Watching the big game used to be simple. Turn on the television, tune to your local station and cheer on your team.
Today, sports fans increasingly need multiple subscriptions just to follow the teams they love. Games are scattered across streaming services, exclusive packages and paywalls, making sports more expensive and harder to find.
The NFL kickoff game last week on NBC and Peacock averaged 25.1 million viewers in the U.S. The streaming-only game on Netflix the following night averaged 18.5 million viewers. While both games were broadcast for free in local markets, the power of broadcasting brings both local access and massive reach for marquee events.
When major sporting events are widely available on broadcast television, Americans watch.
Free, local broadcast television makes sports available to millions of households without requiring another subscription or login. With an antenna, viewers can even receive their local broadcast stations for free over the air. As watching sports becomes increasingly expensive, that universal access is important to the communities who support their favorite teams.
The Athletic recently calculated that watching the NFL this season could cost a fan $484 or more. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that NFL Sunday Ticket includes fewer games than it once did even as fans continue to pay a premium for the package and the costs to enjoy sports keeps rising.
For consumers, the trend means following a favorite team can require navigating a complicated mix of broadcast networks, cable channels and streaming platforms, each with different costs and access requirements.
Local broadcast stations offer something increasingly meaningful in a fragmented media marketplace: broad access to the games and events that millions of Americans want to experience together.
Policymakers have raised concerns about premier sports moving behind paywalls and the higher costs and confusion that creates for fans. NAB has also made clear that local stations need a fair opportunity to compete for sports rights with global technology companies with enormous resources.
The strong audiences for sports on broadcast television show that Americans value simple, widely available access. Free, local television remains essential to keeping the games that bring us together available to everyone. Learn more at nab.org/GameOn.
