This thread just saved me ~$800. Because of the earlier posts regarding a few people getting Sunday Ticket free this year, I called in (lying...kind of) on Aug. 8th and told them that I had 2 friends that got emails saying that their NFL Sunday Ticket was free this year. Told them (lying again) I had been with DirecTV and Sunday Ticket longer than both of these guys and that since I wasn't getting Sunday Ticket for free to just cancel it. Said I'd stream games on illegal streaming websites, and that this unpleasant experience would probably cause me to drop DirecTV altogether.
Some chick from DirecTV left a message later that day saying they could offer me a $60 loyalty discount, but she didn't specify whether it was a one-time discount or $60/mo so I didn't respond. Opened my monthly bill email this morning and saw that they not only didn't cancel Sunday Ticket per my request, they were charging me full price for it. Called in and told them that on August 8th 2 different reps confirmed my Sunday Ticket cancellation request, so why was I being charged for it? Told them I wanted it cancelled and that I was going to look into Hulu or some other streaming service and drop them altogether. Got transferred to a "loyalty discount specialist" who offered me a $60/mo loyalty discount for 12 months, plus an additional $16 discount for 6 months, and Sunday Ticket Max.
Hey guys, it’s time to figure out how I’m gonna watch Chiefs football this year. I currently have no satellite service. I’m doing the Hulu, Netflix, Amazon deal. What are my options?? Do I need direct tv? Can I stream some service to my cell phone?? [Reply]
Originally Posted by KCJake:
Hey guys, it’s time to figure out how I’m gonna watch Chiefs football this year. I currently have no satellite service. I’m doing the Hulu, Netflix, Amazon deal. What are my options?? Do I need direct tv? Can I stream some service to my cell phone??
Originally Posted by KCJake:
Those illegal streams in my experience are so hit and miss. I just wanna wake up Sunday morning and know I'm gonna be able to watch the game.
Pretty sure you can just purchase streaming Sunday Ticket for your phone or tablet. Will cost you a few hundred but it’s an option [Reply]
Last year, I got a buddy to sign up who lived in an apartment and couldn't get a dish. They haven't seemed to try too hard to prevent you from sign up for streaming in the last few years. Although I haven't yet tried this year.
I used to sign up with a student account which was cheap. I don't know if they still offer that. But I don't know as many college students anymore. [Reply]
Originally Posted by :
The NFL’s much-discussed Sunday Ticket package is in the news of late, with one report having Amazon as the lead contender to acquire the out-of-market games that are up for bid, while another touts Disney’s ESPN empire as interested.
All fair, but it’s still early in the process, and sources say the NFL wants — or perhaps, better termed, hopes — Apple gets the out-of-market package. And that package could look a lot different structurally than the one DirecTV has shopped since its inception in 1994, charging a basic rate for all the games. Under consideration is adding choices like allowing fans to buy just one team’s out-of-market games, or perhaps even stand-alone games, sources said.
“Everything is on the table,” one source said, but nothing is set in stone.
DirecTV is paying on average $1.5 billion a year in a deal that stretches through the end of next season. All indications are the satellite carrier’s parent AT&T has no interest in renewing, especially at the $2 billion-plus per year fee the NFL is reportedly seeking. AT&T has struggled financially, and talks with the NFL in recent years have proved unproductive.
So, why would the NFL prefer a bite of Apple (sorry, couldn’t resist)? The league already has a deep partnership with Amazon, which provides stats through Amazon Web Services, and will pay $1 billion annually starting next year for exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football after carrying the midweek games nonexclusively since 2017. And the league has long been intertwined with ESPN, which surely could juice its streaming service, ESPN+, with Sunday Ticket.
Apple, which did not reply for comment, is investing heavily in Apple TV+, home to hits like “Ted Lasso” but not live sports. However, unlike Amazon, which is a retailer, and ESPN, a content company, the NFL with Apple would for the first time be doing business on a large scale with the preeminent technology giant. It would marry the NFL with the company that sells arguably the globe’s most critical consumer product, the iPhone.
“Apple is different from Amazon in the sense that they are still a technological device company,” said Patrick Crakes, a TV consultant and formerly an executive with Fox Sports. “So that diversifies the league — or the league’s always believed in an inclusive diversified kind of network mix. Apple is a different company than Amazon, even though people talk about them in the same breath. They’re very different. So I can see how the league might view that as a great diversification to their portfolio for the next decade.”
There are also reports the Sunday Ticket deal could be paired with an equity position in NFL Media, so aligning with a company like Apple could be viewed favorably by the NFL.
The NFL declined to comment. A source close to the league had this to offer: “(T)here is a ton of interest in this product from a lot of companies you could probably guess (yes, Apple is one) and probably several others that might not be top of mind. … We will see how it ultimately shakes out, but I wouldn’t say anything is imminent here.”
And that’s about right, with the earliest the league might agree to a deal months away.
“You are going to hear a lot of different names get tossed around,” Crakes said. “All of this stuff can be true. ESPN can be involved. Amazon can be out front. And Apple can be preferred. And none of it means anything, right? That’s the problem with it.”
Crakes is not as bullish on the Sunday Ticket package as some. Off the bat, the buyer has to treat the deal as a loss leader (meaning it loses money but serves a strategic purpose). DirecTV charges about $300 a year for the games ($400 for those who also want add-ons like RedZone), though it often packages Sunday Ticket as free in other offerings and discounts. For example, it is currently offered for free to subscribers of its Choice tier. There are roughly 2 million Sunday Ticket subscribers, though Crakes estimates only half pay the full fare. That brings in well less than half of the rights fee.
For DirecTV, it’s a marketing expense, so Sunday Ticket almost surely would have to be treated as such by the interested companies, whether Apple, Amazon or others. Apple charges $4.99 a month for its TV stream, or $59.88 a year, so it would need to sell over 33 million subscriptions to make a $2 billion fee work — unless it views Sunday Ticket largely as akin to an advertising expense.
Could others be interested? Network partners CBS and NBC have their own streaming services, the two Ps: Paramount+ and Peacock, respectively. And Netflix, which has long said it’s not interested in sports rights, just put its nose under the proverbial tent, saying it might bid on Formula 1 rights.
And about Netflix, former NFL Media CEO Steve Bornstein recently said at a Sportico conference that it’s a question of when and not if Netflix gets into live sports. This argument looks at sports as a way for streamers to offer programming that distinguishes them from the many movies and TV shows that litter these services.
Back to Crakes’ worries over the Sunday Ticket value. There is the loss leader issue, but he also questions whether Sunday Ticket is really a must-have for most fans.
“So, first of all, I’ve got four national windows, right?” he said. “So on broadcast television, most of the games are on fully distributed pay TV. And so this product is for Sunday, daytime, it’s for games. It’s not going to be for the top game right here in the market. It’s not the top national game, right? That national game ends up in the master window somehow. So this is for true fans and for people who want to either have an ecosystem where they can flip around, but there’s RedZone for that.”
Many have been wrong before when arguing the NFL would suffer for creating more windows and packages. (Looking at you, Mark Cuban.) And the first two weeks of the NFL season further solidifies the incredible hold football has on American media. According to Fox Sports head of strategy Michael Mulvihill, since the season started, the 14 most-watched shows on TV are either NFL games or pregame shows. So everything Crakes argues might be right, but chances are the NFL will still roll in the Sunday Ticket cash, whether from Apple or some other company eager to hitch its train to the football popularity steamroller.
Originally Posted by Chief Pagan:
Last year, I got a buddy to sign up who lived in an apartment and couldn't get a dish. They haven't seemed to try too hard to prevent you from sign up for streaming in the last few years. Although I haven't yet tried this year.
I used to sign up with a student account which was cheap. I don't know if they still offer that. But I don't know as many college students anymore.
Yes they still offer that. It’s $120 for the season. Here’s to nieces in college! [Reply]
Get a VPN. Connect to Brazil. Signup for NFL International Gamepass. $74 for the season + 13/mo vpn if you wouldn't normally have one.
You get all games Live, playoffs, Superbowl (no blackouts), All older games (I only looked through last year), NFL redzone and 40 min condensed games.
Issue I have run into is getting it onto a TV. I've been using a laptop output via HDMI, works great. You can set up the VPN for your whole network which would allow you to cast. Supposedly there is also a international Gamepass app for firestick.
Beware running work devices through VPN, 15 minutes after installing VPN I got pinged by the network Admin asking me if I was in Brazil.... Network flagged me for travelling from Kansas to Brazil in minutes, locked my account. [Reply]
My mom lives an hour from KC and has Dish network. Does Dish have Ballys sports for the royals games? She’s not technical at all, and forget about me trying to talk her through the phone on setting up something from the web.
NFL will select new Sunday Ticket partner by fall, says multi-millionaire Commissioner Roger Goodell https://t.co/5K4GDwuJyi
— ⛓⚡️KickingitLIVE!⚡️⛓ (@KickingitLIVE) July 8, 2022
Not a fan of streaming. Feels like I am watching the game in the past.
I have directv. I guess we will have to make a decision once this happens. [Reply]
