Sling TV Opens Rewards Program to All Current Subscribers; Winners Could Get Up to $10,000
Viewers can earn bigtime rewards from using their Sling TV service every day, including one grand prize winner who’ll net $10,000.
Sling TV wants to pay you to watch television! The live TV streaming service has created a rewards program that first rolled out to a small subset of paid Sling subscribers in early February. The streamer announced this week that it was expanding the program to all of its viewers, including those who do not pay to stream live channels and exclusively watch the ad-supported Sling Freestream platform.
- Sling’s rewards program gives entries based on the number of days in a row that a customer watches their Sling service for 30 minutes.
- Prizes range from a free month of Sling TV to a cash reward of $10,000.
- Winners will begin to be notified on May 1.
At first, Sling’s rewards program was only available to a small group of paid customers, and its grand prize topped out at $5,000. But in early March, the company decided to make more subscribers eligible, and it also bumped the grand prize to $10,000.
Now, the program is rolling out to every paid Sling subscriber, as well as customers who use the ad-supported Sling Freestream platform. To earn rewards, viewers must watch their chosen Sling service for 30 uninterrupted minutes per day. One day’s viewing earns 10 entries into the Sling rewards program, and each day a user watches in a row gains them ten additional entries (for example, watching two days in a row earns 20 entries, etc.). Audiences can earn up to 70 entries per day if they watch seven days in a row or more.
“Today marks an exciting milestone as we open the doors for everyone to enjoy Rewards. You don’t have to be a paid subscriber to have the chance to win some incredible prizes,” says Gary Schanman, Group President, DISH Video Services. “Anyone can sign up for Sling Freestream and not only enjoy the benefits of our free streaming service, you can also enjoy the benefits of Rewards and earn entries for our sweepstakes. At Sling, we’re committed to providing people with unparalleled choice, flexibility, and fun in their streaming service, whether they are Sling TV subscribers or Sling Freestream users. With Rewards we’re enhancing that commitment, offering our users even more reasons to enjoy the news, sports, and entertainment content they love.”
Is Sling’s Survival Dependent on New Rewards Program?
The reasoning behind Sling’s rewards program could have everything to do with the changes coming to the distribution of ESPN in the near future. ESPN is one of the highest-demand cable channels on the market; a survey from September 2023 found that 74% of audiences labeled the network as a “must-have.”
So what does that have to do with Sling? At the moment, Sling TV is the cheapest way for customers to get ESPN on a monthly basis, with its ESPN-carrying Orange plan costing $40 per month. Most cable plans and live TV streaming services cost twice that amount, but the picture is about to change in a big way.
That’s because this fall, ESPN is due to combine with sports and broadcast channels owned by Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery on a joint venture platform. That product will likely cost around $50 per month, so while it will be more than Sling, it will reportedly offer livestreams of ABC and Fox in each market, while Sling only makes these channels available in a handful of areas. The joint venture platform will also feature college sports networks like SEC Network which are only available in Sling’s Sports Extra add-on pack for $11 per month on top of a base subscription, so the price of the two services is around even when examining the content available on each.
If that streamer doesn’t provide enough competition for Sling, a standalone ESPN streaming platform due to launch by 2025 will. That service will only the ESPN family of networks, but it will reportedly cost between $25 and $30 per month. If a large number of Sling TV customers are subscribed to the service primarily to watch ESPN, this new streaming service will be a very tempting product for them. It could potentially lead to a huge wave of cancelations that Sling may never recover from.
Sling has just over 2 million subscribers currently, and it appears highly focused on keeping those customers engaged. Rolling out its rewards program to all customers may be a big help in this regard, and offering the program to Sling Freestream viewers could help the company convert free viewers to paid Sling subscribers.
Sling TV
Sling TV is a live TV streaming service that helps users save money with the option of two distinct plans. The $40/month “Sling Orange” plan offers about 30 channels, including Disney Channel and ESPN. The $40/month “Sling Blue” plan offers about 40 channels, including Fox and NBC local channels.