{"id":134975,"date":"2025-09-05T15:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T15:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/134975\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T15:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T15:58:08","slug":"major-nfl-games-will-cost-you-631-to-watch-this-season-are-you-paying-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/134975\/","title":{"rendered":"Major NFL games will cost you $631 to watch this season. Are you paying up?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a lot of talk about how challenging and expensive it is to watch sports these days. Here\u2019s a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation for NFL viewing from September through February for a menu that includes all in-market games plus the national games (but not NFL Sunday Ticket) \u2014 Dan Shanoff<\/p>\n

Understanding individual mileage may vary, let\u2019s lay out a typical viewing budget to meet those goals:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Cable\/satellite\/multi-channel streaming: $90\/month average* (x 6 months) = $540<\/p>\n

That will get you local, in-market games and national games on CBS and Fox, plus all but one Sunday night on NBC, all Monday nights on ESPN, international games on NFL Network, all the playoff games and the Super Bowl on NBC.<\/p>\n

*You might be paying less than $80, you might be paying more than $100. Picked a reasonable midpoint.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Amazon Prime Video for Thursday night games: $15\/month (x 5 months) = $75<\/p>\n

(If you pay for Amazon Prime for a whole year, you get Prime Video built in, but you also pay more and have seven months of no NFL games to watch. I went \u00e0 la carte.)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Netflix on Christmas: $8 for December<\/p>\n

\u2022 Peacock for its one exclusive Sunday night game in December: $8 for the month<\/p>\n

\u2022 Splurge! RedZone: $11\/month (as YouTube TV or cable add-on) x 5 months = $55<\/p>\n

Total: $631 (without Red Zone), $686 (with Red Zone)<\/p>\n

This all begs a question or two, put to The Athletic\u2019s media reporters, Richard Deitsch and Andrew Marchand, as part of their 2025 NFL season media preview<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Given the NFL\u2019s popularity, the cost of supporting individual fandom and the inherent drama that occurs multiple times a week for six months, is the NFL the best dollar-for-dollar entertainment value in media? Or is that bundled cost a problem for the league?<\/p>\n

Deitsch: If you are a consumer who feels outraged by the increasing cost of watching sports \u2014 and I am with you on this \u2014 your only recourse is not to pay for these products. However, that has never happened in my lifetime, and particularly with the NFL, which is as close to a national addiction as exists in America. If you want to look at this as far as value, here\u2019s one way: If you bought a caf\u00e9 latte from Starbucks every day for a year, it would cost you around $2,000, depending on where you live and the size of your coffee.<\/p>\n

Marchand: It is maddening. The NFL is too strong to fail, but I would say that if it makes it harder for people to watch, they will eventually watch less. The NFL has the luxury of partnering with the top, so YouTube is free, while Netflix and Prime Video are popular. I do think that cost and managing scarcity are things the NFL should be cognizant of, even as it continues to dominate.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re the one paying the cost, so it\u2019s your turn to weigh in. Take the poll: Is the price we pay to watch the NFL a good value?<\/p>\n

(Photo: Reed Hoffmann \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a lot of talk about how challenging and expensive it is to watch sports these days.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99,1794],"class_list":["post-134975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}