Sling TV one-day passes are officially over. Dish-owned Sling TV ended its Sling Pass feature in early October, closing a no-commitment way to watch cable channels such as ESPN and CNN, according to Wilson’s Media.
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Sling TV One-Day Passes: What Ended
Sling Pass launched about a year ago with three options: a single day, a weekend or a week. A day pass cost about $4.99, according to Awful Announcing.
“Sling was built to give our customers the ultimate control over their entertainment, and Sling Passes delivered on that promise for millions,” the company said in a statement. It added that it looks forward to “showing our customers new ways to experience the content they love.”
The Legal Fight Behind the Passes
Two media giants challenged the feature in court. Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery both sued, and U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian declined to block the passes in rulings about a month apart, one for each company, Awful Announcing reported.
The dispute turned on how programmers are paid. According to that report, they are paid based on active subscribers on the 21st of each month, and the contracts do not clearly define what counts as a subscriber. Sling has not said whether the lawsuits led to the shutdown.
What It Means for Cord-Cutters
Anyone who used Sling TV one-day passes to catch a single game or news event now has to choose a standard monthly plan or look elsewhere. Sling has not named a replacement.
Other options exist for live events. See our guide to a free F1 livestream on Apple TV, or compare free-trial options for streaming a new documentary. For another fight over channel access, read about the Starz blackout on Verizon Fios.
