because they need to stand out among a crowd of TVs with a bunch of fluorescent lights beaming down from the ceiling so try picking the standard picture mode if you must or use something like ISF bright or the cinema or movie preset and then pump up the backlight this will make sure that you get a brighter picture while also maintaining color accuracy and I think you'll be happier in the long run so that's the cheat sheet for finding a good TV for sports 120 hertz panel is a great start make sure it has decent anti-glare or anti-reflectant on the screen if you watch in bright environments and when you get it home check for dirty screen effect and exchange it if you happen to get a bad one which really doesn't happen all that often as I've gathered and then when you do get it set up avoid the Vivid or Sports picture modes now one what about how you watch or get the game are streaming apps better than cable and what about using an antenna so in my experience one of the most common ways to watch sports is also one of the worst in terms of picture quality and that would be cable or satellite now the only way you have to watch is cable or satellite then I mean obviously watch that way but if you're able to stream the game or match you might want to go that direction for a few different reasons also if the game is going to be on a big Network like ABC NBC CBS or Fox then you might want to try picking up one of your local broadcast stations with an antenna the reason either one of those options will probably look at least a little bit better than cable or satellite comes down to a couple factors the biggest one is compression cable and satellite operators have to cram a ton of signal down a pretty small pipe even if you have fiber based cable with loads of bandwidth cable operators are usually still sending that same bundled compressed signal down the same pipe so it's highly compressed so it'll fit and lower bit rate and bit depth mean less pixel information and less color information and that just means your picture isn't as good as it could be don't get me wrong cable and satellite can look very good but streaming if you have a solid connection and good bandwidth can look even better now for streaming if you're going to use a live TV streaming app with a bunch of different channels like my experience has been YouTube TV has been reliably solid for picture quality but the better play would be to use the Network's own streaming app like the Fox Sports app in fact sometimes you'll get an HDR signal that way but don't expect 4K and if you do get 4k just know that it's upscaled 1080p at best which honestly is still better than the 720p or 1080i signal that you'd normally get from your cable or satellite provider also using an antenna as old school as it may sound can also be a good move to get better picture quality it's also less compressed than cable and it's free plus if you happen to live in a market where atsc 3.0 broadcasts are live it might even look just that much better that hasn't been my experience here in Portland Oregon but your Market might be different so there you go some advice on what's really important if watching sports is your first priority and the bonus is a TV that's great for sports tends to be a great TV for just about anything else that you like to watch thanks as always for watching everyone I hope this video has been helpful and I think one of the best ways to hone in on some specific models of TVs is to check out our reviews and hit up others in the comments to hear what their experiences have been like so like comment subscribe I'll see you on the next one and until then here's two other videos I think you might like\n"