As fans continue to express their frustration with the NFL’s shift to streaming games, Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell has publicly defended the league this Thursday. The 41-year-old HC believes that while viewership should be a priority, there is also a necessity that has driven the NFL to pursue streaming platforms as broadcast avenues. He spoke to Fox News Digital on this matter during a press conference for the American Century Championship golf tournament.

“I think it’s an alignment with where a lot of, you know, not just sports media, but media in general, has kind of gone, where the consumer is choosing different ways to find their entertainment, and I think a lot of the different aspects of where games are available,” O’Connell said. “I know our game is very, very popular, and I know it’s a very important thing for the league to continue to make our game available to every possible fan out there. We’re always trying to find different pathways to new fans … not only in the United States, but it’s clear globally as well.”

The NFL has moved on from broadcasting its games on just television networks. The network onboarded Netflix as a streaming partner in 2024, which is now in the middle of a contract that will allow it to get games through the 2029 season. Amazon Prime Video has been broadcasting games since 2017, and now exclusively hosts Thursday Night Football. 

The league still splits media rights between ESPN/ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC. But with other international sports establishing a good digital footprint, it does not look like the NFL will slow down. 

According to MoffettNathanson Research, 49% of the total games on the 2024 schedule were available on streaming platforms. Not all of them were exclusive, of course, but it shows the kind of digital footprint the NFL wants to create.

“Hopefully, a lot of them make it out to whether to U.S. Bank Stadium or SoFi Stadium or any of the, you know, great venues we have in our league,” O’Connell added. “And there’s nothing like being there, but I can tell you that it’s very important for the NFL to have our games be available to as many of our fans as we possibly can.”

However, this shift has caused fans to cough up a lot of money just to watch games.

Watching every game in the 2026 NFL schedule will be a luxury

Late last year, Forbes estimated that watching every single snap in an NFL season would cost viewers almost $1,500 annually. The report included the average prices of streaming services for the regular season and the postseason. A simple cable package is no longer sufficient, as catching every single game would mean buying subscriptions to different platforms. The Sporting News recently broke down the cost of watching every game, and the results are concerning. 

Netflix holds the rights to the two-game Christmas special as well as the Thanksgiving Eve Green Bay Packers vs. Los Angeles Rams game. They will also broadcast the Week 1 showdown in Melbourne, Australia. The subscription for watching just these four games is about $8.99/month.

Prime Video holds the rights to all Thursday Night Football games and the Black Friday game, along with one Wild Card playoff game, which makes for another $8.99 per month. Fans will have to pay almost $11 to Peacock for exclusive games, and an additional $20 monthly to YouTube for the NFL Sunday Ticket. The total cost of watching all these games throughout the season, with subscriptions, comes down to $792.

Utah Senator Mike Lee has taken notice of these costs and requested that the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission review the NFL’s broadcast policy in accordance with the Sports Broadcasting Act. Per this law, the league gets a limited exemption from the antitrust policy, allowing it to sell package deals for all games. But the existing text of the law does not carry any specifics for streaming platforms, which might have created a loophole. 

This counts as the first step towards voicing the concerns of the citizen, who is rightfully unwilling to pay almost a $1000 to watch what used to be an everyday pleasure.