NFL
NFL Sunday Ticket Is About to Become Much Easier to Get, According to Roger Goodell
Tim Crean started writing about sports in 2016 and joined Sports7 in 2021. He excels with his versatile coverage of the NFL and soccer landscape, as well as his expertise breaking down sports media, which stems from his many years downloading podcasts before they were even cool and countless hours spent listening to Mike & The Mad Dog and The Dan Patrick Show, among other programs. As a longtime self-professed sports junkie who even played DII lacrosse at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, Tim loves reading about all the latest sports news every day and considers it a dream to write about sports professionally. He's a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan from Western New York who mistakenly thought, back in the early '90s, that his team would be in the Super Bowl every year. He started following European soccer — with a Manchester City focus — in the early 2000s after spending far too much time playing FIFA. When he's not enjoying a round of golf or coaching youth soccer and flag football, Tim likes reading the work of Bill Simmons, Tony Kornheiser, Chuck Klosterman, and Tom Wolfe.
All posts by Tim CreanUpdated08 Jul 2022
“Every live game. Every Sunday afternoon.” That is the promise of NFL Sunday Ticket. The cost is $293.94 per season, which many NFL fans are willing to pay. However, unless you are a college student or live in a building that doesn’t allow satellite dishes, the cost fans are often unwilling to pay is having the DirecTV hardware bolted to your home. According to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, though, that’s about to change.
NFL Sunday Ticket streaming service
NFL Sunday Ticket brings NFL fans every out-of-market game during the 1:00 pm EST and 4:00 pm EST windows on football Sundays.
Starting in the mid-1990s, the NFL partnered with DirecTV to offer this service to fans. Subscribers get every game on Sunday afternoons that is not on their local CBS or FOX affiliate. Also, the package has its own RedZone channel hosted by Andrew Siciliano as opposed to Scott Hanson.
As live streaming became more popular, DirecTV began to offer that option as part of the package. However, streaming is not currently a standalone option unless you live in a place where satellites aren’t allowed or are actively enrolled as a full-time college student.
These restrictions limit the reach of the package, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell plans to do something about it when the exclusive partnership with DirecTV expires at the end of the 2022 NFL season.
“I clearly believe we’ll be moving to a streaming service,” Goodell told reporter Julia Boorstin in an interview with CNBC. “I think that’s best for consumers at this stage.”
That begs the question, which streaming service will get NFL Sunday Ticket in 2023?
Which streaming service will have NFL Sunday Ticket?
DirecTV currently pays $1.5 billion annually for the exclusive rights to NFL Sunday Ticket. With the proliferation of streaming services in the last few years, that price has increased significantly.
Roger Goodell and the NFL believe that whichever streamer gets the package will pay north of $2 billion per season, and if a bidding war breaks out, the figure could double from the last deal and get to around $3 billion.
As for which streaming platform will get the NFL Sunday Ticket for its next iteration, CNBC reports that Apple, Amazon, and Disney (the parent company of ESPN) “have all submitted bids to be the league’s exclusive Sunday Ticket distributor.”
These companies have all already ponied up big bucks for live sporting rights. Amazon is already paying the NFL $1 billion per year to stream Thursday Night Football starting this season, and Disney/ESPN are in for around $2.7 billion for Monday Night Football.
Apple hasn’t landed any NFL rights yet, but the company did just shell out $2.5 billion for the exclusive rights to MLS for the next decade.
It’s too early to tell which streamer will win the rights, but NFL fans will certainly have a much easier time getting the Sunday Ticket package starting in 2023.
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