NFL Launches New Streaming Service Ahead of 2022 Season

NFL has officially entered the streaming world. On Monday, the league announced that it has launched NFL+, a platform where fans can watch live out-of-market preseason games, live local and primetime games and postseason games. The video streaming service also includes live local and national audio for every game. 

Today marks an important day in the history of the National Football League with the launch of NFL+,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “The passionate and dedicated football fans are the lifeblood of the NFL, and being able to reach and interact with them across multiple platforms is incredibly important to us. We look forward to continuing to grow NFL+ and deepening our relationship with fans across all ages and demographics, providing them access to a tremendous amount of NFL content, including the most valuable content in the media industry: live NFL games.”  

The cost of NFL+ is $4.99 per month or $39.99 for the entire year. Fans can also subscribe to NFL+ Premium which is $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year. This was previously known as NFL Game Pass and includes everything NFL+ does including full replays across devices, condense game replays across devices and Coaches Film including All-22. 

This news comes a few weeks after Goodell gave an update on NFL Sunday Ticket heading to streaming. In an interview with CNBC earlier this month, Goodell said, “I clearly believe we’ll be moving to a streaming service.” NFL Sunday Ticket is only available on DirecTV and broadcasts regular-season games that aren’t available on local stations. It was reported that Disney, Apple or Amazon could be interested in the rights for NFL Sunday Ticket. Disney is in the sports streaming service with ESPN+, Apple just launched Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV+ and Amazon landed the rights to exclusively stream  

NFL fans on social media had a lot to say about the move. One person wrote, “Why are you guys still so hellbent on not letting people watch any game? I don’t want to watch the local team, because it’s not my team.”

“So it’s a paid version with essentially the same rules/regulations lol,” another person added. “This ‘you can’t watch out of market bs’ needs to come to an end. Literally charge me $100 a year to watch any single team I want or $200 for the entire league. I’m not the only one who would pay that or more.”