NFL Sunday Ticket is an out-of-market sports package that broadcasts National Football League (NFL) regular season games unavailable on local affiliates. Launched on September 4, 1994, It carries all the regional Sunday afternoon games produced by Fox and CBS. The package is marketed to, primarily, fans who are unable to see their team on local television because they do not reside in one of that team's markets, or sports bars who want to increase business by attracting fans of out of market teams. Beginning with the 2023 NFL season, for residential customers in the United States, NFL Sunday Ticket moved exclusively to YouTube TV, as well as the NFL RedZone for YouTube's recently launched Primetime Channels service as a standalone subscription option. The league then formed a new company called EverPass Media to distribute the package to bars, restaurants, and other commercial venues. From 1994 through the end of the 2022 NFL season, the package was distributed in the United States exclusively by DirecTV (which also offered it on the Internet, on certain tablets and smartphones, and JetBlue flights). NFL Sunday Ticket is also currently offered in Canada on streaming service DAZN, in Mexico and Central America on Sky México, in South America and the Caribbean on Vrio, and several cable providers in The Bahamas and Bermuda.
United States Satellite television provider DirecTV had exclusive rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket package in the United States until the end of the 2022 NFL season. Although other satellite and cable providers supposedly were allowed to bid on the rights to carry NFL Sunday Ticket if they agreed to carry the NFL Network, DirecTV decided to extend their contract beyond 2014 by paying the NFL $1.5 billion per year for the next eight years. Reaching the deal was also a condition of AT&T's 2015 acquisition of DirecTV. As of the 2015 season, the service was available through an online-only subscription exclusively for those who are unable to use DirecTV services. Beginning with the 2023 NFL season, NFL Sunday Ticket moved exclusively to YouTube TV for residential customers. NFL Sunday Ticket viewers do not count towards local Nielsen ratings. Thus, offering NFL Sunday Ticket on cable cost CBS and Fox affiliates millions of dollars in lost revenue from local commercial breaks (as opposed to national ads sold by the networks). In turn, affiliates help subsidize the networks' programming costs. Therefore, CBS and Fox have rules in their broadcasting contracts that mandate that NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers must be charged at a premium price.
Blackouts
Sunday afternoon games scheduled to air on the local Fox and CBS affiliates (1998–present) within a viewer's designated media market (determined by the ZIP Code of the viewer's address) are blacked out on the NFL Sunday Ticket feed. Viewers must watch these games on their local broadcast stations instead. (This applies to live streaming of said games as well.) Until the end of the 2014 season, if a game the viewer wished to watch was blacked out in their home market because it was not sold out, the game remained blacked out on NFL Sunday Ticket. Games joined or switched away from in progress usually had their blackout status altered immediately. The NFL suspended the local blackout policy for the 2015 NFL regular season, and has since done so indefinitely.
Extra features Until the end of the 2022 season, DirecTV offered the following extra features. From 2005 to 2009 these features were part of an add-on package called Superfan and cost $100 extra. Beginning in 2012, some of them were part of the NFL Sunday Ticket Max package which cost an extra $100. From 2009 to 2019, all games were in high definition. The HD games were formerly part of the Superfan package.
Game Mix This channel showed eight games at once, along with the game's score, time left in the game, and the quarter that the game is in under the game's feed. Starting in 2008, it added a high-definition feed, and in 2011, it added larger cells when four or fewer games are being played.
Red Zone Channel The Red Zone Channel offered a commercial-free "whiparound" coverage of all NFL games in progress on Sunday afternoons, highlighting key plays (scoring plays, key turnovers, etc.). The channel was launched in 2005 and hosted by Andrew Siciliano. In the earlier years, only FOX games were featured in the channel. While nearly identical in format, the DirecTV Red Zone Channel was separate from the NFL RedZone service hosted by Scott Hanson that launched four years later in 2009, which is produced by NFL Network and distributed to other television providers and platforms. The two services co-existed until the 2023 season; the YouTube TV version of Sunday Ticket only carries the NFL RedZone channel.
Fantasy Zone Channel Originally hosted by Kay Adams, and later by Dan Hellie, the Fantasy Zone Channel offered valuable insights, last-minute roster tips, live updates, top-scoring players on the day, and advice to fantasy players before and after kickoff.
Short Cuts This two-channel duo recapped every NFL game in 30 minutes or less, including games not available on NFL Sunday Ticket because they were televised locally or blacked out. One channel shows AFC games while the other shows NFC games. These highlights are made available on Sunday nights and are shown continuously until Tuesday morning. From 2012 to 2022, it was only available on the NFL Sunday Ticket Max package.
Highlights on Demand DirecTV subscribers with interactive DVRs received a three- to four-minute recap of every NFL Sunday Ticket game on demand with this feature, via channel 1005.
NFL.com Fantasy Football TV app Starting in 2011, the NFL.com Fantasy Football TV app has allowed NFL.com fantasy players with Internet-connected set-top boxes to view their NFL.com Fantasy Football teams and scores directly on their TV screen.
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