8 ways your Amazon Echo dominates on football night – CNET

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Let Alexa be your personal football assistant.


Sarah Tew / CNET

It’s finally football season. You’ve got your fridge packed full of beer, your table covered with appetizers and yourself decked out in your favorite team’s attire. You might have used your Amazon Echo ($100 at Amazon) smart speaker to order pizzas and check the start time of the game, but did you know that you can also use Alexa to stream games, check the scores and organize a football pool?

Alexa can be your super helpful football assistant when it comes to game time. Instead of ignoring your friends at your living room get-together as you search for the latest info on your team, you can let Alexa search for you. Your smart speaker can tell you the scores of all the games playing, so you don’t have to flip through channels, and it can keep you updated with any new information about the teams you’re following. 

Read on for more tips on how to throw an awesome, Echo-powered football party.

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Ask Alexa to stream the football games on your Amazon Echo.


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Stream the games

Need to make another drink or grab some more snacks from the kitchen but don’t want to miss a second of the game? Set up an Echo in your kitchen to stream the game so you can listen in when you’re not in the living room. 

If you use a subscription radio service like TuneIn Live, you can enable the skill in the Alexa app to begin using it on your Echo device. Once enabled, just say “Alexa, play the (favorite team) game.” You can also ask Alexa which games are on if you haven’t checked that day.

Turn on the game

Ready to kick back and watch Thursday Night Football with your pals? As long as you’ve got an Amazon Prime account and a Fire TV or Echo Show ($230 at Amazon), you can stream the Thursday night games. Just say “Alexa, play Thursday Night Football” to get started. Note that this feature isn’t available until Sept. 26.

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What cash? Use Amazon Echo to send money to your friends.


Angela Lang/CNET

Organize a pool

Not everyone carries cash, so organizing a pool can get tricky. What you can do is keep track of who is betting what by using Alexa. Just say “Alexa, remember that Joe bet $20 on the Raiders winning by 14 points.” After the game ends, you can ask Alexa what Joe bet and it’ll read it back to you. 

Once you determine the winner, you can use Alexa and pay them through PayPal. Just say “Alexa, ask PayPal to send $15 to Sam.” It’s not exactly the same as throwing cash into a bowl, but it works.

Hear other scores without changing the channel

If your favorite team is playing, there’s no way you’re letting anyone change the channel to check the score of another game. Instead, just ask Alexa what the score of the team’s game is. 

Also, if you’re busy grabbing a snack (again), just say “Alexa, what’s the score of the [team] game?” This is also useful if you’ve gone into another room, only to hear everyone start cheering because something awesome happened.

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Change your smart lights to your team’s color

Want to make sure your entire house has team spirit? Change your smart bulbs to mimic your favorite football team’s color so you and your friends are completely in game mode. You’ll need RGB smart lights that are compatible with Alexa. Once you’ve got them set up, you can say “Alexa, turn all my lights green.”

If you’ve got multiple lights, you could make a team-specific scene with a mix of colors. For example, if you’re a Denver Broncos fan, you could do a mix of blue and orange lights. Make it fun by changing the trigger phrase to something like “Alexa, turn on Broncos.”

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Let your neighbors know which team you’re cheering for by changing your smart light colors.


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Get updates on your favorite team

Keeping track of your beloved teams can be difficult when you’ve got a busy schedule. Fortunately, Alexa can help keep you updated so you never miss any news. In the Alexa app, open Settings and select Sports. Tap Add a Team, search your team and tap Save. Now you can say “Alexa, what’s my sports update?” to hear the latest info.

Listen to a football playlist

You’re obviously not listening to music while the game is on, but during half time and after the game, you’ll need a killer football playlist. Ask Alexa to play an NFL or college football playlist through Amazon Music, Spotify or Pandora

If you’ve got Amazon Music or Spotify, you can create your own playlist with football-themed songs. The music will help keep the party alive and make half time fly by as you’re waiting to see what happens next.

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Make a football playlist on Spotify to play on your Amazon Echo.


Angela Lang/CNET

Track and manage your fantasy football teams

Use Alexa as your personal assistant that knows everything about what’s going on in sports. Start by enabling the Yahoo Fantasy Football skill in the Alexa app. You’ll then need to login to your Yahoo account and link your Head-2-Head league to the skill. 

You can get player performance updates, an overview of your team’s weekly matchup and score, injury status and more. Just say “Alexa, ask Yahoo Fantasy Football about [player] stats for the week” or “Alexa, ask Yahoo Fantasy Football about my matchup.”

Other things you can ask Alexa about the football games

  • “Alexa, what are the odds in [team] game today?”
  • “Alexa, when does the [team] play again?”
  • “Alexa, remind me about the [team] game on Sunday.”

Need more info about game time? Check out the latest NFL schedule and see how to watch Texans vs. Saints, Broncos vs. Raiders Monday Night Football games without cable.

Originally published earlier this week.

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