YouTube TV offers final week of Sunday Ticket for $4.99

The exorbitant price of Sunday Ticket has always been a sore spot for hardcore NFL fans who want to follow all the games or their favorite team out of market.

Sunday Ticket pricing was even the subject of a lawsuit in 2024. And although at first it looked as though a jury’s verdict would upend the industry as they ruled against the league finding an antitrust violation for keeping the price high and refusing to offer single team options, among other restrictions for when the service was with DirecTV. However, the judge in the case overturned the verdict after finding that the jury used faulty testimony to arrive at their dollar amount for damages that could have cost the NFL billions.

For the 2024 season, YouTube TV charged fans $479 for Sunday Ticket ($519 with the RedZone Channel) for non-subscribers. If you were a subscriber to YouTube TV, you received a $100 discount at $379 for the premium content ($423 total with RedZone). Of course, that discount was undone when YouTube TV announced a massive price hike of $10 per month for 2025 all the way up to $82.99 per month.

But heading into Week 18, the powers that be at Google and the NFL have heard your concerns about affordability and accessibility and offered the final week of Sunday Ticket for the low, low, low price of $4.99.

A great outreach to new fans and a bit of an olive branch considering how much furor there has been over high prices, right?

Not so fast, my friend.

Let’s start with the Week 18 schedule for Sunday Ticket. As the NFL puts more exclusive games on networks and streaming platforms, the value of Sunday Ticket drops precipitously. And that’s especially the case with so little up for grabs in playoff positioning this year in the final week as the best games have all been flexed to national windows.

ESPN and ABC get two AFC North games with playoff implications on Saturday as part of expanded flex scheduling in Browns-Ravens and Bengals-Steelers. Those games will decide the AFC North champion and whether or not the Bengals still have a chance at the final Wild Card slot.

The biggest game of Week 18, the matchup between the Vikings and Lions for the NFC North crown and #1 seed, will air nationally on NBC in primetime for Sunday Night Football.

There are only two other playoff spots up for grabs. First is the NFC South champion, which will be decided across divisional matchups between the Falcons and Panthers and Saints and Buccaneers respectively. The Bucs have the driver’s seat in the division, but the fact that Fox is sending their top crew of Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady to see if Spencer Rattler and the 5-11 Saints can play spoiler is a sign of just how weak the Sunday slate is.

In the AFC, the Broncos have a win-and-get-in game against the 15-1 Chiefs… who have already committed to starting Carson Wentz and resting Patrick Mahomes. Feel the excitement!

It feels like the equivalent of offering the player’s jersey who just got traded on the 75% off rack at the local sporting goods store.

The flip side of the massive discount is that it causes annual subscribers to question just how and why they are forking over so much money for the service if it can be given away so cheaply. If you were able to pay $4.99 per week for the entire season, then the Sunday Ticket season subscription would cost just under $90… not almost $500.

Is the message to fans that they are receiving an incredible fan-friendly discount for Week 18’s uninspiring slate of Sunday Ticket games… or that they are getting ripped off the other 17 weeks of the season? Neither message is very comforting for NFL fans when you really think about it.

[YouTube]