Football season is officially here!
The NFL has started preseason play, and just about every team across the pros andcollege footballhave reported for fall practices. That means there’s only a few weeks until the meaningful games kick off. The NFL opens its season on Thursday, September 5th, 8:20pm EST with the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs taking on theBaltimore Ravens. Taylor Swift is even taking September off from her Eras Tour, so maybe she’ll make an appearance at the game.
College football will kick off even earlier, with a few games taking place on August 24. The biggest game of that day sees Florida State, who just missed the playoffs last season, fly to Ireland to take on Georgia Tech. The season kicks off in full a week later on August 31 with a full slate of games.
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Streaming Service
College Football Games
Subscription Price
YouTube TV
All NFL Games (except Thursday Night Football on Amazon, Netflix’s Christmas games)
Access to every game broadcast on traditional cable, including conference networks
$72.99/month (discounted to $64.99 for the first 4 months)
Venu Sports
NFL on ESPN (Monday Night Football) and Fox (Sunday afternoon games and Super Bowl LIX)
Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, ACC on ESPN and Fox Networks
$42.99/month (Launches on August 23)
Paramount+
NFL on CBS (Sunday afternoon games)
Big Ten, Mountain West on CBS and CBS Sports Network
$5.99/month (Essential) / $11.99/month (Premium)
Sunday Night Football (NBC)
Notre Dame home games, Big Ten on NBC/Peacock
$5.99/month (Premium) / $11.99/month (Premium Plus)
Christmas Day NFL Games (starting 2024)
No College Football Games
$6.99/month (Standard with Ads) / $15.49/month (Standard) / $22.99/month (Premium)
No NFL Games
Lower-tier College Football (American, Sun Belt, MAC)
$10.99/month
1YouTube TV
The easiest way to stream most of the games
YouTube TV is pretty much a must-have at this point for football fans. It’s the only place you can get NFL Sunday Ticket, which lets you watch out-of-market NFL games. You’ll also get access to all the games that air on Fox, CBS, NBC, and ESPN, in addition to NFL Redzone, which whips around to different NFL games on Sunday afternoons. Getting access to Fox is important, because there’s no dedicated streaming service like what NBC has with Peacock or CBS with Paramount+. That’s extra important this season as Fox has broadcast rights to this year’s Super Bowl.
College football fans will also love YouTube TV. It’s the easiest way for cord-cutters to get access to the suite of Fox, CBS, and ESPN channels that are filled with games in the fall. That includes conference specific networks like the SEC and ACC Networks. The only problem is, because it’s the best option, it is the most expensive choice on our list. YouTube TV costs $72.99, but you’re able to get it for 64.99 for the first four months with the first three weeks free. For an extra $10.99 per month you can add the YouTube TV Sports Add-on. It’ll give you access to the Redzone channel, which whips around to all the games on Sunday afternoons. NFL Sunday Ticket is another matter. It currently costs $250 as part of a preseason sale, but it’s normally $350. It’ll allow you to watch all the games during Sunday afternoons. You can also add 4K streaming channels for an extra $5 per month.
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2Venu Sports
The new kid on the block
YouTube TV has long been the best way to watch sports for cable-cutting sports fans, but starting this Fall it will have new competition. Some of the largest broadcasting giants are banding together to make their sports programming available to stream.
The new service, called Venu Sports, will debut on August 23, just before the football season really kicks off. It will feature programming from 12 different cable channels: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNEWS, ABC, FOX, FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, TNT, TBS, truTV. It’ll also include access to premium exclusive content from each network like ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary series. It’s set to cost $42.99 per month, which is expensive, but still cheaper than YouTube TV’s monthly price. You can also check out a one-week free trial as well.
Venu Sports will offer NFL games in the form of ESPN’s Monday Night Football and Fox’s NFL Sunday afternoon games. Most importantly, Venu is your cheapest option for streaming Fox. After ESPN, Fox will broadcast more football than any other channel this Fall, with games from multiple college football conferences, including the Big Ten and Big 12, airing on Fox Networks in the fall.
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3Paramount+
Big Ten football and Sunday Afternoon NFL
Paramount Plus
Paramount+ carries all the same games that CBS does. That includes Sunday afternoon NFL games.
New on Paramount+ this year is Big Ten football. The CBS network has been the home of the SEC conference, but that changes this year with the SEC heading to the ESPN family of networks, while some of the biggest Big Ten games will now air on CBS including the conference championship at the end of the season. You can check out the Big Ten games that have been announced for the season so far,here, but the most exciting early season match-up will see new Big Ten member USC travel to take on defending national champion the University of Michigan.
Paramount+ is available for $5.99, you can add Showtime for $11.99.
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Football Night in America
Peacock is NBC’s streaming app, which makes it the home of Football Night in America. That’s the Sunday Night NFL game, usually one of the premiere match-ups each week. You can check out the entire Sunday Night Football schedulehere. Peacock will also stream the NFL’s first game of the regular season, with the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs hosting the Baltimore Ravens.
Peacock is also adding more college football. NBC has long been the broadcasting the home of Notre Dame football, one of the more popular college football teams in the country, but new to NBC and Peacock this year are Big Ten games. Now that the Big Ten has added four more teams, its games are spread across more networks with23 of the conference’s gamesset to air on Peacock and NBC for the upcoming season, including an early season match-up between rivals when the Nebraska Cornhuskers take on the Deion Sanders-led Colorado Buffaloes.
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5Amazon Prime Video
Thursday Night Football
Amazon Prime Video
Prime Video is entering its third season hosting Thursday Night Football, the NFL’s mid-week primetime match-up. Prime Video will be the home of 16 regular season matchups on Thursday nights, as well as a special Friday game on Black Friday. For the first time, Amazon will also have the rights to broadcast a playoff game this year, airing one of the games in the Wildcard round of the NFL playoffs. you may get the base Prime Video subscription for $8.99 to watch the games.
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Christmas day NFL games
Netflix is a global streaming service offering on-demand access to movies, TV shows, documentaries, and original content. Founded in 1997 as a DVD rental service, it transitioned to streaming in 2007 and now operates in over 190 countries.
You might’ve made a double-take when you saw Netflix on a list of must-have sports streamers, but you should get used to it. Starting with the 2024 season, Netflix is broadcasting two Christmas Day NFL games. The Kansas City Chiefs will face off with the Pittsburgh Steelers at 1pm EST, while the Baltimore Ravens take on the Houston Texans next at 4:30pm EST. Surely, your family will understand you watching eight hours of football on Christmas day. The basic Netflix subscription with ads for $6.99 will give you access to the games.
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ESPN may be the home of Monday Night Football and the SEC, but that’s not the case for ESPN+. The streaming app doesn’t give you access to the ESPN suite of channels, so you can’t watch a game airing on ESPN on ESPN+. The app doesn’t include access to any NFL games or major college football games. You will still find some football here, though, as you can watch lower-level schools compete for the new automatic College Football Playoff bid with action from the American, Sun Belt, and Mid-American conferences.
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8What subscriptions do you need for the 2024 football season?
Depends on what games you want to see
If you’re looking to catch every single game, then YouTube TV with NFL Sunday Ticket is the best choice. YouTube TV costs $72.99, while the NFL Sunday Ticket add-on is $250. You’ll also need a Prime Video subscription for Thursday Night Football and Netflix just for the Christmas Day games. That adds up to over $500, though, over the course of the football season.
If you’re looking to get all the gridiron action you’d get with a regular cable subscription for the cheapest possible, then there’s another option. Combining the new Venu Sports service ($42.99 per month), Peacock ($5.99), and Paramount+ ($5.99) would give you access to all the regular games you’d see on cable in both the NFL and college for about $55 per month during football season. you’re able to add in the Prime Video subscription for Thursday Night Football and it would still be cheaper than a YouTube TV base plan.
You do sacrifice a few things with that plan, though. YouTube TV gives you access to over 100 channels, while the new Venu Sports subscription gives you 12 sports-only channels. There’s also YouTube TV’s multiview feature, which allows you to watch up to four different games at once. So, while YouTube TV is more expensive than Venu Sports, YouTube TV is still likely the better value unless you’re a sports fanatic who watches nothing else.
What do Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and other streaming services cost now?
Here’s a rundown of how much you can expect to pay for all the different streaming services as of June 2024.
Q: What steaming services have live College Football games?
Here are the streamers offering live games this Fall:
Q: What streaming services have live NFL games?
Here are the streamers offering live NFL games this Football season:
Type of NFL Games
All NFL games (except Thursday Night Football on Amazon and Netflix’s Christmas games), including Sunday afternoon games on CBS and Fox, Sunday Night Football on NBC, Monday Night Football on ESPN, and NFL RedZone, Super Bowl LIX
Monday Night Football on ESPN, Sunday afternoon games on Fox, Super Bowl LIX
Sunday afternoon games on CBS
Sunday Night Football (Football Night in America on NBC)
Prime Video
Thursday Night Football, Black Friday game, and an NFL Wildcard playoff game
