NFL Sunday Ticket prices skyrocket after YouTube acquisition

If you were holding out hope that the YouTube acquisition of NFL Sunday Ticket was going to lower the cost, you can stop holding out hope at this point. YouTube announced the price packages for NFL Sunday Ticket, and NFL fans around the country are understandably outraged.

If you’re already a YouTube TV subscriber, you’re going to be able to get the best deal by locking in an NFL Sunday Ticket subscription before June 6 (less than two months away) with $100 off the base package whether it’s bundled with NFL Red Zone or not. And who doesn’t want (need) NFL Red Zone?

If you wait until after June 6, the price goes up $100 and the best anyone who doesn’t already subscribe to YouTube TV can do is $349 for the package. How does this compare to the DirecTV prices of NFL Sunday Ticket?

YouTube prices on NFL Sunday Ticket vs. DirecTV prices

With the pre-June 6 discount, the price of the Sunday Ticket package still increases by $60. If you wait until after June 6, the price still goes up by $160 for the previous DirecTV package cost.

The ones this one hits the worst are those who do not subscribe to YouTube TV and who will wait to make a decision until after June 6. At that point, you may just be better off finding other alternatives, although the NFL really hasn’t historically done a good job of making watching the games very easy for anyone. Remember at the beginning of last season how DirecTV was having massive streaming issues causing a blackout of the app?

Good times.

For those who have been utilizing the NFL Sunday Ticket U program for students, this is an exponential increase of overall price. For all its faults, DirecTV was offering a package for students that made the overall price of Sunday Ticket and NFL Red Zone around $120 (USD). Over the course of four months, that $30/month price tag was certainly well worth it for access to every game that wasn’t already locally televised, as well as access to the Red Zone Channel.

Now, the best anyone can do is $249 per season, which will come out to $50-60 per month depending on how YouTube/Google decides to spread that out.

They could have done team-specific packages for a lesser price. They could have made the price significantly more affordable to a bigger audience, exposing more people to YouTube TV, but this is just an unfortunate turn-off for so many.

The NFL is touching so many different spots of the media these days, and yet, the games feel less accessible than ever. Unless you’re only interested in watching prime time or local games, they’ve almost made the decision too easy just to catch up on NFL Game Pass or wait for highlights later on.

Many NFL fans will pay the (outrageous) price, of course. Because they have to. Many fans will simply say “forget it” and easily walk away from this price. Especially because when you’re talking about a “discount” with YouTube TV, that “discount” comes with the price of paying the monthly fees for YouTube TV on its own.