We’re just a couple days away from the start of the American football season—are you ready? While you may have stocked up on snacks, washed your Tom Brady jersey and drafted your fantasy team, you could be forgetting the most important item before kickoff—an optimal viewing experience.
Fortunately, smart technology is here to offer you an upgrade over your current TV setup, with sizable screens built to capture the kinetic energy of sports, and outfitted with the latest streaming apps and connected features.
Below, our picks for the best smart TVs for football (and every sport) season.
LG C1
LG
Crisp, clear and clean—that’s the promise of the C1 from LG to sports fans. This OLED smart TV features advanced motion handling technology that reduces motion blur and keeps the image sharp, regardless of how wild the action on the field gets. This motion smoothing intelligence means even fast action won’t get muddy, and viewers can enjoy subtle details throughout the entire match. And that’s just the start of the C1’s smart features. As a Wi-Fi-connected, intelligent TV you can expect all the latest streaming apps, web browsing, voice control, Bluetooth surround sound and best of all for sports fans, unobtrusive alerts. Based on your preferences, the C1 will display updates from other games, discreetly on your screen, without pausing the action or pushing you to change the channel. And it all comes on a beautiful screen in a variety of sizes—the C1 is available in 48-inch, 55-inch, 65-inch, 77-inch and 83-inch models.
The LG C1 is available for $899 to $4,499, depending on size.
LG
Samsung
Samsung Neo
Samsung
Football is a game of inches, and the Samsung Neo will have you enjoying every one. Why? Because the Neo is a 98-inch screen that will have you swimming in sports goodness. Enjoy every detail, down to the blades of grass, as a wall in your home becomes a vessel for sports viewing—and without compromising image quality either. Featuring artificially intelligent image upscaling technology, the Neo ensures that you will always get a full 4K resolution, regardless of what you are watching on your supersized screen. The Neo also includes Object Tracking Sound+, a dynamic sound system that tracks the action on the screen and provides directionally relevant sound from speakers that are built into all sides of the device, allowing you to hear the offense and defense on their respective sides of the screen. Perhaps most interesting for sports fantasy fans, however, is the Neo’s Multi view feature that enables users to split their screen to view what’s on their TV and what’s on their phone at the same time, allowing fantasy players to keep track of all the relevant stats in real time—and because of the size of the Neo, owners won’t have to sacrifice any action of the game.
With a massive screen, comes a massive price. The Samsung Neo 98″ os available for $14,999.
Epson LS500
Epson
Is the best smart TV for sports not actually a TV? Possibly! The Epson LS500 makes a compelling case for why it should be the viewing device of football fans this season. This high-tech, short-throw laser projector is capable of creating a powerful 120-inch picture—and with 4,000 lumens of color and brightness, you can be sure you’ll be getting a crisp and clear image, regardless of the lighting condition. Perfect for party viewing, the LS500’s generous size makes it ideal for splitting the screen into quadrants for watching multiple games at once—a football Sunday favorite—and the device’s built-in Wi-Fi technology makes that a breeze as all the latest sports-related streaming apps will be readily available.
The Epson LS500 is available for $4,799.
Epson
Samsung
The Terrace
Samsung
Liberate yourself from the basement this football season with The Terrace from Samsung. Named “first TV in the industry to be officially verified for outdoor visibility performance by Underwriters Laboratories,” the Terrace offers clear and colorful viewing in—you guessed it—the outdoors. Enjoy the end of summer and the crisp onset of fall with family, friends and neighbors as you all gather around your IP55-rated (that means it’s protected from dust and water) outdoor TV to watch some football. And just because your TV lives outdoors doesn’t mean it’s a dummy. The Terrace features built-in Wi-Fi-connectivity, allowing owners to take advantage of the latest streaming services and apps, browse the web and even control their television via voice command, all while soaking up some sun.
The Terrace is available for $2,799 to $4,999 depending on size.
