The NFL is a part of American life. If you're not a fan of it, chances are there's at least one person close to you who is a fan.
The league encompasses so much more than just who scores touchdowns, with the Super Bowl Halftime show drawing hundreds of millions of viewers while the biggest pop star in the world is dating one of the league's top players.
But NFL fandom is getting really, really expensive. If you want to watch the games, whether at the stadiums or on your couch, you're going to have to cough up a pretty penny.
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On Wednesday, May 15, NFL teams announced their 18-week schedules for the upcoming season and the tickets for those games were subsequently released for each of the teams.
According to ticket technology platform SeatGeek, the average ticket prices during the ticket price reveal was $378, which is 14% more than last year and 23% more than in 2022.
SeatGeek
The ticket price is the highest since 2021, which was an outlier since it followed the season that featured limited capacity due to COVID-19 the pandemic.
For fans who simply want to grab a beer and watch games around the house, the different games are now found across several different platforms that will also cost a ton to watch especially after it was announced on Wednesday that Netflix will be carrying this season's Christmas Day slate.
Any TV viewer that wants to watch the NFL's full slate this year would need to grab a cable or streaming package that would carry CBS, NBC, Fox, and ESPN in order to watch the Sunday national slate as well as "Monday Night Football." Additionally, a subscription from YouTube TV, which carries NFL Sunday Ticket, would cost $72.99 monthly.
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Amazon's Prime Video is then needed to watch "Thursday Night Football," which is another $14.99 per month. Prime Video is also expected to carry one playoff game this year.
Peacock, which carried last year's exclusively-streamed playoff game, will also be needed for fans who want to watch the NFL's first-ever regular season game in South America on opening week. That's another $7.99 a month for the Sept. 5 match-up between the Philadelphia Eagles (Peacock is raising its price from ad-included subscription from $5.99 to $7.99 on July 18).
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ESPN+ also carries one exclusive game, which is a Week 7 "Monday Night Football" match-up between the Arizona Cardinals and the Los Angeles Chargers. That's another $10.99.
The aforementioned Christmas Day slate on Netflix now adds at least $6.99 a month to the budget of NFL diehards.
If you want to save a couple of bucks and not pay month to month, anyone who is looking to watch all out-of-market games will want a subscription to YouTube TV's "Sunday Ticket," which depending on the package, can go anywhere from $349 to $489 per year.
The point is clear — being an NFL fan is not cheap. And it's become extremely complicated as well to remember all the different places to catch games, especially if you want in on all of the action.
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