WATCHING THE NFL IN 2026 NOW REQUIRES A USER MANUAL

I think watching the NFL today might actually be harder than driving a stick. 😂

⭐ I REMEMBER WHEN WATCHING FOOTBALL WAS PRETTY SIMPLE.

I remember when we had about five television channels.

Not five hundred.

Five.

And the television had a pair of metal rods sticking out of the back that everybody called rabbit ears.

You moved them around until the snow disappeared.

Maybe somebody had to stand next to the television for a minute because apparently human beings made excellent antenna boosters.

😂

Then you watched football.

That was basically the technological challenge.

For NFL football, you knew where to look.

• CBS.
• NBC.
• ABC.

Monday Night Football?

ABC.

Sunday afternoon?

Start flipping through the channels.
You might have to get up and walk across the room to turn the station.

It was your Dad’s form of exercise while trying to locate the game, or maybe he asked your Mom or your sister to do it while they were walking by.

Either way, you’d find football pretty quickly.

THERE WEREN’T THAT MANY PLACES FOR IT TO HIDE. 😂

Then FOX came along.

Fine. Now we had another network carrying NFL games.

Cable television became normal. ESPN became part of the equation.

Still pretty easy.

• You bought cable.
• You had your channels.
• You found the game.

Done.

📡 THEN SATELLITE TELEVISION SHOWED UP.

DISH. DirecTV. NFL Sunday Ticket.

Eventually the NFL created its own television channel called NFL Network.

Okay.

Things were getting a little more complicated. We could still understand the basic arrangement.

• You had a television provider.
• The provider gave you channels.
• The channels showed football.

If you were really serious about watching out-of-market games, you bought Sunday Ticket through DirecTV.

I could follow this.

⭐ AND THEN EVERYBODY DISCOVERED APPS.

Now?

Good grief.

I feel like watching professional football requires:

• A television.
• An Internet connection.
• Six passwords.
• Three credit cards.
• A spreadsheet.
• And a user manual.

😂

WATCHING THE NFL MAY ACTUALLY BE HARDER THAN DRIVING A STICK.

At least with a manual transmission the pattern is printed on top of the shifter.

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – R

You learn it once.

After that, you know how to drive the car.

The NFL?

Apparently the shift pattern changes depending on what day it is.

😂

🏈 SO WHERE DO I WATCH THE NFL NOW?

Well…

How much time do you have?

You might need:

• CBS
• FOX
• NBC
• ABC
• ESPN
• NFL Network
• Amazon Prime Video
• Peacock
• Netflix
• NFL+
• YouTube
• YouTube TV

Or perhaps you’ll recreate cable television with a streaming service like:

• YouTube TV
• Hulu + Live TV
• Fubo
• Sling TV
• DirecTV

Oh yeah.

DIRECTV IS AN APP NOW TOO. 😂

Remember when DirecTV meant a satellite dish attached to your house?

Now you can just stream DirecTV.

As I write this, DirecTV is advertising its MySports package for $49.99 for the first month.
After that, the current regular price is $64.99 a month.

And you actually get quite a bit.

MySports includes NFL Network and a collection of sports channels including ESPN.

Depending on your market, you can also receive local:

• ABC
• CBS
• FOX
• NBC

Great! We’re done.

Right?

😂 OF COURSE WE’RE NOT DONE.

Want Thursday Night Football?

Amazon Prime Video.

Want out-of-market Sunday afternoon games?

NFL Sunday Ticket through YouTube.

Want certain exclusive games?

Now Peacock and Netflix can enter the conversation too.

DirecTV can even help you find some of these games and launch the other apps.

But here’s the funny part:

You still need separate subscriptions for the other services.

WE HAVE INVENTED A TELEVISION SERVICE THAT CAN HELP ME FIND THE OTHER TELEVISION SERVICES I ALSO NEED TO BUY.

😂

⭐ THIS IS ACTUALLY AMAZING.

I thought the entire point of television providers was to eliminate this problem.

Apparently we’ve come full circle.

Only instead of changing channels…

…we’re changing companies.

And entering passwords.

🌎 THEN THERE’S THE NFL’S INTERNATIONAL ADVENTURE.

The National Football League is working pretty hard on becoming the International Football League.

😂

In 2026, the NFL has nine international regular-season games across seven countries.

Wait.  What?

We’re talking:

• Australia
• Brazil
• England
• France
• Spain
• Germany
• Mexico

That’s actually pretty impressive.

But naturally…

THE INTERNATIONAL GAMES AREN’T ALL IN ONE PLACE EITHER. 😂

Some are on NFL Network.

Some land on traditional broadcast networks.

And the first NFL regular-season game in Australia in 2026?

Netflix.

Of course it is.

😂

So congratulations.

• You bought your sports package.
• You have NFL Network.
• You have your local stations.

And now start collecting apps.

💰 SO HOW MUCH DOES WATCHING FOOTBALL COST?

This is where it gets entertaining.

Let’s say you go with DirecTV MySports.

First month:

$49.99.

Then currently:

$64.99 PER MONTH.

That gets you a big chunk of football.

But not all of it.

Now suppose you also want the out-of-market Sunday games.

That’s NFL Sunday Ticket.

For a returning customer in 2026, Sunday Ticket is currently $378 when added to YouTube TV.

Want it standalone through YouTube instead?

$480.

To watch football.
You’re not paying to sponsor your seven-year-old son’s flag football team.

• There are promotions for new customers.
• There are student prices.
• There are different offers.
• There are bundles.

Which again…

PROVES MY POINT. 😂

I wanted to watch football.

I’m now comparing promotional pricing structures.

🏂 WAIT A MINUTE.

I used to live in Colorado.

I snowboarded.

And there were years when I paid less for an entire season pass at a Colorado ski resort than somebody can spend today trying to get comprehensive access to NFL football.

Think about that.

AN ENTIRE WINTER OF SNOWBOARDING.

• Chairlifts.
• Mountains.
• Snow.
• Exercise.
• Fresh air.

Actually doing something.

😂

And now I can potentially spend more money to sit on my couch…

…and still have to figure out which ridiculous app has the game.

THAT’S PROGRESS! 😂

And as I write this in August 2026, the national average price of regular gasoline is about $4.10 a gallon.

So I’m sure the average football fan is sitting around thinking:

“You know what I have way too much of right now? Disposable income.
Somebody, please invent another football subscription.”

😂

⭐ BUT HERE’S WHERE THE SALES FREAK IN ME TAKES OVER.

Because this isn’t really a Parking Spot about television.

And it isn’t even really about football.

It’s about attention.

The NFL has one of the most valuable things any business can have:

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO WILL SHOW UP AT THE SAME TIME.

That’s incredibly valuable.

So valuable that every major media company wants a piece of it.

• Amazon wants football.
• Google wants football.
• YouTube wants football.
• Disney and ESPN want football.
• NBC and Peacock want football.
• CBS wants football.
• FOX wants football.
• Netflix wants football.

And naturally…

THE ADVERTISERS WANT THE PEOPLE WATCHING FOOTBALL.

Now we’re talking Sponsors Freak.

⭐ LOOK AT THE BUSINESS MODEL.

• The NFL sells media rights.
• The media companies pay enormous money for the games.
• The media companies use football to attract viewers and subscribers.
• The fan pays for access.
• The fan shows up.
• Then advertisers pay for access to the fan.

Think about that.

I’M PAYING TO GET INTO THE ROOM.

And then…

ADVERTISERS ARE PAYING TO GET INTO THE ROOM WITH ME.

😂

And the NFL is the thing that got everybody into the room in the first place.

THAT’S A BEAUTIFUL SALES MACHINE.

I mean that sincerely.

It’s brilliant.

• The football creates the attention.
• The attention creates the inventory.
• The media company sells the inventory.
• The advertisers buy the inventory.

And the fan helps pay for the privilege of becoming part of the inventory.

😂 YOU HAVE TO RESPECT THE HUSTLE.

🏁 WHICH MAKES ME THINK ABOUT NASCAR AND FORMULA ONE.

This is where sponsorship gets really obvious.

• Look at a NASCAR driver.
• Look at a Formula One driver.

There’s no confusion about whether sponsors are involved and invited to the race.

• The sponsor is on the car.
• On the driver’s suit.
• On the helmet.
• On the garage.
• On the wall.

On everything that isn’t moving fast enough to escape somebody with a sticker.

😂

The sponsorship is practically part of the paint job.

And nobody seems embarrassed about it.

Why would they be?

• Sponsors help finance the sport.
• The sponsor gets attention.
• The team gets money.
• The fan gets racing.

Everybody understands the arrangement.

⭐ SO MAYBE THAT’S NEXT FOR THE NFL.

Forget just the little Nike swoosh.

Maybe they go full NASCAR.

• Sell the shoulder pads.
• Sell the sleeves.
• Sell the helmets.

Put logos down the pants.

😂

WELCOME TO THE DENVER BRONCOS PRESENTED BY STATE FARM, AMAZON, PEPSI, FORD, VERIZON AND BOB’S DISCOUNT FURNITURE.

Go for it.

Cover the uniforms in sponsors.

Apparently all the advertising revenue being generated around football still isn’t enough to make the product simple and free for the fan to watch.

So maybe they just need to sell a few more patches.

AT LEAST THEN MAYBE I CAN WATCH NFL GAMES FOR FREE. 😂

🎮 AND THEN THERE’S THE COMPETITION FOR MY ATTENTION.

This is another part that fascinates me.

When I was growing up, football didn’t have this kind of competition.

• You had a few television channels.
• You had whatever was happening outside.
• You had some toys.

Eventually you had video games.

• Pong.
• Atari.
• Whatever.

But let’s be serious.

NOBODY WAS MISSING AN NFL GAME ON FREE TELEVISION TO GO PLAY PONG. 😂

Today?

The NFL is competing against:

• YouTube
• TikTok
• Netflix
• Gaming
• Twitch
• Instagram
• Podcasts
• Streaming movies
• Thousands of television shows
• Millions of creators
• Online games people can play for hours

Games like League of Legends have enormous global audiences and the product is….

Wait for it…

FREE.

People spend hours online playing games with friends all over the world.

That’s not another television network competing with the NFL.

That’s an entirely different form of entertainment competing for the same hours of your life.

⭐ AND THAT’S WHY THE FRICTION IS SO INTERESTING TO ME.

If attention is harder than ever to get…

Why make it harder for people to consume your product?

Maybe the economics make perfect sense.

Clearly Amazon, Netflix, Google and the networks are willing to pay enormous amounts of money for NFL rights.

Maybe spreading games around introduces football to new audiences.

Maybe financially it’s brilliant.

But from the fan’s side?

It can feel ridiculous.

• I don’t want a media-rights strategy.
• I don’t want a spreadsheet.
• I don’t want to study a flowchart.

I don’t want to remember which password belongs to Thursday.

I JUST WANT TO WATCH THE FOOTBALL GAME. 😂

💰 AND AT SOME POINT YOU HAVE TO ASK…

IS IT STILL WORTH IT?

For some people?

Absolutely.

Football is their thing.

• They watch every Sunday.
• They follow their team.
• They play fantasy football.
• They know the third-string offensive guard’s college.

Great.

Buy everything.

Enjoy it.

But I suspect there’s another group of people looking at the whole arrangement and thinking:

“Wait. You want me to buy a sports package, maybe buy Sunday Ticket, keep Amazon, figure out whether something is on Netflix or Peacock, remember which app has tonight’s game… and then I still get commercials?”

😂

⭐ THAT’S THE PART I FIND SO INTERESTING.

The NFL isn’t simply competing with baseball and basketball anymore.

It’s competing with everything.

• Every screen.
• Every app.
• Every game.
• Every creator.
• Every streaming service.
• Every other possible way you could spend three or four hours.

And all of those companies are doing exactly the same thing.

THEY’RE FIGHTING FOR YOUR ATTENTION.

🏝️ THAT’S WHY I PARKED THIS ON SPONSORS FREAK.

This really isn’t a story about how difficult it is for me to find an NFL game.

That’s just the funny part.

The interesting part is the business underneath it.

• The NFL has the audience.
• Media companies want the audience.
• Fans pay to follow the product.
• Advertisers pay to follow the fans.
• Streaming companies use football to sell subscriptions.
• Every other entertainment company competes for the same attention.

The football game is the product we see.

THE ATTENTION IS WHAT EVERYBODY IS REALLY FIGHTING OVER.

And somewhere in the middle of all of this…

I’m sitting on my couch wondering whether I need DirecTV, YouTube, Amazon, Netflix or Peacock.

😂

Maybe I should just go snowboarding.

🅿️ WANT TO PULL UP A CHAIR?

I’m writing this under The Sales Freak because this is exactly the kind of stuff that catches my attention.

• Sales.
• Sponsors.
• Advertising.
• Media.
• Brands.
• Audience.

And the ridiculous things businesses will do while fighting over all of it.

I’m going to keep building Parking Spots around things like this on Sponsors Freak.

If you want to look around, look around.
If you want to read my stuff, really cool.

And if you’ve got something of your own that genuinely belongs somewhere in this world…

A Parking Spot is seven bucks.

Pull up a chair.

This Island isn’t going to run out of beachfront property anytime soon. 😂

No monthly fee.
No recurring subscription.
No meter running.

Seven bucks.

Less than two gallons of gas on your way to a bar to figure out which app has Thursday Night Football. 😂

GRAB A $7 PARKING SPOT