A new NFL Sunday Ticket package was officially announced Thursday morning, with the league migrating the platform to YouTube TV for the 2023 season and beyond. One of the provisions in the announcement confused WFAN morning hosts Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti.
In the announcement, the NFL said “starting next season, NFL Sunday Ticket will be available on two of YouTube’s growing subscription businesses as an add-on package on YouTube TV and standalone a-la-carte on YouTube Primetime Channels.”
That “a-la-carte” wording led Giannotti — a Minnesota Vikings fan living in New York — to question whether he could purchase solely Vikings games. The option to buy single NFL games or the NFL games of one particular franchise does not currently exist and reportedly will not be offered in the new Sunday Ticket package. Giannotti then wondered if he would need a YouTube TV subscription to purchase Sunday Ticket.
“All of this crap is confusing, but this is particularly confusing,” Giannotti said. “Does that mean that you have to have YouTube TV and sign up for their subscription before you can sign up for Sunday Ticket?”
“Yeah, I would assume so,” Esiason said. “You have the free app on your phone. You can also sign up for an additional aspect of the app.”
After a back and forth between producers and update anchor Jerry Recco disagreed on what the “al a carte” pricing meant for the package, the record was set straight that you can add-on NFL Sunday Ticket to your YouTube TV bundle similarly to that of Showtime or HBO.
“That makes a little more sense,” Giannotti said.
Later, Recco questioned what the move means for DirecTV.
“They’re in a lot of trouble,” Recco said.
“They should hire Sam Bankman-Fried to turn things around for them,” Giannotti joked, to which Esiason replied “he’ll be back in town soon”, referring to the disgraced cryptocurrency exchange founder of FTX, who is currently in federal custody facing charges of wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, and money laundering.
