profootballtalk
YouTube is reportedly of the belief that the NFL could 'deconstruct' Sunday Ticket as soon as 2030. Some subscribers might have stronger words to describe what they'd like to see happen to the league's out-of-market package.
For years, Sunday Ticket was promoted as a way for fans—say, someone living outside Pittsburgh—to watch every Steelers game. But as antitrust concerns grew due to the hefty price tag designed to push fans toward the 'free' Fox and CBS games in their local markets, the pitch shifted to: it's a way for die-hard fans to watch all games.
Yet a significant asterisk remains, one that YouTube and the NFL have yet to address.
When 'bonus coverage' of an early game bleeds into the 4:25 p.m. ET window, a fan outside the markets of the two teams playing at 4:25 p.m. ET won't see the early stages of that game on their local Fox or CBS affiliate. And because the game will eventually be available on those local channels, it is completely blacked out on Sunday Ticket.
This has already occurred multiple times this season.
On Sunday, viewers not in Seattle or San Francisco (or who were receiving Lions-Cardinals as their 4:25 p.m. ET game) had no way to watch 49ers-Seahawks until 'bonus coverage' of the 70-minute Giants-Commanders game ended. (Rob 'Stats' Guerrera, a friend and former PFT Live producer, voiced his frustration.) Eventually, the 49ers-Seahawks broadcast began on the Fox affiliates televising the game with 4:47 left in the first quarter.
The same situation kept Lions and Cardinals fans outside Detroit or Phoenix from watching the early portions of the Lions-Cardinals game.
It makes no sense. People pay a premium to watch every minute of every game, but they can't watch on Sunday Ticket all of a game that is not yet being televised by their local Fox or CBS affiliates.
Here's where it gets even more bizarre. In Detroit and Phoenix (and wherever else Lions-Cardinals was the 4:25 p.m. ET Fox game), those with Sunday Ticket got to see all of the 49ers-Seahawks game. In the vast majority of markets where 49ers-Seahawks was 'America's Game of the Week,' all of Lions-Cardinals was available on Sunday Ticket.
It should be an easy fix. Late-afternoon games that could be partially preempted if an early game runs longer than three hours and 25 minutes should be available on Sunday Ticket until the game is available on local Fox or CBS affiliates.
In this age of AI (or SI, lest you be considered an enemy of the people), a simple mechanism could lift the Sunday Ticket blackout until the 'bonus coverage' ends on the local channel.
While the NFL has far bigger legal fish to fry given the antitrust issues raised by the pricing and the all-or-nothing purchasing obligation of Sunday Ticket, the league is inviting a specific class action from those who have paid $400 to see all games every Sunday, but who are kept from seeing much if not most of the first quarter of one of the biggest games of the week.
Originally reported by profootballtalk.