Red Bull TV offers extreme sports content for free. Our comprehensive review covers the streaming quality, features, content library, compatibility, and more to help you decide if it’s worth watching.
Red Bull TV provides free access to thousands of extreme sports films, events, and shows in up to 4K resolution.
Viewers can live stream competitions, events, concerts, and more as they happen with the service’s “Always Live” scheduling. Or watch tons of on-demand films, documentaries, TV shows and other content.
We tested Red Bull TV for over 50 hours on multiple devices to provide this in-depth 2024 review.
Key Takeaways
- Completely Free: No subscription or fees required to watch
- Hub for Extreme Sports: Snowboarding, surfing, motorsports, mountain biking, dance, music, eSports
- 4K and 1080p: Crisp, smooth playback quality
- Tons of Originals: High budget films, shows, events by Red Bull Media House
- Live Events: New live streams starting daily
- Limited Filters and Controls: Can’t filter by genre, sport type, etc. No parental controls.
Below we cover Red Bull TV’s streaming quality, features, content library, compatibility with devices, cost, and more.
Overview
Red Bull TV is a free ad-supported streaming service featuring extreme sports and music content.
It offers a library with thousands of professionally produced extreme sports films, TV episodes, events and more. Plus new live streams of competitions, races, music events, eSports tournaments, and Red Bull stunts added daily.
There are no subscriptions or fees. Just visit redbull.tv or get the app to start watching.
Red Bull Media House produces a lot of popular original movies, shows and events. These spotlight daring athletes doing incredible stunts in sports like:
- Snowboarding
- Skiing
- Surfing
- Skateboarding
- Mountain biking
- Motorsports
- Wingsuit flying
- eSports
- Breakdancing
- Rap battles
- And more
For example, you can find the legendary snowboard film “The Art of Flight” and the Dawn Wall rock climbing documentary in the on-demand library.
Live streams let you watch events like the Erzberg Rodeo hard enduro motorcycle race or Red Bull Paper Wings paper plane competition as they happen.
The content quality is excellent, with most videos available in crisp 1080p or 4K resolution. Extreme sports inherently make for cinematic footage. Adding pro athletes, exotic filming locations, and Red Bull production values enhances this.
Now let’s take a deeper look at Red Bull TV’s streaming quality, features, content, compatibility, and cost.
Streaming Quality
Red Bull TV offers top-notch streaming quality for an optimal viewing experience across devices.
Resolution
Most on-demand videos are available in full 1080p HD, which is higher resolution than 720p HD.
Many newly added films and events also support 4K Ultra HD playback. So they take full advantage of 4K TVs or monitors.
Both resolutions provide sharp image quality and smooth motion. This helps capture all the insane tricks and high speed action.
Bitrate
We measured video bitrates between 5-15 Mbps, which minimizes compression artifacts or buffering issues. This exceeds bitrates for 720p streams.
Framerate
Videos maintain a high framerate around 60 FPS (frames per second) for fluid motion. This is especially helpful for fast paced sports.
Lower FPS can make action seem choppy. So maintaining 60 FPS or higher is ideal.
Audio Quality
The audio is stereo quality, which is typical for streaming. We didn’t experience any sync issues or missing sounds during playback.
So in summary – with support for 4K and 1080p playback, high bitrates, and smooth 60 FPS framerate, Red Bull TV provides an excellent streaming experience.
Features
Red Bull TV includes handy features that improve the viewing experience:
Live Streaming
The “Always Live” section shows live streams of events, competitions, stunts and more happening right now. Or coming up soon.
You’ll see live coverage of races, games, music festivals, dance battles and extreme sporting events from around the world.
This includes Red Bull signature events like the Red Bull Paper Wings World Final, Red Bull BC One breakdancing competition, Red Bull Flugtag homemade flying machine contests, and more.
So it’s easy to join the action live as it happens.
AirPlay and Chromecast Built-in
You can wirelessly stream to TVs from iOS or Android devices using AirPlay or Chromecast.
We didn’t experience any playback issues when casting streams. So it provides an easy way to get Red Bull TV on the big screen.
Video Downloads
Select films and shows let you download for offline viewing. This is handy for flights, road trips, or other times Internet access is limited.
Multiple Audio Tracks
Some on-demand videos include alternate language audio tracks to choose from. Or other audio channels like isolated music.
Adaptive Bitrate Streaming
Red Bull TV uses adaptive bitrate streaming. This automatically adjusts video quality based on your Internet connection speed to prevent buffering.
So you get the highest quality stream possible without interruptions.
No Account Required
You can start watching immediately without creating an account or signing up.
Of course you miss out on personalized recommendations and other account features. But it’s convenient for casual viewing.
Content Library
Red Bull TV provides thousands of hours of extreme sports films, TV shows, events and more on-demand.
Plus new live event streams starting every day.
Sports and Events
You’ll find awesome extreme sports content showing unbelievable stunts and tricks in snowboarding, skiing, surfing, climbing, wingsuit flying, mountain biking, motorsports, eSports, breakdancing, and more.
Both popular and niche sports are represented.
Live event streams let you watch exotic competitions like the Erzberg Enduro motorcycle race through an Austrian quarry. Or the Red Bull Rampage mountain biking event down steep cliffs near Zion National Park.
In addition to the sport events, you can watch music concerts, dance battles, paper plane contests, homemade flying machine competitions, eSports tournaments, and wacky Red Bull signature events as they happen.
So there’s always something thrilling and different streaming live every day.
Originals and Exclusives
Red Bull Media House produces many popular extreme sports movies, shows and events exclusively available on Red Bull TV.
These originals spotlight daring athletes doing crazy stunts in gorgeous filming locations. With high production values capturing every epic trick.
For example, you can find these Red Bull Media House Originals in the on-demand library:
- The Art of Flight: Legendary snowboard film starring Travis Rice
- Fourth Phase: Sequel to The Art of Flight showcasing cutting edge snowboarding
- Making of Wibmer’s Law: Behind the scenes of mountain biking film
- Valley Uprising: History of rebel rock climbers in Yosemite starring Alex Honnold
- Dream Gap Tour: Women’s street skating competition series
- Miles Above: Journey of Australian downhill skateboard racer
- Wild Cats: All-female big mountain snowboarders film
- Downhill Disco: Flamboyant Italian downhill skateboarder
- multiprocessing: Inside the mind of champion eSports gamer Serral
- UCI DH MTB World Cup: UCI Downhill Mountain Bike World Cup highlights
These represent just a sampling of the many Red Bull original films available. Which also spotlight breakdancing, BMX, rally racing, wingsuit flying, surfing and other sports.
Adding the high quality production and insider access of these films really enhances the content library.
Films and Documentaries
Beyond Red Bull originals, you can find many other extreme sports movies and documentaries.
These spotlight sports legends and key events that defined action sports. Often with killer soundtracks, exotic locales and captivating cinematography.
For example, influential films on Red Bull TV include:
- The Crash Reel: Snowboarder Kevin Pearce’s comeback from injury
- Dogtown and Z Boys: Documenting the legendary Zephyr skateboard team
- Riding Giants: Iconic big wave surfing film
Red Bull TV also licenses worthy independent extreme sports films. So the on-demand library covers both mainstream and niche sports really well.
TV Shows
There are some TV shows like “The Ultimate Run” and “Life of Kai” showing daring feats by top athletes.
Plus recap/highlights episodes of major events like UCI Mountain Bike World Cup races.
But most content is movies and live streaming events instead of TV series.
Reality Shows
You can find a few extreme sports reality competition shows like:
- Down Days: Snowboarders compete in skill challenges by day, party by night
- Between Two Beers: Mountain bikers face twisty trails and trivia questions
These put a reality TV twist on showcasing sports action.
Instructional Content
Only some basic tips, tricks and techniques are demonstrated during competition highlight episodes.
But there aren’t dedicated “how to” shows teaching skills. It’s more showcasing pros versus educational.
Extreme Sports News & Analysis
You won’t find talk shows, commentary segments or reporting discussing latest sports news.
Red Bull TV is all about videos showing athletes in action instead.
Music
There are live concert streams and some music documentaries profiling DJs, producers and genres.
You can also find films focused on music festivals like Air + Style and Gulf Coast Sessions.
But it just supplements the extreme sports content rather than music streaming services with full catalogs.
Filtering and Organization
There are categories on the homepage for different sports and types of content like films, shows, events.
Clicking these filters the listings accordingly. So it’s easy to drill down to certain sports.
You can also sort by popularity, latest, A-Z, Z-A, etc. Or search for keywords, athletes, sports, etc.
But there’s no advanced filtering by duration, country, year, etc. Nor user ratings to gauge quality.
There also aren’t personalized recommendations based on viewing history like Netflix. So discovery relies more on browsing categories manually.
Closed Captions
Select films and events have closed captions support. But many videos only have the audio soundtrack available.
Video Length
On-demand videos range from short 5-10 minute clips to full length movies.
Live streams usually last for a couple hours.
This varies dramatically by the event type though. Some live streams of multi-day tournaments offer 10+ hours of continuous coverage.
Compatible Devices
Red Bull TV is available on most major streaming platforms:
- Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV
- Roku
- Chromecast devices
- Android and iOS phones/tablets
- Game consoles like PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox Series
- Web browsers on Mac/Windows laptops/desktops
So you can watch on phones, tablets, computers, and cast streams easily to TVs.
It’s not yet supported by every smart TV platform though. For example, it’s not on LG TVs, VIZIO SmartCast, Samsung Smart Hub.
But casting from phones or using streaming boxes like Fire TV Sticks works reliably in our experience.
Cost
Red Bull TV is 100% free with no subscriptions, fees or ads interrupting viewing.
You can watch as much as you want with unlimited access.
Now let’s compare it versus paid services like Netflix.
Free vs Netflix at $15.49/Month
You pay nothing to access Red Bull TV’s library versus $15.49/month for Netflix’s Standard plan.
Of course Netflix offers way more content breadth across all genres. While Red Bull TV specifically caters to extreme sports fans.
Both provide excellent streaming quality. And no ads during programming beyond Netflix trailers.
Red Bull TV fills a valuable niche providing awesome extreme sports and events that Netflix lacks. It nicely complements Netflix.
Think of Red Bull TV like a completely free, sports-focused standalone channel.
Supported Business Model
Red Bull itself sponsors or co-produces much exclusive content. Plus many videos integrate their brand organically given association with extreme sports. So it functions partly as marketing.
There are also short ads before some on-demand videos. But no disruptive commercial breaks interrupting programming which is great.
The unobtrusive ads and sponsorship integrate smoothly into the viewer experience. So you can enjoy unlimited free extreme sports streaming.
Pros and Cons
Here are the main benefits and limitations of Red Bull TV:
Pros
- Completely free unlimited access
- No subscription or fees required
- Thousands of movies, shows, events on-demand
- Live streaming daily events as they happen
- Crisp 4K and 1080p video quality
- Original Red Bull Media House films
- Compatible with all major streaming platforms
- Intuitive interface and navigation
Cons
- Narrowly focused on extreme sports
- No parental controls
- Can’t filter/sort library extensively
- Few video downloads available offline
- No smart TV or tablet apps
- Movies disappear occasionally
- Not all videos have closed captions
- Doesn’t work on some platforms like DirecTV
So while the content scope is fairly limited, it uniquely excels at showcasing extreme sports really well. The unlimited free access is a major perk for fans.
Bottom Line
Red Bull TV provides unlimited access to thousands of awesome extreme sports films, TV shows and live events streaming in up to 4K quality with no fees.
Fans can enjoy tons of movies, documentaries and concerts spotlighting snowboarding, skating, surfing, wingsuit flying, breakdancing, music and more.
Plus exciting live coverage daily of races, games, competitions and Red Bull signature series events.
With reliable streaming across devices, an intuitive interface, slick original productions, and completely free unlimited access, it nicely complements services like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video for extreme sports lovers. Casual viewers may prefer the wider content selection of paid alternatives instead though.
Ultimately Red Bull TV succeeds by focusing directly on showcasing pure action sports and music entertainment exceptionally well. This laser targeted approach uniquely caters to that passionate audience.
Did you find this review helpful? Let us know any other questions you have about Red Bull TV streaming service that we can answer!
