With Sunday Ticket Moving to YouTube, Will Boise Bars Still Show NFL Football?

The clock is ticking for NFL teams to whittle down their rosters to 53 players for the 2023/2024 season. The final rosters are due at 2 p.m. MT on August 29, but fans have bigger questions than “who made the cut?” They’re wondering if they’ll have to find a new place to watch their favorite team.

Believe it or not, not every pro-football fan in Boise loves the Seattle Seahawks. But when it comes to games that were NOT nationally televised on Mondays, Sundays or late-season Saturdays? The Boise market was gifted 11 Seahawks games on local TV, regardless if we were fans or not. The Boise market also got served seven Las Vegas Raiders games and six Minnesota Vikings, Dallas Cowboys and Kansas City Chiefs games. 

The lack of variety is why Boise area sports bars carrying NFL Sunday Ticket are always packed on game day. It’s not uncommon to see lines outside ones that open at 11 a.m., just as the early games are kicking off. But with NFL Sunday Ticket moving from DirecTV to YouTube TV in 2023, will bars in our area still be able to show every out-of-market game?

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It’s a question we immediately had when the NFL and Google announced their new partnership for Sunday Ticket last December. Just a few months prior to that, we were visiting Salt Lake City and tried to catch Browns vs. Steelers Thursday night matchup at the sports bar we go to while we’re in town. The server told us that they weren’t showing the game because it was streaming on Prime Video. We popped to the other bar next door and got the same answer.

If that’s how bars handled Thursday night football, what’s going to happen on Sundays?

Sunday Ticket Announces Move to YouTube TV

On December 22, the league announced that they’d reached a multi-year deal that would move Sunday Ticket from its long-time home on DirecTV to the streaming service. CNBC reports that YouTube was willing to pay $2 billion a year for the takeover. There are several tier plans available to customers ranging from $349 for NFL Sunday Ticket + YouTube TV to $489 for just NFL Sunday Ticket and NFL Red Zone. 

Will Bars Make the Move to Streaming?

We got an answer from our regular home for Sunday football, The Refuge on Parkcenter in Boise. They told us that the move to YouTube TV would only affect residential customers. When it comes to commercial customers like restaurants, casinos and hotel lounges, NFL Sunday Ticket rights are staying with DirecTV. That means that nothing should change at your favorite sports bar as long as its ownership wants to re-up its package. They don't have to make a move to streaming. 

Commercial packages start at $1,000 for small bars, shops and services and private offices and go up depending on the size of the establishment.