The new pricing structure for NFL Sunday Ticket has been released. Fans that subscribe to YouTube TV can pay as little as $249 for the entire season if they sign up early. Fans that do not have YouTube TV, but want to get every NFL game can get the package for $349 with an early sign-up.
Over on 106.7 The Fan in Washington, listeners overwhelmingly told BMitch & Finlay that the price tag was too high. The daily poll question on Tuesday asked if fans were willing to spend $349 per year for NFL Sunday Ticket. It was a resounding no, with 79% of listeners saying they could not justify the price.
Brian Mitchell wasn’t so sure that those fans will stick to their guns come the fall.
“Do you think they say that now?” he asked Scott Jackson, who was filling in for JP Finlay. “When the season starts and they see how many games are on, will they do it then?”
Jackson answered that it is a possibility. He also pointed out that it is a little old-fashioned of the NFL not to provide fans an option to only follow one team with the package. Mitchell agreed. He said the advertising for Sunday Ticket on DirecTV always focused on fans that wanted to watch just one team.
“They sell what they don’t offer,” he said.
The price tag for NFL Sunday Ticket has inflated in nearly 30 years since the service was introduced. Jackson noted that when the out-of-market games package debuted on DirecTV, the price tag was right around $100. Mitchell said it is not a coincidence that the NFL has bumped the rate up by 350%. The league is responding to what the market is saying.
“They keep hearing people publicly say ‘I wouldn’t know what to do without it,’ so they say ‘Okay, we’re gonna make you pay for it.’”
