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If a football fan’s favorite NFL team isn’t in his or her own local market, it currently costs a pretty penny to watch each of the team’s 17 regular season games.
If a favorite team is local, fans can watch games on local affiliates and national television via pay cable. However, the NFL Sunday Ticket costs some fans $480 for access to watch every NFL game on FOX and CBS affiliates — and that’s before streaming services come into play.
However, Pakinomist contributor Clay Travis came up with an idea that the NFL admittedly wouldn’t use in order for fans to get exactly what they want at a much lower price.
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New England Patriots fans look sad as the Patriots lose in the second half of an NFL game against the Chicago Bears at Gillette Stadium in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 24, 2022. (Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)
“In my opinion, the NFL should offer single-team options in addition to the entire NFL Sunday Ticket,” Travis said at Thursday’s examination of the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.
“So generally, if an entity doesn’t serve the marketplace what the marketplace is demanding, it would raise questions as to why they’re doing it. From a business perspective, I think the answer is because they can charge $480-some dollars for the NFL Sunday ticket if they include all those games.
“If they only sold individual games, which it seems the vast majority of fans would prefer, they might only be able to charge $80 or $100. So they’re making hundreds of millions of dollars on a product that the average NFL fan, given the choice, probably wouldn’t choose.”
An NFL football with the 250 logo commemorating the league’s 250th anniversary is displayed during the game between the New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia on January 4, 2026. (Rich Von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire)
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That $480 price tag is for existing Sunday Ticket customers, while new users get a discount that brings the price to $240 for the 2026 season. Hundreds of dollars come into play when fans add Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Peacock and others.
“Every single day, sports fans are now being ripped off for the opportunity to watch their favorite teams. Fans are now paying far more money each year for something that you, by law in 1961, guaranteed to them should be free,” Travis began in his testimony.
The NFL logo is seen on the field before the game between the Green Bay Packers and the Miami Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., on Dec. 25, 2022. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
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“Most of your constituents are frustrated. They don’t know how to find games and they have to pay way too much when they have the opportunity to actually watch those games. I don’t know how many of you remember the days when you could have one remote in your hand and you could easily turn to any other game… They just want to be able to watch their favorite team and not have to.”
