Verizon pitches free 'NFL Sunday Ticket' to some new subs and upgraders

Verizon is looking to gain new mobile and home broadband subs, and upgrade others, under a new promotion that will provide a free year of NFL Sunday Ticket, the out-of-market football TV package that's now being distributed exclusively by Google.

Starting tomorrow, Verizon customers who buy or preorder a select smartphone and sign up for a new mobile line, or who sign up for certain Verizon home broadband plans, are eligible to get the NFL Sunday Ticket package (for the 2023/2024 season), which carries a value of $449. Existing customers who upgrade plans to those under the promotion are also eligible, Verizon said.

Per the fine print, the offer covers customers signing up for Verizon's "myPlan" mobile service who buy smartphones such as Samsung's Galaxy S23 Series, the Galaxy Z Flip5 or Galaxy Z Fold5, Google's Pixel Fold, Pixel 7 or 7 Pro or the Motorola Edge+.

New Verizon Home Internet customers eligible for the offer include those activating service for 5G Home Plus or LTE Home Plus, or the Fios 1-Gig or 2-Gig plans. Verizon can charge back the value of the NFL Sunday Ticket subscription if those new customers cancel service prior to February 29, 2024.

The promo also applies to Verizon Mobile customers who upgrade to Unlimited Plus and to existing Unlimited Plus customers who add a line to their Unlimited Plus plan. The NFL Sunday Ticket deal is also being pitched to home broadband customers who upgrade to the Fios 1-Gig or 2-Gig plans, or to 5G Home Plus or LTE Home Plus.

Verizon is also offering a $100 discount on NFL Sunday Ticket to any existing mobile customers.

Verizon, which once was the exclusive mobile partner of the NFL, is the first telco to announce promos centered on NFL Sunday Ticket.

Verizon's new "on us" NFL Sunday Ticket promo emerges several weeks prior to the NFL season and about eight months after Google was introduced as the new, exclusive distributor of NFL Sunday Ticket, a package that previously was distributed by DirecTV. Google is selling NFL Sunday Ticket as an add-on to its YouTube TV service, and as a standalone via YouTube and its Primetime Channels service.

Fuel for the fall

The promotional tie-in could help Verizon fuel its mobile and home broadband subscriber acquisition and upgrade activity heading into the fall. The promo also arrives following a second quarter of the year in which Verizon dropped 304,000 prepaid mobile customers.

The deal should also help to prime the pump for Google as the tech giant looks to gather some steam in its first season as the exclusive distributor of the NFL's out-of-market TV package.

YouTube is reportedly paying about $2 billion per year over seven years to distribute and sell NFL Sunday Ticket. MoffettNathanson recently estimated that Google/YouTube will need to attract about 4.5 million subscribers to break even, more than double the 2 million NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers DirecTV reportedly was able to draw at its peak.

Verizon's NFL Sunday Ticket promotions also follows the company's deal to operate the "official" managed private wireless networks across all 30 US NFL stadiums and for the 2023 international series NFL games in London, U.K., and Frankfurt, Germany. Verizon's support will include in-game wireless connectivity for on-field coach-to-coach communications.

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— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading