Published October 12, 2026 06:24 AM
YouTube reportedly believes the NFL could “deconstruct” Sunday Ticket as of 2030. Some customers could surely think of more graphic and profane verbs to describe their preferred fate of the league’s out-of-market game service.
It was marketed for years as a way for a fan who, for example, doesn’t live in Pittsburgh to watch all Steelers games. As the antitrust problems became more and more obvious, given the sky-high price the league attaches to the package in order to encourage fans to settle for the “free” Fox and CBS games in their local markets, the tagline became that it’s a way for zealous fans to watch all games.
But that continues to have a significant asterisk that YouTube and the NFL have yet to rectify. When “bonus coverage” of an early game trickles into the 4:25 p.m. ET window, a fan not in either market of the two teams involved in the 4:25 p.m. ET game won’t see the early phases of it on their local Fox or CBS affiliates. And, because the game is due to eventually be available on their local Fox or CBS channels, it’s completely blacked out of Sunday Ticket.
It has already happened multiple times this season. On Sunday, folks not in Seattle or San Francisco (or who were getting Lions-Cardinals as the 4:25 p.m. ET game) had no way to watch 49ers-Seahawks until “bonus coverage” of the 70-minute Giants-Commanders game ended. (Our friend and former PFT Live producer Rob “Stats” Guerrera sounded off about it.)
Eventually, the 49ers-Seahawks broadcast began on the Fox affiliates televising the game with 4:47 left in the first quarter.
The same dynamic kept Lions and Cardinals fans not in Detroit or Phoenix from watching the early portions of the Lions-Cardinals game.
It makes no sense. People pay a premium to be able 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 becomes even more bizarre. In Detroit and Phoenix (and wherever else Lions-Cardinals was the 4:25 p.m. ET Fox game), folks with Sunday Ticket got to see all of the 49ers-Seahawks game. In the vast majority of the 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 otherwise could be partially preempted if one of the early games takes longer than three hours and 25 minutes to conclude should be available on Sunday Ticket until the game is available on their local Fox or CBS affiliates. In this age of AI (or SI, lest you be regarded an enemy of the people), a simple mechanism could be put in place to 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 folks who have plunked down $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.