With 13 weeks left in the season, DirecTV has lowered the price of the streaming NFL Sunday Ticket to $220.47 for the basic plan and $281.97 for the Max package. That’s a 25% decrease for the basic plan and a 29.5% drop for Max.
Bars and restaurants across America could be lining up to take a chunk out of the $12 billion deal the NFL has with DirecTV. A proposed class action filed Monday on behalf of San Francisco pub The Mucky Duck wants to free such establishments from what they see as the exorbitant prices they are paying to the league to show out-of-market games via the satellite provider’s Sunday Ticket package.
For almost two decades, DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket package of National Football League games has been a superstar performer for the satellite broadcaster. But like any team with an aging and expensive player, DirecTV now has to decide whether to keep Sunday Ticket on its roster.
Google CEO Larry Page and YouTube content boss Robert Kyncl are said to have met with a delegation from the NFL led by commissioner Roger Goodell on Tuesday. And the Sunday Ticket package was among the topics of discussion, according to people familiar with the meeting.
Exclusives
DirecTV is going to have to decide soon whether to punt or keep the football. The satellite broadcaster’s exclusive contract for rights to the National Football League’s Sunday Ticket package, which offers subscribers access to every game being played on Sunday afternoon, ends after the 2014 season. While that may seem like it is a long way off, typically the NFL likes to renegotiate its TV agreements a few years in advance of their expiration date.
