Skip to main content

NFL Sunday Ticket may get typical YouTube community features

The 2022-23 NFL season is about to wrap up with the Super Bowl, and there are many months until the next installment. That also means there’s quite some time before we see NFL Sunday Ticket make the leap to Google-owned YouTube and YouTube TV.

But we’re already starting to glean a few more details as to the future of NFL Sunday Ticket, which until this year has lived solely on DirecTV.

NFL on YouTube TV.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The switch won’t necessarily come without its own complexities. You’ll be able to get NFL Sunday Ticket on the YouTube TV streaming service — which currently has more than 5 million subscribers. Or you’ll be able to get it on YouTube Primetime Channels, which is a way to get premium content via YouTube proper. You’ll also still be able to subscribe to NFL RedZone (basically a live channel of scoring highlights as they happen) separately via YouTube TV.

Recommended Videos

We don’t yet know what NFL Sunday Ticket will cost under this new scheme. It’s always been sold at a premium price — that was mandated by the broadcast networks that show in-market games — and that almost certainly will continue in 2023.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Official details about both subscription methods also are pretty slim, but it’s starting to look like there might be some features on YouTube Primetime Channels that may not be on YouTube TV. In response to a questionon the fourth-quarter 2022 earnings call for YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet (which basically also means Google), Philipp Schindler, senior vice president and chief business officer for Google, alluded to some standard YouTube features alongside the NFL game itself.

“We will be adding new features specific to the Sunday Ticket experience,” Schindler said, “like comments, chats, polls, and so on.”

That sounds pretty much exactly like what’s in the current Community tab for a typical YouTube channel. So it could well just port over to NFL Sunday Ticket, or could just be an exec talking up current features — or we could end up seeing something more tailored to the NFL Sunday Ticket experience.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Phil Nickinson
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Phil spent the 2000s making newspapers with the Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, the 2010s with Android Central and then the…
How I added a handful of hidden YouTube TV channels for the Olympics
Olympics channels on YouTube TV.

We're halfway through the Paris Olympics, and something just hadn't felt right. NBC and Peacock have done pretty well with the Paris Games. You can watch pretty much everything live, or catch up later in the day in the U.S. But this is 2024, and it just seemed like I didn't have any options -- and options in high-res -- as I might have expected, being a subscriber to YouTube TV.

Turns out, I was right. And it's a good reminder of one of my larger complaints about the biggest live streaming service you can get. (That's the pessimistic view. The optimistic view is that this is still a cool YouTube TV tip.)

Read more
YouTube Playables gets wider availability — here’s where to find it
Some of the games in YouTube's Playables collection.

Some of the games in YouTube's Playables collection. YouTube

YouTube has officially launched Playables, a collection of free games that you can play via the iOS or Android YouTube apps, as well as the streaming giant’s website.

Read more
Fubo adds one of YouTube TV’s best features
The Fubo app icon on Apple TV.

In a change that might actually move the needle toward taking over the No. 3 spot in the (don't call them) Streaming Wars, Fubo has added a feature that until now has been reserved for the No. 1 player.

That is, you can now record as much streaming TV as you want on Fubo. As in unlimited. As in the same as what YouTube TV has had the whole time. And that's a pretty big deal for a number of reasons.

Read more