Google’s YouTube is tweaking features of NFL Sunday Ticket — less than a month before the football season kicks off — in the hopes of luring more paying customers to the pricey sports package.
On YouTube and YouTube TV, Sunday Ticket includes all out-of-market Sunday regular-season NFL games that are broadcast on Fox and CBS, letting fans (or sports bettors) catch the action of every team live. This year, the Sunday Ticket rotation starts on Sept. 10.
YouTube initially has sold NFL Sunday Ticket for the 2023 season in single-payment plans. Now, in a bid to get more subscriber signups, it’s introducing a monthly payment plan available in most U.S. states. That will let you pay for the NFL Sunday Ticket Primetime Channel for $99.75 over four months (for $399 total). Customers in seven states will only have the option to pay for NFL Sunday Ticket in a single payment at the time of purchase: Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, New Jersey and Tennessee. In addition, YouTube said it will introduce discounted student plans for NFL Sunday Ticket in the next week.
It’s another effort by Google to try to recoup its payout for the football package: The company will reportedly pay the NFL between $2 billion and $2.5 billion per year for the exclusive retail distribution rights to Sunday Ticket, up from the estimated $1.5 billion that DirecTV had been paying. The internet giant has a distribution deal with Verizon, which is giving away Sunday Ticket to certain eligible subscribers, and announced a partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery to launch a Max-Sunday Ticket bundle offer.
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Other enhancements to NFL Sunday Ticket that YouTube announced Wednesday:
- Live Chat & Polls: At the start of the season, viewers watching NFL Sunday Ticket games through YouTube will be able to engage in live chat and polls on both their mobile and TV devices. YouTube also plans add other features, including NFL Shop commerce integrations.
- New Multiview Options: This spring, YouTube TV added a multiview feature that lets customers watch up to four channels simultaneously. During the upcoming NFL season, Sunday Ticket subscribers will be able to choose from an “extensive assortment” of multiview combinations every Sunday afternoon. For customers who subscribe to the NFL Sunday Ticket + NFL RedZone package, multiview options will include both out-of-market games and RedZone, whether you’re watching via YouTube or YouTube TV. On YouTube TV, multiview combinations also will include local NFL games side-by-side with your NFL Sunday Ticket games.
- Key Plays on YouTube: YouTube TV’s “key plays” sports highlights feature will now be available on YouTube as well. With key plays, viewers can catch up on a game they missed or watch a snippet of each major play before jumping into the live game. Key plays for YouTube will only be available on TVs for the upcoming NFL season.
- Highlights on YouTube Shorts: Starting this season, real-time highlights from every single NFL game will be available in the YouTube Shorts player. Highlights that appear in viewers’ Shorts feeds on Sunday afternoon will include a red “Live” ring around the NFL channel avatar; clicking on the ring directs viewers to the Live tab on the NFL channel, where subscribers can select which NFL Sunday Ticket game they want to watch on YouTube.
