Travis Kelce (87) of the Kansas City Chiefs runs with the ball for a touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the first quarter at Raymond James Stadium on October 2, 2022.
Kim Klement | USA Today Sports | Reuters
Are you ready for Sunday Ticket football – with or without a pay-TV subscription?
For the first time this season, the NFL will offer an off-market package GoogleYouTube TV, a package of channels with Internet TV, and for those who do not want to subscribe to any package, albeit for an additional fee.
For those already subscribed to YouTube TV, which costs $72.99 a month, the basic “Sunday Ticket” bundle will cost an additional $349 per season. The streamer is also offering a bundle with Rezone, the NFL’s linear cable channel, which costs $389 per season.
And while you can bypass a YouTube TV subscription and still grab a “Sunday ticket,” it’s going to cost money. Offered through YouTube Primetime channels, which allow you to subscribe to individual services and streaming channels, as well as watch videos, the basic plan costs $449, while the Redzene package costs $489.
All of the above packages are $100 off for anyone who signs up before June 6.
“We have a really large audience of millions of sports and NFL fans who visit YouTube every day and can now access it,” said Christian Oestlien, YouTube TV’s vice president of product management, in an interview. “One of the things we really tried to do here was simplify the user experience with the flexibility and choice we can provide.”
YouTube TV became the newest home of the “Sunday Ticket” bundle in December, in a deal that will see the tech giant spend about $2 billion a year on rights, CNBC previously reported.
Until this deal, which kicks off with the upcoming NFL season, DirecTV was the exclusive home of “Sunday Ticket” and required a pay-TV satellite subscription to watch games.
The new price is in line with DirecTV’s offer, which Oestlien said YouTube relied on as the current market precedent. He also said the streamer had spoken to existing subscribers about how much they would be willing to pay.
“We didn’t want to give it away for free or anything. There was a real opportunity to price it in a smart way and we worked very closely with the NFL,” said Oestlien.
DirecTV has held the rights to “Sunday Ticket” since its inception in 1994 and he was paying $1.5 billion a year for them, since the last renewal in 2014, the package cost $79.99 per month for the basic option or $149.99 per month for additional features in addition to a DirecTV subscription.
YouTube and the NFL are still jointly exploring other new packages they may offer in the future, Oestlien said. The focus has been on mid-season and late-season packages as potential opportunities, although the parties have nothing to announce at the moment, he added.
Go to streaming
Retaining the rights to the “Sunday Ticket” will strengthen YouTube’s profile in the competitive streaming landscape, especially among Internet TV bundles that were once thought to be the answer to traditional cable-cutting. YouTube TV, like other competitors including Hulu Live TV+ and Fubo TV, is slowly filling the gap for those escaping traditional pay-TV subscriptions and increasingly turning to premium entertainment streamers like Netflix. YouTube TV reached 5 million subscribers in July.
The deal can also be seen as a win-win for traditional TV channels: the cheaper prices available to YouTube TV subscribers – including TV and cable channels that recently renewed their deals for the rights to NFL games – could encourage football fans to pick up the whole package and watch others networks where viewership has fallen due to cable cuts.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said at the time of the announcement of the YouTube TV deal that the league was “focused on increasing the digital distribution of our games.”
“This partnership is another example of how we look to the future and build a new generation of NFL fans,” Goodell said in December.
Oestlien said the deal “opens up a whole new market for people who would be less interested in getting a ‘Sunday ticket'” from traditional means of pay TV.
Recently, the NFL announced that it has partnered with RedBird Capital Partners set up a company which has exclusive rights to distribute the Sunday Ticket in bars, restaurants and other commercial venues in the US
Amazon holds exclusive rights to “Thursday Night Football”, requiring a Prime Video subscription to watch matches at home. However, DirecTV airs games for bars, restaurants and other businesses.
— CNBC’s Alex Sherman contributed to this article.
Disclosure: Comcast, which owns CNBC’s parent NBCUniversal, is co-owner of Hulu.