Use ESPN’s Where to Watch feature to find out where sporting events can be streamed

ESPN’s latest feature will be a welcome milestone for sports fans everywhere: The company just launched Where to Watch, a universal guide to streaming sports across the internet.

When you open the page on the ESPN website or app, Where to Watch looks like a typical schedule like ESPN has always had—it’s sortable by sport and can show your favorite team at the top. But next to each entry, you’ll now see: Where You can watch the game even if it’s not on ESPN.

ESPN says Where to Watch has data from more than 250 streaming services. On Wednesday morning, it offered me a baseball game on MLB.TV, a college football game on ACC Extra, some MLS on Apple TV Plus and five different ways to stream a WNBA game. ESPN says you can click on some listings to go directly to a game, though that requires a separate partnership with those services. You can also set the feature to only show games from services you subscribe to.

Where to Watch is a useful solution to an increasingly common problem: sports streaming is a confusing, complicated, and expensive mess, to the point where even liking a single team can mean managing a long list of services. Venu Sports, the collaboration of several major entertainment companies, exists — and is hotly contested — for exactly the same reason.

For ESPN, Where to Watch is just another way to introduce you to its universe. The company obviously owns a lot of sports rights and features those throughout the new guide, but it’s also looking for ways to bring more people to its website and app, where they might also decide to play fantasy sports or bet through ESPN Bet. As the company also pursues its own streaming goals, it needs more ways to show people what’s on where. Making ESPN the app that people open whenever they want to watch a game, no matter where the game is on, would be a huge win for the company.

And the more the ESPN app becomes a destination, the more leverage ESPN has with partners who want to show their games there. While broadcast and regional sports networks continue to disappear, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said Deadline which ESPN wants to take over. “We have made it clear to various leagues and commissioners that we are very interested in taking on the responsibility,” he said. “We can make these games available on the ESPN app.”

Not all sports and all streamers are available on Where to Watch, but ESPN says it is working on adding more over time.