As the NFL expands its reach into streaming services, the landscape for fans who want access to all the games is going through a significant transformation.
It comes with a hefty price tag, leading to concerns about affordability.
“It’s getting tougher for fans sometimes to watch the games,” said Mark Schofield, an NFL reporter with the sports website SB Nation. “It’s another layer of frustration.”
So how much does it cost these days for fans who want to ensure they have access to every single game?
The answer is complicated.
“You have to go through a bunch of hoops right now,” Schofield said. “We’re seeing the NFL move toward more streaming services.”
For example, Thursday night games are on Amazon Prime Video and Peacock is going to have exclusive games.
It was just announced that Christmas Day games are going to be exclusively on Netflix.
The biggest chunk of the games fans pay to watch comes through NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV.
That package, on its own, costs $350, though people who are subscribed to YouTube TV get a discount.
“Unfortunately, that’s not going to get you every game,” noted Schofield.
Schofield ran all the numbers and according to him, it’ll cost about $644 for the average person to get the NFL Sunday Ticket package plus yearly subscriptions to all the other services — including Amazon Prime Video, Peacock and Netflix.
Frugal fans can potentially get that down to about $266 if they are a YouTube TV subscriber and only go month-to-month for the other services.
“More and more fans are getting weary of paying all this money to see the teams and the games that they want to see,” Schofield said.
A big fear from fans is that someday the NFL will put the Super Bowl on a streaming service, although NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said that would not happen on his watch.
Still, no one knows for sure what the future holds.
“If one of these streaming services puts a big package in front of the NFL to try to get exclusive rights to the Super Bowl, it might be worth it to them and it’s going to be hard for the NFL to say no,” Schofield said.
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