NFL Sunday Ticket

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NFL Sunday Ticket is an Out-of-Market Sports Package that broadcasts National Football League regular season games unavailable on local affiliates. The ideal customer of this package is presumed (based on advertisements) to be a fan of a team who is unable to see their team because they're no longer in that team's market. The package is available in the United States, Canada, Mexico and in Latin America by DirecTV. It is also offered by local cable companies in the Bahamas and Bermuda.

United States

Currently, DirecTV has an exclusive deal with the NFL, making them the sole provider of NFL Sunday Ticket in the United States until the contract expires in 2010, though past history suggests DirecTV will renew the contract by then in order to maintain one of its key marketing pitches to potential subscribers. [1] Prior to the NFL's latest television deal, other satellite and cable providers were allowed to bid on the rights to carry NFL Sunday Ticket if they agreed to carry the NFL Network. However, DirecTV still won exclusivity for the package, bidding over $700 million a year to do so.

Due to limited bandwidth on DirecTV's satellites, DirecTV drops the HD feed for TNT on Sundays to open up more room for NFL telecasts in HD. DirecTV also drops PPV programming, NewsMix & SportsMix, however DirecTV restores these services after the Sunday games are over. It is rumored that some of NewsCorp's foreign satellite companies, such as BSkyB, may offer NFL Sunday Ticket within the next couple of years.

Criticism

Criticism is cast at the fact NFL Sunday Ticket is only available on satellite, as the great majority of potential NFL customers in the U.S. are Cable subscribers. Many customers are not able to subscribe to satellite TV for various reasons. DirectTV gains many viewers solely based on its exclusivity for NFL Sunday Ticket, and this is viewed as the main reason it bid so generously for the rights.

Superfan

The Superfan package is an extra package which allows subscribers to watch up to 9 NFL games in high definition (mostly Fox games) and offers extra features not available in the regular Sunday Ticket. This was added in 2005 and includes these three features:

Game Mix: This channel shows 8 games at once, along with the game's score, time left in the game, and the quarter that the game is in under the game's feed.

Red Zone Channel: This channel acts as a viewer's "remote control" and switches around various NFL games as plays of interest occur (scoring plays, key turnovers, etc.) The coverage is hosted by Fox's Andrew Siciliano and has been offered on some airlines, such as Jet Blue.

Short Cuts: This 2-channel duo recaps every NFL game in 30 minutes or less. One channel shows AFC games while the other shows NFC games. These highlights are made available on Sunday nights and are shown continuously until Tuesday morning.

Highlights on Demand

Viewers with DirecTV and TiVo-enabled receivers receive a three to four minute recap of every NFL Sunday Ticket game with this feature.

History

NFL Sunday Ticket was launched in 1994 and was available on both DirecTV (which had launched just months earlier) and on C-band and Ku-band satellites, for which the receiving dishes are larger in size. Within several years, the service became available on various cable systems in Canada as well.

Today, nearly all subscribers in the U.S. receive Sunday Ticket on DirecTV because it is exclusive to DirecTV. It is not available on Dish Network or on cable systems.

The success of Sunday Ticket led to the launch of other pay-per-view sports packages across the spectrum of professional and college sports.

Canada

In Canada, NFL Sunday Ticket has been made available on a non-exclusive basis to the following satellite and cable providers:

Mexico

Sky TV

Bermuda

CableVision

References

NFL Sunday Ticket from DirecTV

Information on blackouts from Direct TV - FAQ's

External links

Official NFL Page