If you’ve ever wanted to watch one football game, tune into an awards show, or catch a season premiere without signing up for another monthly streaming subscription, Sling TV just made it a lot easier — and a lot cheaper, at least for a day. This week, Sling launched a trio of “flex” passes that let you pay once and stream live TV for a short time: a 24-hour Day Pass for $4.99, a Weekend Pass (Friday–Sunday) for $9.99, and a Week Pass for $14.99. The passes unlock Sling’s Orange lineup — the 34 channels most people recognize from its $45.99/month Orange plan — and they go live as soon as you complete your order.

Think of it as a pay-per-event button for linear TV. Sling’s marketing and PR lean into that simplicity: the company frames the Day Pass as “all you need to win on game day” — an explicitly sports-driven pitch timed for the fall football season. But the practical use cases run beyond sports: awards, premieres, a children’s movie night on the Disney Channel, or a breaking-news window where CNN matters. Sling execs say the passes are a way to give viewers short bursts of access without the friction of a month-long commitment.

The Day/Weekend/Week Passes mirror the channel set from Sling Orange, so they include commonly watched networks such as ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, TBS, A&E, Disney Channel and CNN — channels many people associate with live sports and appointment TV. If you want specific extras (say, a larger sports lineup, more news channels, or lifestyle offerings), Sling lets you tack on its usual “Extras” — Sports Extra, News Extra, Lifestyle Extra, Entertainment, etc. — for a small incremental fee that scales with the length of the pass: roughly +$1 for a Day Pass, +$2 for the Weekend Pass, and +$3 for the Week Pass. That’s designed to keep the one-time price low while letting users expand coverage when they need it.

Sling’s move is part of a bigger trend: providers trying to match consumer demand for flexibility. Live-TV streaming bundles have been creeping up in price for years, and for frequent watchers, the monthly model still often makes sense; but for occasional viewers or people who only care about a handful of days each year, the new passes are a clear alternative.

To put the economics in perspective: Comcast and DirecTV have launched live sports or curated live bundles around the $70/month mark — a very different play from Sling’s one-and-done pricing. And the larger sport-and-network owners are also pushing standalone products: ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer app is slated to be $29.99/month, while Fox’s new FOX One offering will sit around $19.99/month at launch. That makes Sling’s $4.99 Day Pass an attractive option if your use case truly is “one game, one evening.”

How the math plays out

Say you want to watch a single marquee college football game that airs on ESPN. A month of Sling Orange is $45.99 and gives you continuous access; the Day Pass is $4.99 plus, if you want extra sports channels, maybe another $1 — call it $6 total. If you only plan to watch a few must-see events all year, buying a handful of day or week passes could still come out far cheaper than a long-term subscription. Conversely, if you’re watching every Sunday in the fall, the monthly plan will quickly be the better value.

Sling has also kept seasonal and prepaid options in play: the company already offers longer prepaid “season pass” options that reduce per-month cost for several months of the football season, which will appeal to people who want a middle ground between a subscription and a la carte passes.

A few practical points to keep in mind:

• The pass activates when your purchase completes, so timing matters. If you buy a Day Pass at 5 pm, you get until 5 pm the next day — plan accordingly.
• Add-on pricing is tiered by pass length; a given Extra will cost more the longer you want access. That preserves Sling’s low entry price but can make additions less of a bargain.
• Not every channel a given viewer cares about is in Sling Orange; some content is gated behind Sling Blue or other packages, and regional sports networks remain a patchwork that often isn’t included in national bundles. If your local team’s regional feed is essential, check lineups before you buy.

These passes are aimed squarely at three groups:

1. The event-only viewer — people who just want to watch the Super Bowl-adjacent programming, one playoff game, or a single awards show.
2. Price-sensitive cord-cutters — folks who tolerate a little friction (buying a pass when something airs) to avoid recurring fees.
3. Travelers and second-home owners — someone visiting family for a weekend who wants temporary access without sharing logins or changing account details.

If you fall into any of those camps, Sling’s new passes are worth a look. If you’re a habitual live-TV watcher, the monthly plans or larger bundles still likely offer better value and convenience.

Sling’s short-term passes are small in isolation but symbolically important: they reflect an industry still experimenting with product shapes that match how people actually watch. Streaming has been moving from “subscribe and forget” toward more nuanced purchase models — day passes, event rentals, short windows of access — and Sling’s push shows incumbents are willing to test price points at the very low end to capture fleeting demand.

For rival services, this is a gentle reminder that flexibility can be a competitive edge. If enough users adopt pay-per-day behavior, we could see other providers test similar short-hop pricing (or more aggressively tiered add-ons) around big live events.

If you want to test a pass, Sling’s site now lists the Day, Weekend, and Week options alongside its monthly plans. The purchase is one-time, activates immediately, and includes the basic Sling Orange channel lineup; extras and season passes remain available if you need more. As always, check the channel list for the event you care about before you buy.

Sling’s $4.99 Day Pass won’t replace subscriptions for heavy watchers, but it’s a tidy, low-friction answer for anyone who only needs to watch TV on a handful of days a year — and it may push other services to get more creative with short-term access.