YouTube TV subs get price break on new 'NFL Sunday Ticket' packages

Nearly four months after striking an exclusive deal to distribute the NFL Sunday Ticket package, YouTube has released presale and regular retail pricing for the out-of-market football TV package. Notably, customers of YouTube TV, the company's multichannel pay-TV service, will get a sizable price break on the package.

Figure 1: YouTube announced its exclusive deal to distribute the NFL Sunday Ticket package in December 2022.
(Source: YouTube)

YouTube is offering a mix of pricing and packaging options for consumers who want to add NFL Sunday Ticket to their YouTube TV subscriptions or subscribe to it a la carte via the YouTube Premium Channels service. Here's a snapshot of how those options stack up:

Depending on whether NFL Sunday Ticket is being added to a YouTube TV subscription or purchased a la carte, YouTube's presale prices come in both below and above the $293 that DirecTV, the distributor that previously held exclusive rights for NFL Sunday Ticket, sold it for last season.

Potential for mid- and late-season options

Some variations on NFL Sunday Ticket pricing could emerge deeper into the 2023 regular season. Christian Oestlein, VP of product management at YouTube, said the company is researching possible mid-season and late-season forms of the package, according to The Verge.

YouTube is predictably giving preferential treatment to YouTube TV – using NFL Sunday Ticket as a tool to retain and acquire customers who also happen to be football fans. Launched in early 2017, YouTube TV had more than 5 million paid and trial subscribers as of July 2022.

As it takes over a package that previously was distributed exclusively by DirecTV, YouTube has also developed some new interactive features for NFL Sunday Ticket. Those include a way for subscribers to view multiple games simultaneously and access to key plays.

"We are also working on adding shopping integrations so viewers can easily buy merchandise to support their teams, and social features that YouTube users are already familiar with, like chat, polls, and more," Oestlein explained in this blog post.

YouTube is reportedly paying about $2 billion per year over seven years to distribute NFL Sunday Ticket via YouTube TV and the YouTube Premium Channels service. Prior to details on how YouTube would price and package the NFL offering, MoffettNathanson (a unit of SVB Securities) estimated that the company would need to attract about 4.5 million Sunday Ticket subscribers just to break even.

At the time, MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson viewed that as a tall task, considering DirecTV had reportedly peaked at 2 million NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers.

YouTube's deal with the NFL adds to a string of sports rights deals involving streaming platforms and the use of a direct-to-consumer model. Examples of other premium streaming services that have secured distribution rights for popular sports include Amazon, Apple, NBCUniversal's Peacock and Paramount+.

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— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading