Playbook
The cheapest legal cover for each game.
This planner is a rights matrix plus a calendar. Each game has a set of services that legitimately carry it. We pick the lowest-cost combination that covers your season: antenna, then unused official trials, then the cheapest subscribe/cancel month, then a licensed bar night or Sunday Ticket for out-of-market Sundays.
What is free every week
- Over-the-air NBC — Sunday Night Football is national. An antenna gets it in every US market that has an NBC affiliate.
- ABC simulcasts — Many Monday nighters are also on ABC, which is free over the air.
- Home-market FOX/CBS — If you live in either participating team’s market, that Sunday afternoon game is on your local affiliate.
- Home-market simulcasts — Thursday Night Football (Prime), NFL Network exclusives, and many Netflix specials are still aired locally in the two team markets.
What free trials can cover
New-customer trials are real, but they are one per household per service. We park each unused trial on the stretch of the season that covers the most remaining games — not automatically the first week — and you can pin any trial to a later week from your plan. Cancel alerts fire the day before and the morning a trial would convert, plus a calendar file you can add to your phone. We do not tell you to open extra accounts, borrow cards, or spoof your ZIP to dodge a blackout.
- Amazon Prime (~30 days) for out-of-market Thursday Night Football.
- YouTube TV (10 days), Fubo (~7), DIRECTV STREAM (5), Hulu + Live TV (3), FOX One (3) for in-market locals, ESPN, and NFL Network.
- Peacock and Paramount+ had no standard free trial in mid-2026 — those become a one-month subscribe/cancel if you cannot use an antenna.
- NFL+ (7 days) for official replays — not live out-of-market Sunday afternoons.
The hard window: out-of-market Sunday afternoons
If your team is not on your local FOX or CBS station, a YouTube TV trial will not magically show that game. Sunday Ticket is the official live product. In 2026 it does not have a meaningful free trial. Legal leftovers:
- Watch at a bar or restaurant that already pays for commercial Sunday Ticket.
- Use a carrier or ISP promo that currently includes Sunday Ticket (only if you already wanted that service).
- Watch the official NFL+ replay later.
- Listen to the official radio call live.
- Pay for Sunday Ticket (month-to-month exists) — we still only charge $9.99 for this planner.
- Split that Ticket with people who live in the same household, or watch as a guest on their couch — never by taking the password home.
Pooling money with friends
A buddy pool is a bill-split, not a password club.
- Same household — YouTube TV, Sunday Ticket, Prime, and most streamers allow sharing under one roof. Split the list price by the number of people who live there. If you need more simultaneous streams than the plan includes, buy the provider’s extra-screen add-on.
- Watch-night guests — A buddy in another apartment or city comes over (or you go to a licensed bar together) and chips in for food. They do not get the login.
- Official extra-member seats — Netflix Extra Member is a real paid add-on for someone at a different address. Live-TV apps and Sunday Ticket do not sell that. We will not invent a workaround.