Horse Illustrated Magazine

There’s good news and less-good news for equestrian sports fans in the United States as the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro approach. The good news is that pretty much everyone, no matter how they consume television, will get to see at least some equestrian coverage. The bad news is that if you don’t have cable or satellite, you won’t get to see much, even (especially) online.

NBC is sticking with its frustrating model of streaming the entirety of every Olympic event—including equestrian—online, and then restricting access to that live stream to people who subscribe to participating cable and satellite plans. There is no other option to access the live stream*, even if you were, say, willing to pay for it separately.

Olympic Equestrian Coverage on Network TV

As you may have gathered, this writer is a cord-cutter. If you are also one of the growing number of consumers who don’t subscribe to cable or other pay TV services, but you do have a DTV antenna to grab network television out of the very air, you’ll be able to watch show jumping on NBC on August 14, 16, 17 and 19 during the network’s daytime coverage. See below for more detail.

UPDATE: cutcabletoday.com reports that you can get access to all of the Olympic coverage from the cable networks (see below) without a cable subscription. For U.S. viewers, a service called Sling will give you access to coverage on USA and MSNBC for $25/month, and there is a 7-day free trial available. Another option is PlayStation Vue. I can’t vouch for these services, but if you try them for this Olympics, let us know what you think. Read more on cutcabletoday.com. 

Olympic Equestrian TV Schedule

NBC will be providing some coverage of all three equestrian sports through its cable partners, USA and MSNBC. There will even be some live coverage of the events, but nothing broadcast during primetime, so set your DVRs now (or start coming up with excuses for all the hooky you’re about to play.)

Thanks to USEFNetwork.com for compiling the information for this schedule.

Olympic Equestrian Online Streaming

If you’re in the U.S., the best option for watching the equestrian events is by using the livestream on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. You’ll be able to watch all of the equestrian events live and in their entirety, and you won’t have to worry about the coverage cutting away to men’s swimming or women’s beach volleyball just when the dressage is getting good.

As stated earlier, you do need to subscribe to a participating pay TV service in order to access the livestream. You’ll also need adequate internet speed to support streaming.

To find out when the equestrian events are available to watch on NBCOlympics.com, see the full Olympic schedule here.

For Canadian viewers, livestreaming will be available through olympics.cbc.ca. Read more about how to watch the Olympics in Canada from the CBC here.

Can’t Get Enough Equestrian?

Don’t forget about the one final horse sport of the Summer Olympics: Modern Pentathlon. This event tests athletes in five very different sports: fencing; swimming; riding (show jumping); running; and shooting. Athletes will ride borrowed horses, which often makes for an especially interesting competition.

The riding rounds for modern pentathlon take place on August 19 and 20, starting at 1:00 p.m. ET both days.

*Technically, using a cable-subscribing friend’s account info would work to access the livestream. We would never advocate this, of course, but we also aren’t going to stop you.

Leslie Potter is Managing Editor of horseillustrated.com. She enjoys TV but has never and will never pay for cable. Stop trying to make her do it, Olympics. Follow her on Twitter: @LeslieInLex.