The Hidden Cost Of Streaming Every College Football Game (It's More Than You'd Think)
The college football season is here once again. But this year, things are a bit different. This is the first year since the $7 billion deal took place where the Big Ten left ESPN behind, splitting up media rights among Fox, CBS, and NBC. Fans must now find their college football games spread across multiple networks, and it can get a little confusing and costly to find a specific game to watch. You run into even more trouble if you plan to watch every game in the league.
Ahead of the first kickoff, The Washington Post investigated just how much it would cost to subscribe to every TV/streaming service so as not to miss a single game this season. According to their findings, it costs a total of $504.85 to watch all 910 games, or 55 cents per game. The price is split up between Fubo for $84.99 a month, ESPN Plus at $9.99 a month, and Peacock's $5.99 monthly fee. Total them up for the entire five months, and you get that hefty bill. But how does this stack up with other sports? Is it a wild number, or on par with other leagues?
$500 is no small price to pay, but it's not ridiculous
In further investigation, The Washington Post tallied the price of watching other sports leagues. For NFL Sunday Ticket, for example, getting all 220 games costs the fan $299. This technically offers less value than the college league combo package above, as it comes out to around $1.36 per game. The NBA League Pass is better value, however, going for $99.99 for around 850 games. Major League Soccer through Apple's streaming service is $99 for 493 games.
The second cheapest is Major League Baseball, which offers 2,200 matches at $149.99. By far, the best value is the NHL with ESPN, which offers up the entire seven-month season for only $9.99 a month, with each game costing around six cents.
All things considered, the combination of subscriptions needed for college football isn't the worst value when you look at it from the perspective of price per game. The issue is that the large sum needed will likely scare off many from catching every game. However, things could change in the future as this is a particularly tumultuous time for sports' relationship with television providers. This is heightened further with the rise of streaming, with companies like Apple — who recently attained exclusive rights for broadcasting MLS games – now getting in on the sports action. You can always wait around and hope that the downfall of the Pac-12 conference will benefit fans sometime down the line.