If you want to be able to watch all of the NFL’s action this season, it’s going to cost you.
NFL games will be broadcast on Fox, CBS, NBC, Amazon, YouTube, Netflix and ESPN as more media companies use the league’s broad popularity to lure viewers to their direct-to-consumer streaming apps and subscriber services.
And as these media companies use the nation’s most popular sports league to get people to subscribe to their streaming services, the cost of watching all the games is rising.
Consumers who wish to watch every single NFL game this season will have to pay upwards of $750 to do so, according to estimates by Forbes, which noted the league’s games will air on ten different platforms during the 2025-26 season.
The most expensive of these packages is NFL Sunday Ticket, available through traditional cable providers or Google’s YouTubeTV for nearly $400 a season.
YouTube is just one of a number of new players that are getting into the game.
Amazon and Netflix also will be televising some games this year, and the only way to see them will be to pay for their services.
Netflix plans in the U.S. range from $6.99 to $24.99 per month while a subscription to Amazon’s streaming service will run customers $14.99 per month or $139 per year.
Amazon burst onto the NFL scene in 2021, signing a multi-billion-dollar media rights deal with the league to broadcast Thursday Night Football, Black Friday and other select games through the 2033 season.
Netflix, which has made a major push into live streamed sports, broadcast last season’s Christmas Day games, with more than 20 million viewers tuning in to the double-header action during the holiday.
The streamer will again this Christmas broadcast two NFC divisional rivalry games: the Dallas Cowboys vs. the Washington Commanders, and the Detroit Lions vs. the Minnesota Vikings.
One unique characteristic of the NFL compared to other pro sports leagues is games are available for free over broadcast antenna in the local markets of each team playing in a select game.
This will be the case on Friday evening, when the powerhouse Kansas City Chiefs take on the AFC West rival Los Angeles Chargers, a game played in Brazil as part of the NFL’s push into international markets and streamed for free on YouTube.
Meanwhile, an increasing number of traditional media companies are hoping NFL football will help buoy their fledgling direct-to-consumer streaming platforms, like Paramount+ “Fox One,” ESPN+ and others, as more viewers cut cable in favor of streamed sports content.
Fox and CBS currently each have deals with the NFL to show weekly games on Sunday afternoons in the home markets of NFL franchises, but many observers see the current deals, which end in 2033, as one of the last that will be broadcast on linear television.
NBC’s broadcast Thursday night’s opening game between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles on linear broadcast, but also Peacock, which runs consumers $16.99 a month or $169.99 per year.
The Comcast-owned network also broadcasts Sunday Night Football, one of the highest-rated television shows each week during the fall.
Whatever technology these legacy media companies and new tech streamers use to bring NFL games to fans, the demand for the league’s content is undeniable.
Last year, more than 90 of the top 100 television broadcasts were NFL games, signaling the league remains the single largest driver of audience across the media business.
“This is part of our broader strategy of making this a global game,” Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s EVP for Media Distribution, said during a recent interview with podcaster Richard Deitsch. “We’re playing more games, in more places in more windows … we couldn’t do that if we didn’t change the structure of our media deals.”
There are signs the NFL is interested in getting into deeper business with some of the largest media companies in the world.
The league signed a $2 billion agreement with Disney earlier this summer to sell the league’s “RedZone” brand to ESPN, giving the NFL a 10 percent stake in the Disney-owned sports media giant.
And though the trend of more games on more platforms is leading to some confusion among NFL fans, nobody is expecting anyone to tune pro football out anytime soon.
“Everyone seems to be testing the same line in terms of what the consumer is willing to absorb,” said John A. Fortunato, an expert in sports media and business at Fordham University. “The NFL pretty clearly hasn’t gotten to that line yet. Whatever you think of them now, media is how the NFL grows … and this is the economic reality of how popular that league is.”
