As sports fans, we all know the pain of jumping channels, trying to find the live feed of the season-deciding match of our relatively obscure hometown team. However, wherever regular broadcast stations and TV networks falter, the good old internet is always first to the rescue.
Whether you are looking for a relatively unknown game or seeking free links to match one of the NBA playoffs, online streaming sites abound to cater to your needs. For the longest time, one of those sites was CricFree
What is CricFree?
Throughout its run, CricFree was one of the most popular sports streaming sites in the world. The website, formerly available at CricFree.tv, was mainly focused on Cricket. Hence, the site offered live coverage of most Cricket games played around the world.
However, their reportage did not stop there. The site also hosted streams for live Football games, Tennis, Soccer, Basketball, Baseball, and other sports. Nevertheless, you can find such streams on many websites across the net. What made CricFree special was its user interface and the quality of its streams.
The proper categorization and intuitive design of the CricFree website made it a dream to use compared with its competitors. Furthermore, the structure of the pages was efficient, and you could find far less bloat and ads than you would find on other sites.
Even more remarkable was the actual streaming. Streams were typically available in a variety of resolutions with high-definition options available for most games. Hence, it is no surprise that the website quickly established itself as the number-one choice for sports enthusiasts.
The End of CricFree
However, all good things must come to an end. Earlier this year, the CricFree website was shut down presumably by the developers and possibly for good. The site is now offline.
Since then, many avid CricFree users have been left in limbo, unable to find a worthy replacement. A few clones of the site have popped up such as CricFree.org. However, many of these sites are just visitor generators for aggressively advertised betting sites.
In this article, we scour the far reaches of the web to bring you the best replacements for CricFree that offer a similar streaming experience.
1. Live TV
Live TV is hands down one of the best free sports streaming platforms on the internet. The service offers a robust website with high-quality live streams from multiple sports as well as a full replay of all games. The site also supports Matchday highlights, previews, and other videos.
From the massive homepage, you can access live and upcoming games from fully opened tabs that show different sports. From here, you can select matches from sports like soccer, basketball, hockey, boxing, rugby, handball, tennis, Cricket, figure skating, and many others.
Near the bottom of the page, you get a link to a comprehensive calendar of all the upcoming top games. This calendar features games from around the world, while a handy left sidebar shows you the top live and forthcoming events.
Their video archive of past games is another excellent feature. With this vault, you can watch full-length replays of previous games from all sports within a YouTube embed. Hence if you miss a game, you can always catch up with Live TV.
In terms of the number of games on offer, as well as the presentation and categorization, Live TV offers on the internet the most robust streaming services. However, the packed interface may be a bit overwhelming for some first-time users. Nevertheless, once you get used to it, Live TV is sure to become one of your favorite sports streaming services.
Live TV also offers a live scores service on the site.
2. Batman Streams
Batman streams are one of the oldest sports stream aggregators that continues to provide access to excellent content amidst multiple domain changes and site redesigns. Here you can get high-quality streams for all the latest games.
The site's main page shows links to live streams of all ongoing games, while the top navigation bar gives you access to upcoming matches in chronological order. The Batman streams website carries events from all top competitions in sports like Soccer, NFL, Basketball, Baseball, Handball, Hockey, Motorsport, Rugby, Tennis, Volleyball, and others.
One area where Batman Streams have the edge over many other services is the depth of games available on the platform. On this site, you can find leagues to match from many obscure leagues that you won't find anywhere else.
However, with this website, you will need an online time converter as the timing on the site does not adjust to match your timezone. Furthermore, the site does not have a timezone selector for easy switching.
3. VIPLeague
VIPLeague is not just one of the most popular streaming platforms, but also one of the best-designed. This web app uses a simple, intuitive UI that put many other platforms to shame.
In the world of online sports streaming, it is not uncommon to have to deal with multiple ads and endless popups, and terribly-designed interfaces. However, VIPLeague flips the script entirely with a site that places user experience first.
The main page of the website hosts a series of large tiles that take you to available games in specific sports categories. Clicking any of these links gives you the ongoing and upcoming matches in that sport in chronological order.
With VIPLeague, you do not have to deal with any special kinks, click and play. The site also automatically adjusts its timing schedule to match your timezone to accentuate the seamless experience further.
On VIPLeague, you gain access to matches from sports like golf, tennis, Nascar, baseball, hockey, soccer and rugby, UFC, WWE, and many others.
4. Stream2Watch
Stream2Watch is another well-designed site that offers you a clean and seamless streaming experience while providing access to all your favorite sports games. The platform provides a dark aesthetic design and intuitive navigation that makes streaming with this site a dream.
From the homepage, you can choose to enter the live sports or live TV section. The Live sports area shows you all the live and upcoming games from all sports in chronology. The live TV section, on the other hand, gives you access to multiple popular broadcast stations.
Furthermore, the “Live Sports” page has a tabbed menu up top that let's switch from viewing all games to only those of a particular sport. This feature helps you find your games as quickly as possible. Both options allow you to see ongoing and upcoming games for the next three days.
The site also drops the automatic adjustment timezone feature as well as the use of a timezone selector. Stream2Watch opts instead to display the time for each match as a countdown. On the games page, you get a sticker that shows you how much time that is remaining before a game in hours. Hence, with Stream2Watch, you never have to worry about timezone settings again.
Stream2Watch gives you access to top games from sports like soccer, basketball, hockey, baseball, tennis, racing, cycling, boxing, UFC, WWE, and lots more. In the TV section, you can get access to more than 20 top-list channels like Adult Swim, Al Jazeera, AMC, Animal Planet, and Arena Sports.
5. Strikeout Streams
Another worthy alternative to CricFree is Strikeout streams. Strikeout uses a similar tiled interface to VIPLeague to offer you seamless streaming of all your favorite games. Overall, Strikeout also offers similar aesthetics, game lists, and functionality to VIPLeague. However, we are not complaining, as this setup is one of the best you will find anywhere.
The front page reveals a series of tiles that lets you access the live feed of a host of top games in several sports. From the top of the Strikeout match page, you also get links to streams for several top competitions like the NFL, the Super Bowl, MLB, NHL, NBA, and even the NCAAF.
Aside from the top leagues, ‘Strikeout's coverage includes several sports associations from around the world including several obscure competitions.
6. fuboTV
Irrespective of the device you are streaming from, fuboTV offers you some of the best value for your money when it comes to streaming live sports. The platform provides a smooth, stylish interface that works excellently on a mobile, tablet, web, and smart TVs.
The platforms offer various monthly subscription models with a base package that supports over 90 channels. These broadcasts give you sports coverage from all the ‘world's famous tournaments as well as other relatively unknown leagues.
With fuboTV, you get high-quality HD streams for all games and enjoy a seamless, interruption-free ad-free experience. However, currently, fuboTV is only available in the USA, Canada, and Spain.
Nevertheless, considering that they already have a user base of over 250,000, it is safe to say that sports streamers around the world find fuboTV an excellent alternative.
