Figuring out how to live-stream NFL games---or being able to afford it---has been quite a feat in the past. If you plopped down $350 per season, you got a DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket Max package with live out-of-market games. But you needed a DirecTV satellite subscription to get streaming privileges. Otherwise, you had to be a college student or live in a specific set of circumstances to stream any games.
This season will be different. In addition to Thursday Night Football games live-streaming on Twitter, there will be lower-priced plans for watching games as part of a Sunday Ticket package. Alas, there’s still no streaming-only plan for everybody, everywhere a la HBO Now---you’ll still need to log in with your DirecTV service username and password to stream games, unless you live in certain cities or conditions. But still, watching Titans-Texans on a tablet will at least get cheaper.
Today, DirecTV and the NFL announced that live streaming for all out-of-market games will be part of the basic NFL Sunday Ticket package in the 2016-2017 season. While prices change on each Sunday Ticket package every year, the base package normally represents a $100 savings compared to Sunday Ticket Max. Last season, a basic Sunday Ticket package ran $250 for the season, while the Max package cost $350.
To no surprise whatsoever, the move is in response to a much higher demand for streaming services. According to an AT&T/DirecTV press release, live-streaming of NFL games increased 35 percent last season, despite the fact that the packages needed to do so were expensive or hard to qualify for.
$250-ish is still expensive, but over the course of a season, it's less than what it'd cost to spend every Sunday at your local sports bar. So is $350, for that matter, and there are still a few reasons to spend more on the Max package: It includes the ADD-friendly RedZone channel (quad-box!), the game-condensing Short Cuts videos, and a fantasy-football channel. You could always turn your living room into a sports bar to help fund the package.
