The NFL has embarked on an aggressive campaign to shift its TV viewing audience into streaming.
But currently, seven media and tech companies control OTT rights to NFL regular-season and playoff games, and there is simply no cheap solution for avid fans to be able to catch all or most of the games anymore.
A new analysis from London-based research company Omdia found that the cheapest bundle of streaming services needed to catch at least 95% of NFL games this upcoming season comes with a total consumer price of around $170 a month.
According to Omdia, to stream most NFL games, U.S. football fans would have to pay $449 for full-season access to the a la carte version of NFL Sunday Ticket, $139 annually for Amazon Prime and $10 a month for the standalone version of ESPN Plus.
NFL Sunday Ticket, which was just licensed away from DirecTV by YouTube at a price of around $2 billion a season, would provide access to all Sunday-afternoon out-of-market games. But it would not account for in-market games licensed to CBS, FOX and NBC. (Note: Football lovers might want to consider an over-the-air antenna here, which would take them up to nearly 100% of games.)
Also, ESPN+ won't deliver Monday night games presented only on ABC and not ESPN, and Peacock just locked up exclusive rights to a late-season and post-season Wild Card matchup. Fans would need to tack on an additional $4.99 for Peacock Premium to streaming those games.
Tacking on a sports-inclusive virtual pay TV service like YouTube TV or Fubo, meanwhile, would drive the price well beyond the $200-a-month range.
As Omdia notes, this is a meaningful consumer price issue, with 90% of U.S. sports fans (i.e. most of us) engaging on some level with the NFL.
Consider that 20 years ago, in 2003, the average price of a DirecTV subscription was around $64. That would deliver a fan access to most TV rights holders, which were mainly the four major broadcast companies at the time.
If a fan was on the avid side, DirecTV would license NFL Sunday Ticket to them at a price of around $50 a month. So, U.S. consumers could catch 100% of NFL games for around $114 a month.
Looking at it another way, the ~$170 minimum OTT price outlined by Omdia is 49.1% more expensive than that $114 price from 20 years ago, but inflation over this two-decade span is around 53.35%.
So the consumer pricing hasn't dramatically increased, but the distribution complexity certainly has.
