So You Want to Watch Live NFL Games …
August 27, 2024
Whether you’re still a fan of cable or have cut the cord, there are still plenty of ways to catch your favorite NFL team on TV, including Monday Night Football and NFL RedZone. The NFL and their broadcast partners have come up with more options than ever for watching and streaming NFL games in 2024. Here are all the ways you can watch every game of the season without breaking the bank.
Having a simple Over-The-Air TV Antenna (and reasonable proximity to a broadcast tower) can be a simple and easy way to see the action. If you like this idea or aren’t sure how to get started with an OTA Antenna, see my post ‘Cutting the Cord Part 2 — TV Antennas.’
With a simple 17-game schedule, with each team playing one game a week, that lends itself to predictable TV programming. The NFL splits the Sunday afternoon telecasts by conference — generally, AFC games air on CBS, and Fox televises the NFC games. NBC hosts the Sunday Night Football broadcast, which usually kicks off each week at 8:15pm ET.
Amazon Prime Video is the home of Thursday Night Football (TNF) — but you’ll have to be an Amazon Prime subscriber to watch those games. Membership does offer lots of other benefits, starting with free expedited shipping on Amazon purchases, Amazon music, movies and TV shows, video games and a Grubhub+ subscription. Subscriptions cost $15 per month or $139 per year.
That means that along with Monday Night Football on ESPN, seeing two of the NFL’s most iconic shows via a streaming option should be relatively painless. However, you’ll need a streaming package to catch the five international games to be played in October and November (in Sao Paulo, London, and Munich respectively), which will air on the NFL Network and NBCUniversal’s premium video streaming service, Peacock.
If this all seems a little confusing, check out 506Sports.com or Sports Media Watch. Each site lists which game is on which channel for each week of the season. Bookmark them for easy access.
Even if you don’t have a cable subscription or a TV antenna, you still have streaming options. But the availability of individual channels’ live content can vary by market. You should check via each service’s website to see what it offers in your area before subscribing.
DirectTVStream offers CBS, NBC, Fox, and ESPN in its $79.99-per-month Entertainment package. New subscriptions come with a $30 discount each month for the first 3 months, before reverting to whatever the current monthly price is.
Sling TV splits offerings into separate channel bundles. You’ll need the Sling Orange and the Sling Blue package to get all channels. These packages get you NBC, Fox, ESPN, and the NFL Network for $60 a month. Currently, the company is offering the first month for half off.
Fubo will give you CBS, FOX, and NBC for all Sunday games, as well as ESPN for Monday Night Football and the NFL Network as part of its PRO package, which costs $74.99 per month. For an additional $10.99 per month, you can also get NFL RedZone via the service’s Sports Plus add-on.
Both Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV include CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN, and NFL Network in their subscriptions, for $76.99 and $72.99 per month respectively. YouTube TV is offering the first four months for $52.99 per month right now. YouTube TV also offers NFL RedZone as part of its Sports Plus add-on for an additional $10.99 a month.
Additionally, YouTube has the rights to offer NFL Sunday Ticket, which will let you stream all Sunday out-of-market NFL games.
Netflix, which created the popular Quarterback documentary, has extended its ties with the NFL through a three-year deal to host the league’s Christmas package. This year, that includes the Kansas City Chiefs at Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Baltimore Ravens at Houston Texans. Netflix offers three paid plans: Standard with ads ($6.99 a month), Standard ($15.49 a month), and Premium ($22.99 month), with perks such as additional device support, the ability to add members, and spatial audio tacked on as you move up the tiers.
Paramount+ streams CBS’s NFL telecasts to subscribers of its $5.99-per-month Essential plan. Peacock will exclusively carry the September 6 primetime matchup between the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles. It will also stream all NBC Sunday Night Football games, including the playoffs, and the Football Night in America studio show. A Peacock Premium plan costs $7.99 a month; a Premium Plus Plan, $13.99 per month, removes ads and enables you to download and watch select titles offline.
NFL+ is the NFL’s streaming service, which replaced its popular subscription package, NFL Game Pass. A $6.99-per-month ($49.99 per season) NFL+ subscription allows you to watch local and primetime games live on your mobile devices. It also includes access to live out-of-market preseason games, live game audio, and the NFL Network.
If you level up to an NFL+ Premium plan, which costs $14.99 per month ($99.99 per season), you’ll get everything in the standard NFL+ plan plus NFL Red Zone and the ability to replay every regular-season game after its conclusion in either full or condensed versions. It also gives you access to NFL Pro which allows subscribers to search through All-22 video using Next Gen Stats, and save and share playlists.
Hopefully this has given all you football fans out there some (new) options to catch all the games you’re interested in. I’m curious if you’re already taking advantage of some of these ways to access NFL games or other sports as well. Have you found new ones after reading this? Are you using other ways to access NFL games I didn’t mention?
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