Streaming NFL Football Simplified

September 08, 2022

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IN THIS ISSUE:

  • 🏀 NBA League Pass cuts their price in half

  • 👩 Woman in sports take center stage

  • 🏈 The NFL is everywhere!

The Main Event: Streaming NFL Football Simplified

Let’s try to simplify streaming NFL football. It won’t be easy.

If you don’t have cable TV or satellite, you can still watch NFL football games all season long. One of the easiest ways to stream nearly every game is with a live TV streaming service. Which one is the best for NFL football?

To make this easier to understand, I created a chart that shows which live TV stream services carry each of the six channels that regularly have NFL football games. Just remember that none of these services include weekly Thursday Night Football games, which are now streaming exclusively.

Credit: Roy Delgado

Sling TV may look tempting, but the limited coverage of Fox and NBC local markets combined with the lack of CBS means it won’t work for most fans. Vidgo is also a poor option, with no NBC or CBS games.

YouTube TV has local networks in nearly every market and every major channel for $65 a month.

Hulu with Live TV also has great coverage for $70 a month. They are running a big sale right now, which makes them an even better option at $50 a month for three months. But the price jumps up to $75 a month in December, right as the NFL is heating up.

FuboTV and DirecTV Stream both offer similar NFL channels for the same $70 price. But DirecTV Stream lacks the NFL Network.

The best live TV streaming service for NFL football is YouTube TV. The service has

  • Full coverage for NFL channels

  • Easy to use

  • Three streams at the same time

  • Costs less than cable TV

This isn’t the only way to stream NFL football, and it certainly isn’t the cheapest way. The NFL has turned to streaming in a big way, and many streaming services now include games all season long.

Here is a chart that shows the streaming services that include NFL games.

Credit: Roy Delgado

Amazon Prime Video has exclusive national streams of Thursday Night Football for $9 per month. Local markets will get those games over the air, but that won’t cover you for the entire season.

Paramount+ and Peacock both have live NFL games every Sunday of the season for $5 per month each. Plus you can stream these games on any device, including your TV.

ESPN+ will stream nine NFL games this season for $10 per month, including simulcasts of ESPN and ABC games and one exclusive game on October 30.

The NFL also offers NFL+ and NFL RedZone (hiding in the NFL app), but these services only have live games on mobile devices like smartphones. If you want to stream games on your TV, these won’t work for you. However $35 for a full year of NFL RedZone is a great deal, even if it is mobile only.

The current streaming NFL Sunday Ticket can be a bit of a mess.

  • You have to prove you are eligible, i.e. can’t get DirecTV

  • It’s expensive, starting at $73 per month

  • It doesn’t include your local games

We are so close to a great bundle-free experience for the NFL, but we are not quite there. Fox doesn’t have a streaming service. Some of the best unbundled options are mobile-device only. And unlike Peacock and Paramount+, ESPN is still holding back half of their games from ESPN+.

Still the cheapest way to stream a lot of NFL Football is to combine Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+, and Peacock for $19 per month. That’s $45 less each month than YouTube TV, with lots of great games all season long. Use some of that +$200 in savings to get an antenna for your local Fox games, or the mobile version of NFL+ to pick up the ESPN games each week on your phone.

The Fast Break:

🏀 NBA League Pass drops prices for 2022-23

The NBA made a surprising move last week when it dropped the price of their streaming NBA League Pass, bucking a trend of rising streaming service prices. For the 2022-23 season, the standard streaming package of NBA League Pass with NBA TV will cost only $100.

That is more than half off the price from last season of $230, and it is a smart and aggressive move in streaming. The Streamable reports that subscriptions to streaming NBA League Pass were already up 30% last season. This league has a lot going in their favor.

  • Unprecedented appeal with young fans

  • More of a nationwide audience compared to the regionally focused MLB

  • New NBA broadcast rights deals are coming up in just over two years

If the league can build their own monster service directly with fans, they’ll have greater leverage with networks to get even more than the $75 billion they want. Plus they’ll be in position to thrive when the pay TV bundle finally falls apart.

💸Paramount+ deals are a score for sports fans

Paramount+ ad-supported plan ($5 per month) is now included for Walmart+ members for no extra cost. For $13 per month or $98 per year, Walmart+ members get free shipping, free deliveries from stores, discounts on gas and streaming NFL games and Champions League soccer.

Paramount+ is also offering a deal to bundle their service together with Showtime for a big discount through October 2. Both services can now be watched in the same app.

  • Paramount+ with ads ($5) & Showtime ($11) for $8 per month

  • Paramount+ Premium ($10) & Showtime ($11) for $13 per month

Paramount+ and Showtime have a great selection of streaming sports, with Paramount+ focusing on soccer while Showtime has boxing. In addition to live sports from these two services, the new app bundles in CBS Sports HQ, a free 24x7 sports news channel.

  • Sunday NFL Football

  • UEFA Champions League

  • Europa League

  • NWSL

  • Women’s World Cup Qualifiers

  • Barclay’s Women’s Super League

  • Serie A

  • NCAA College Football

  • NCAA College Basketball including March Madness

  • PGA Golf, including the Masters

  • PBC Boxing and more

👩 Women’s Sports streaming to center stage in Sept.

Women in Sports continue to rise, and this weekend two major events available to stream will give women the center stage.

The WNBA Finals start on Sunday, September 11.

  • The Las Vegas Aces have already locked in their spot

  • The Connecticut Sun and Chicago Sky play for a spot tonight

  • Finals games on ABC and ESPN can be streamed on Live TV services

  • Claressa Shields faces Savannah Marshall for the undisputed championship

  • Mikaela Mayer faces Alycia Baumgardner in a title unification fight

  • The whole event streams exclusively on ESPN+ starting at 2:30 pm.

Watch. Learn. Stream.

I Watched:

  • Serena Williams last match at the 2022 U.S. Open. What an amazing career from the Greatest Ever.

  • The absolutely ridiculously great WNBA Semi-final game 3 finish between the Storm and Aces. Just watch the highlights and thank me later.

  • She-Hulk on Disney+. It isn’t sports, but it is fantastically funny.

I Learned:

Some people just don’t get it. Catching a ball at an MLB game that was clearly thrown to a kid is a loser move. Good on the Nationals for reaching out to make this right.

I’ll Be Streaming: 

  • NFL games, including the Red Zone and on mobile with NFL+. Football is back.

  • The WNBA Finals. I just wish Sue Bird were still in it.

  • College Football on ESPN+

Gratitude

Thank you for reading this week’s Streaming Sports Newsletter.

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Remember that you can reach me on Twitter @royd77 or by replying to this email at [email protected]