This is misleading. They are using the yearly cost for each streaming service but the NFL season is only about 5 months long including the playoffs. So you don't need to be subscribed for the whole year
And some of those streaming services are only getting one or two games. For instance, Netflix is only getting the Christmas games. They have Netflix listed as costing $84. If you only cared about the NFL games then you would only subscribe to Netflix for the month of December for $6.99. Peacock gets the Brazil game (which is tonight) and one playoff game in January so you'd only need two months of that. ESPN+ gets a game in week 7 so you'd only need one month of that.
Is it annoying to subscribe and cancel streaming services? Yes. But it wouldn't cost $2500 if you spend a few minutes cancelling each service.
>But it wouldn't cost $2500 if you spend a few minutes cancelling each service.
Sure, not quite that much, you're right.
But it's more than a few minutes to figure out which games are on which services in which months and then schedule all of your sign-ups and cancellations.
More important than the dollar amount, at least in my opinion, is that it's absolutely stupid to have to do any of that.
Someone should keep track of which streaming service I’m about to need and make sure I have a valid subscription which is subsequently disabled once I don’t need it. For instance I don’t need Peacock except during one half of NASCAR season.
Living abroad, I used to pay about $150/year for NFL Gamepass, and it was really good. Every game from every season, with the commercials cut out so you could watch a game in about 2 hours. Visiting the US and watching a game on TV was suddenly really painful, with its extra hour (literally) of commercials interspersed.
Then, last season, the NFL sold their Gamepass service to DAZN, who immediately ruined it.
The replay games suddenly had commercials again. Not real commercials either, just 2 minutes of DAZN House Ads every few plays, when the US version would be showing truck commercials. Even a week later after they should have had time to edit them down.
And you couldn't find your team's game to watch anyway, because they killed the team pages. Now all you get is a Netflix-style horizontal scroll of DAZN's "Football" category, showing six games at a time and a little right arrow to page by one game at a time.
It was amazing how fast I went from a loyal customer on autopay for years to demanding a refund and just not watching football anymore.
This reminds me of someone showing how expensive apps actually are these days. What used to cost 40 bucks, one time, for the computer version now costs hundreds of dollars to buy all the 'packs' on the mobile version.
you would only need ESPN+ for october. there is only one ESPN+ exclusive game. all other ESPN games you get on youtube tv. that would bring you total under $500
But NFL doesn't have all of the other games. It has the season for the league, and that's it. So there's no need to find your team's games in the international tournaments. Or the various providers for any of the national tourneys either. Also, there's only 16 games in the normal season, plus maybe a couple more for play offs. So you're paying a much higher rate for each individual game when you divide the cost per game for the subscription. The NFL is nothing but $$$ grab
> Conversely, in 1363, King Edward III of England issued a proclamation banning "...handball, football, or hockey; coursing and cock-fighting, or other such idle games",[7] suggesting that "football" may have been differentiated from games that involved other parts of the body.
I use a similar setup with my brother who lives in Europe, but instead of a
MacBook Air, I’m using a Raspberry Pi.
The Pi runs Tailscale as an exit node, and whenever I want to catch a game or a
show, I simply connect to that exit node from my computer and launch the DAZN
web app. It’s not something I use all the time, but it’s a great option when I
need access to a game that isn’t available on my local streaming services.
While this setup works, it’s far from ideal. Having to go through the entire
process is a bit cumbersome. It would be much more convenient if there were a
way to directly access the video feed stream—maybe with a dedicated cable box
that you can control remotely.
I’ve also come across some dubious streaming sites that broadcast virtually
every channel from multiple providers—literally thousands of channels. I’ve
always been curious how they manage to pull that off.
flippant tone aside, this is a thing that actually happened!
not just after they release, but they would definitely show "abridged" versions of movies on daytime TV, with a little bit trimmed off to open up some space for commercials etc
This is simply not true. You don't need Amazon Prime at all, those games are streamed on Twitch for free. You also only need some of these services for a month or two. Finally, you can get the network games for free with a TV antenna.
No, just need to be in the US. Unless they changed it? But I thought the whole reason they did it was because they were required to broadcast it for free in the teams that are playing's markets, and this was the easiest way for them to do that.
> The total cost for a football fan who doesn’t have cable to stream all 343 NFL games this season is about $1,700.
The average NFL game is about 3 hours. That's 1,029 hours of content across all games. 1700/1029 = $1.65/hr for the content. That's a lot less than renting a movie. Yes, I know there are ads happening, too.
Someone is always around to point out that entertainment is not food or health care and you are free to choose which, and how much to consume. And that consuming all of it, all the time, however you like, for pennies, is not a human right.
That "someone" doesn't get that people are frustrated with the progressive "enshittification" of everything.
It's not about a single source of entertainment, it's that we're witnessing every nice thing become shittier and shittier each year, all for the purpose of increasing profits which are already immense and concentrated in the hands of a few.
True but not 100% true. If you’re at a game in person you’d see all the times when gameplay stops for no reason purely for an added TV break and the players stand around on the field. Not a team timeout, just literally a TV timeout that neither team asked for.
Go to a high school game then go to an NFL game and you’ll see a massive difference.
What part of every single game did you not understand?
Even if you have an HD antenna, there are black out rules so that if not enough tickets are sold for the game, the game will not be broadcast in the local area. I'm guessing that's pretty rare now, but it was part of my childhood for the extended family to go the family's lake cabin to see the game on TV. Never did anyone actually go to the game contributing to the feedback loop
Shows how long it's been since I've paid attention to the NFL, but who comes up with these rules? Clearly, a bunch of lawyers, but like, how much of an asshole does one need to be to even think this stuff up?
Since I live out-of-market of my home team, on entering the season I am once again considering putting up an OTA DVR at my parent's house and watching all the in-market games.
Are there any good out of the box or open source self-hosted Aereo-like services, that let me access OTA broadcasts in another market?
I know that things like Tablo exist, but they seem very optimized for same-network use cases rather than remote streaming.
According to this article, one game will be streamed on Netflix but the cost of Netflix is listed as $84. I am confident that a one month isn't that much.
More generally, it appears that the article didn't consider how long each subscription would be needed to stream every NFL game. It instead looks at the price if one purchased each streaming subscription for the whole football season.
This is only talking about streaming live games. If you're in the US and fine watching the next day, you can get an NFL+ subscription. I paid $99 for this year.
This is really useful if you follow multiple teams. You don't have to choose which one to watch when they play on the time slot.
Is it impossible to think science-fiction wise that soon we will have personal satellites and/or balloons giving us the freedom to watch the games on open stadiums? I understand that flying drones is illegal.
I come from a culture where it's common for people to listen to the football[1] match on the radio while watching the players on TV at the same time, effectively splitting the experience.
[1] I mean the football of Messi, Maradona, and Argentina.
Bad faith article implies this is normal and expected, but most fans will just use whatever cable package they are already under to watch their team, plus maybe an extra package to see the rest of the games. Outside of the local blackout area an HD antenna will get a lot of games for the casual viewer. It’s like all the other major sports.
I buy Sunday Ticket and Redzone, I had it last year and I really enjoyed being able to watch all the games, I used to use streaming sites but I was tired of them crashing every 10 minutes.
People won't go all out like they do in this example, but they will pony up for at least 1, maybe 2 of the services.
Edit: For example, if you have cable and already watch games there, you may buy NFL Sunday Ticket to watch other games that you may otherwise not be able to get.
Pro tip buy a condo in cottonwood heights and skiing becomes a $1000 a year hobby(with a refundable down payment). Plus flights to slc pretty cheap if youre on the west coast. Remote work has been amazing for my skiing
This is a completely disingenuous (or incompetent) breakdown of costs. It lists the cost of subscribing to services for the entire year when the season only lasts 6 months, and the need for some services is shorter than that.
And also, like most comparisons of streaming vs. cable costs, it lists the cost of cable as including both the internet service and TV programming. And then the streaming-only breakdown of costs pretends that you won't need to pay for any internet service at all.
NFL games are consistently among the most watched shows on TV/streaming in the US. People are already voting with their wallets and they are voting that the content is worth it to them.
And some of those streaming services are only getting one or two games. For instance, Netflix is only getting the Christmas games. They have Netflix listed as costing $84. If you only cared about the NFL games then you would only subscribe to Netflix for the month of December for $6.99. Peacock gets the Brazil game (which is tonight) and one playoff game in January so you'd only need two months of that. ESPN+ gets a game in week 7 so you'd only need one month of that.
Is it annoying to subscribe and cancel streaming services? Yes. But it wouldn't cost $2500 if you spend a few minutes cancelling each service.