How much would it cost to watch every NFL game on TV?

Last year, nearly 95 percent of the 100 most-watched TV broadcasts were NFL games. This season, regular-season games are averaging almost 19 million viewers through Week 5, the league’s second-highest on record. With such dominant ratings, one might assume that watching NFL games is easier than ever. Instead, costs of watching a game on TV are at an all-time high, demonstrating the firm grip the NFL has over its fanbase.

For decades, the most affordable way to watch an NFL game was a cable subscription, with most major games being aired on broadcast networks bundled into a single cable plan. But cable usage is continuing to decline, being down more than 20 percent among U.S. adults since 2015, and over 30 percent among those aged 18–29. 

Instead, streaming services have taken over. Platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, and Netflix have signed lucrative deals to carry select NFL games, splitting access and driving costs higher for fans. Frustratingly, cable companies have also remained in the mix, meaning consumers now have to purchase both a cable package and streaming subscriptions, depending on the games they want to watch. Stephen Bovich is an NFL fan and cable subscriber who was already paying for the necessary services for other purposes, but wouldn’t pay for them just to watch football. “I get the major networks with my cable,” Bovich explained. “I watch games on Peacock and [Amazon] Prime [because] I have them for other purposes. It would be too much to pay for them if I didn’t already have them.” While many fans fall into the same position as Bovich, there are plenty more who do not already have these networks. These fans may have to pay for a variety of streaming services in addition to their cable that they otherwise wouldn’t have, the cost of which can add up quickly.

In order to visualize the sky-high prices of NFL viewership, we can break down the fan experience into three levels.

The first level is a local fan, or someone who wants to watch all 17 of their favorite team’s games, but doesn’t care about the rest of the league. Typically, a cable subscription with local TV will allow you to watch most games for your home team. For example, to watch the Washington Commanders on Verizon Fios Local,Verizon’s lowest price tier, it would cost $80 per month. But the league also designates certain “premium” matchups for streaming exclusivity—in 2025, for instance, the Washington Commanders have five such games—which require services like Amazon Prime or Peacock. Those five games would cost roughly $167.84 in additional streaming fees, assuming the viewer subscribes only for the necessary weeks. Across the league, the average “premium” game cost is around $110. For most teams, that brings the total seasonal cost to watch all their 17 games to about $430 per season.

But many fans would not be satisfied with this tier: they would also like to be able to sit down on Sunday afternoon and watch any game across the league. Fans who want to watch every Sunday afternoon game can turn to Youtube TV’s NFL Sunday Ticket, which provides access to all out-of-market Sunday afternoon matchups. This costs $276 per season for new users and $378 for returning subscribers, a steep price. Simon Nguyen is a sophomore at Blair and a big NFL fan who has been deterred by sky-high streaming costs. “Every Sunday, I want to watch players on my fantasy team, but I have to follow a sports app instead because Sunday Ticket is too expensive,” Nguyen explains. “I think they should bring the prices down to make the league more accessible for viewers.” Sunday Ticket does not even include NBC’s Sunday Night Football, which requires a Peacock TV subscription. With ads, that will cost an additional $11 per month, bringing the total to around $740 per season.

But for some diehard NFL fans, this is still not enough. This third level of fan wants to see every game, every week, including Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football, and the league’s international games. To watch all these games, it would be necessary to pay for ESPN+, Peacock, Prime Video, NFL Network, and even Netflix while still paying for cable. Even with some overlap through cable packages, the total still adds up to at least $810 per season, a staggeringly high amount.

Unfortunately, the NFL has faced no consequences for increasing its prices for fans. Outside of a brief lawsuit that was overturned in 2024, the NFL has not seen repercussions for driving up the cost of online viewership. It is clearly aware of its fanbase’s unwavering loyalty, and chooses to take advantage of that for profit instead of doing what’s best for its fans.

If the league was truly concerned about the fan experience, it would attempt to consolidate its games on as few networks as possible and work to make these as cheap as possible. Instead, it appears to be doing the opposite, branching out onto dozens of services and increasing the viewership cost for fans.

Whether it is intended by the league or not, one thing is clear: the modern NFL is more popular than ever, yet watching it in full has become a luxury. For the league’s most devoted fans, loyalty no longer guarantees access – only a higher bill.