Watching the NFL on TV Has Gotten Ridiculously Expensive

Being a football fan in 2024 means having to shell out for a bevy of streaming platforms that until recently have never had exclusive rights to games.

In total, four different streamers will exclusively air games this year, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Amazon’s Prime Video will continue to have the biggest chunk, headlined by Thursday Night Football, which it began airing in 2022. This year, Amazon has added to its roster with a playoff game, one year after debuting a Black Friday matchup. Also new in 2024: Netflix got its first NFL games when it bought the rights to the league’s Christmas action, a pair of high-profile Wednesday showdowns: the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens taking on the Houston Texans. 

Additionally, ESPN+ will have a Los Angeles Chargers-Arizona Cardinals game as part of a Monday night double-header in October. 

Paying for all four services can run you nearly $50 a month. Even with annual plans that offer discounted rates, that can add up to more than $500 for the year. For the complete die-hards, adding the out-of-market Sunday games through Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV would add another $479 to the bill.  

All of which means that an NFL fan who wants access to every snap could wind up paying over $1,000 including monthly cable bills.

WSJ Graphic

While the games are increasingly spread out across various platforms, the ones on streaming services only represent a small percentage of the NFL’s overall inventory. Only 20 of the league’s 272 regular-season games this season, or 7.4%, will air exclusively on the four streamers nationally. Those games, like all nationally televised ones, are also available on free networks in local markets. 

The vast majority of matchups are still on CBS and Fox, and with additional Sunday night and Monday night games on NBC and ABC, respectively, 85.3% of the action will air on network television. That’s a far higher percentage than other major American sports leagues, which often rely on regional sports networks or cable channels for their nationally televised games.