Are you ready for some football? Well, you better get ready to pay an arm and a leg for some football.
Football season is closely approaching. You probably already knew that thanks to the crisp air that's swept across the country, or because of the fact that you've either already had or have your fantasy football draft on the calendar. We're getting really close ladies and gentlemen... the beautiful sport of football is nearly here.
And for those die hard NFL fans, one of the staples of the season is purchasing and enjoying NFL Sunday Ticket. For the very addicted like myself, NFL RedZone is a must-add to the package. There's nothing like never touching the remote on a football Sunday, yet seeing all the day's exciting plays and touchdowns.
YouTube TV took over the rights to Sunday Ticket last year, and they did a pretty good job with it for the most part (they've added the custom multi-view option for this upcoming season). The only issue is that it really helps to be already be a YouTube TV subscriber, because if you aren't, the price for the beautiful, life-changing NFL Sunday goes way up.
For those that already have YouTube TV, the price to add on Sunday Ticket is $379, and $419 if you take on RedZone. For those that do not, their price for the same product goes up to $479 (and adding on the RedZone bumps it to over $500). And reports of the staggering prices for the product through the Apple App Store have created quite the negative buzz on social media:
-$679.99 for Sunday Ticket-$739.99 for Sunday Ticket + RedZone
https://twitter.com/_MLFootball/status/1825698541991305386
Pushing $800 to charge just one person to enjoy football for the NFL season? That's wild considering that the league brings in an estimated $20 billion (with a b) every year - though I guess price gouging fans probably plays into those billions of dollars that the NFL brings in annually.
Of course, the NFL is putting the blame for the pricey package on YouTube:
“The NFL does not control the pricing of Sunday Ticket and does not set or receive any additional fees associated with its sale.”
And the NFL also wants the package to be a premium product so that enough people still watch the games through their local networks, in order to protect the league's contracts with their networks. Basically, if everybody switched to Sunday Ticket, the networks wouldn't pay the NFL ridiculous sums of money to broadcast their games. So it's a balancing act.
Obviously there are some other, cheaper ways to get it, but fans are even fed up with those non-YouTube-TV prices. The bottom line is that NFL fans want to watch football and they don't want to have to break the bank to do it. And they've voiced that on social media with the season right around the corner:
NFL Sunday Ticket should cost $100 for the season MAX.
I can't believe my eyes when I see the $679.99 price tag pop up.
We all know what sort of money these teams and TV networks are making.
Robbing fans blind is exceptionally greedy, but par for the course for the NFL.
"YouTube TV" Sunday Ticket via the Apple app store. It costs $679.99. how much you think the price going to be next year. Fuck off NFL pic.twitter.com/seSJZwnVNM
NFL and Roger Goodell wild for that almost $700 price tag on Sunday Ticket. Nope. Fuck no. I love football, I love the NFL games, but I am not paying that money to watch from home.
