Can i watch nfl on apple tv

Table of Contents Show

• Can you watch NFL Sunday Ticket on Apple TV?
• How to watch NFL Sunday Ticket on Apple TV
• How can I watch NFL games for free on Apple TV?
• How much does it cost to watch football on Apple TV?
• Does football play on Apple TV?
• Does Apple TV have NFL Sunday Ticket?

(Image credit: WhatToWatch.com)

NFL Sunday Ticket has become a fixture for diehard NFL fans who don't just want access to the local games they get on CBS and Fox or that play nationally in primetime like Thursday Night, Sunday Night and Monday Night Football. Sunday Ticket gives them the ability to watch every game played on Sundays by providing out-of-market broadcasts.

For many users, however, the big question is can you get NFL Sunday Ticket on Apple TV, their device of choice?

Let's discuss what you need to know to start watching NFL Sunday Ticket on Apple TV.

Can you watch NFL Sunday Ticket on Apple TV?

The good news is yes, NFL Sunday Ticket is available through Apple TV. So having the choice of watching any game is right at your fingertips, there's just a few little details you need to be aware of first.

You must have an Apple TV device that is compatible with NFL Sunday. In this instance that is a fourth generation Apple TV device or a fifth generation 4K device. You can double check what generation your device is in the settings.

As long as your Apple TV device meets those requirements, then you can watch NFL Sunday Ticket.

How to watch NFL Sunday Ticket on Apple TV

For those of you who fall into that category, the process should be a breeze. Simply navigate to the Apple TV App Store, search for NFL Sunday Ticket and install the application. For those of you with pre-existing NFL Sunday Ticket subscriptions, you can go ahead and use your credentials to log on and experience all of the action for the NFL’s first Sunday of the season.

If you’re looking to download NFL Sunday Ticket on your Apple TV and sign up for a deal, you may have to meet certain criteria first. Potential subscribers must check their eligibility, as certain access packages are only available to people living in specific circumstances.

For example, college students are eligible to sign up for NFL Sunday Ticket at a reduced price and stream it via an Apple TV decide. The same applies to people living in areas that are not serviced by DirecTV or residents living in what’s considered a "multi-dwelling unit." These include apartment buildings, high-rises, condominiums and other applicable living situations.

There are also contingencies in place for those living in homes that have obstructions that limit satellite signal, installation or usage.

If you don’t meet these requirements, you may not be eligible to order this specific NFL Sunday Ticket package. Instead, they may require you to sign up for DIRECTV service to access the NFL’s premier streaming service. Regardless, there are routes to proceed for just about anyone seeking access to this service.

Keep in mind that certain restrictions do apply to NFL Sunday Ticket. One thing to note is that nationally televised games are not be available through the application. There are blackout rules that apply not only to those but to games that are being broadcasted in your local market. So if you’re hoping to use NFL Sunday Ticket to watch your hometown team, you’ll need to find an alternative plan for those games. This experience is best for users outside of the market of their favorite team, for football junkies looking to catch as much action as possible and for the fantasy football fanatics trying to keep up with their players’ performances.

Just like the Apple TV itself, NFL Sunday Ticket serves many functions for every football fan.

Michael Balderston is a DC-based entertainment and assistant managing editor for What to Watch, who has previously written about the TV and movies with TV Technology, Awards Circuit and regional publications. Spending most of his time watching new movies at the theater or classics on TCM, some of Michael's favorite movies include Casablanca, Moulin Rouge!, Silence of the Lambs, Children of Men, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Star Wars. On the TV side he enjoys Peaky Blinders, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Saturday Night Live, Only Murders in the Building and is always up for a Seinfeld rerun.

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With the NFL season ready to kick off Sept. 8, football fans who have decided to cut the cable cord have plenty of options for streaming NFL action this season. With the right streaming services, you can watch Sunday afternoon games on CBS and Fox, “Sunday Night Football” on NBC, and “Monday Night Football” on ESPN.

One big change this season is that as of September 15, Amazon Prime now has the exclusive rights to “Thursday Night Football"; it’s no longer spread across Prime, Fox, and the NFL Network as it was last year.

Well, sort of. The Sept. 8 game is actually on NBC, and the trio of week 12 games—on Thanksgiving, Nov. 24—will be shown across CBS, Fox, and NBC instead of Amazon.

Additionally, some games will be available on newer streaming services, such as Paramount+ (formerly called CBS All Access) and Peacock, from NBCUniversal.

If you’re using a cable replacement streaming service, you may already have access to a decent number of games, as well as Super Bowl LVII, which is being broadcast on Fox this year. However, live local channels aren’t available on all cable replacement streaming services in all markets. You’ll need these channels to watch games in your area, so review the channel lineups before subscribing to a service such as DirecTV Stream, FuboTV, Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV, or YouTube TV.

Here are just a couple more notes before we list all your streaming options.

First, perhaps the biggest news is that the NFL just released its own paid service, called NFL+. Basically, the service replaces NFL Game Pass and the NFL Mobile app, offering subscribers access to live in-market Sunday afternoon games, as well as national games in prime time on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday nights, with one key caveat—they can only be viewed on a smartphone or tablet. (See more on NFL+ below.)

We’re also waiting to see if Fox will be showing any Sunday games this year in 4K HDR, or high dynamic range, as it did last year with "Thursday Night Football." (The games were actually produced in 1080p; Fox then upconverted them for viewers with 4K HDR TVs.) Fox will be broadcasting Super Bowl LVII, so we’re hoping it will be available in 4K with HDR.

As for watching any of the games, we suggest you check out “Give Your Set an NFL Season TV Tuneup” to make your TV picture look its best this season. Need to upgrade your streaming media device? You can see some of our top picks below.

“Thursday Night Football” games were split across three networks/services last year, but this season Amazon Prime is the exclusive home for Thursday night NFL action. It’s part of a long-term deal that runs through 2032. Amazon—and its subsidiary Twitch—will stream the nationally broadcast “TNF” game each week. You’ll still be able to watch free over-the air broadcasts for the teams in each of their local markets. Amazon also has the right to show one preseason game per year.

We expect that, like last year, Amazon will get one or two exclusive late-season games and will show a wild-card playoff game that’s also on other networks.

Sign up here: Amazon Prime Video

DirecTV Stream is the new name for what used to be AT&T TV and AT&T TV Now.

DirecTV Stream plans start at $70 per month for a package with about 65 channels. You can watch NFL games on all four broadcast networks—ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC—in most markets, plus ESPN. The only games you won’t get are the exclusive “Thursday Night Football” games on Amazon.

Unfortunately, DirecTV Stream subscribers can’t get access to the 2022 NFL Sunday Ticket Max plan, which lets you stream live, out-of-market NFL regular season games on Sundays. (See DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket, below.)

Sign up here: DirecTV Stream

NFL Sunday Ticket is the most comprehensive NFL package you can get, offering every Sunday afternoon out-of-market game. (It doesn’t include games shown on your local channels.)

Usually, you need DirecTV satellite TV service to get NFL Sunday Ticket. But AT&T does offer a streaming version of the package to those who can prove they can’t get DirecTV satellite service, as well as to active or previously enrolled college students.

You’ll need to provide your address to check your eligibility. Then, you can get NFLSundayTicket.TV for $293.96, or $73.49 per month for four months. The step-up NFL Sunday Ticket Max plan, which adds the Red Zone Channel and DirecTV Fantasy Zone, costs $395.99 for the season, or $99 per month.

College students can get NFLSundayTicket.TV U, which includes everything in the TV Max plan, for just $120, or $30 a month for four months.

Sign up here: NFLSundayTicket.TV

The sports-centric FuboTV costs $70 a month. With it, you get games on CBS, Fox, and NBC in many markets.

Last year FuboTV finally inked a deal for ESPN, so you now get access to “Monday Night Football.” But, unlike last year, you can’t watch Thursday night games, which are being streamed only on Amazon and Twitch. Fox hasn’t said whether it will offer any Sunday games in 4K; last year the Thursday night games were offered in that higher resolution. However, Fox could show Super Bowl LVII in 4K in February.

NFL RedZone, with game highlights and replays from every Sunday game, can be added as part of FuboTV’s $11-per-month Sports Plus add-on pack, or the pricier ($100 a month) Ultimate plan.

Sign up here: FuboTV

Priced at $70 per month with ads (and $76 without), Hulu’s live TV service, called Hulu + Live TV, provides access to ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC local broadcasts in many markets.

You can also get CBS Sports, ESPN, and Fox Sports, as well as the NFL Network, though like other services Hulu + Live TV no longer carries Thursday night games. You can add NFL RedZone for an additional $10 per month as part of a sports add-on pack.

Sign up here: Hulu + Live TV

If you subscribe to a cable or satellite TV service, you may be able to watch football when you’re on the go by using a network’s mobile app. The following apps all require authentication, meaning you need to be a cable or satellite subscriber.

• CBS Sports: In addition to people who sign up for Paramount+, the network lets “authenticated” CBS viewers—anyone who gets CBS through a pay TV service—stream games via the CBS Sports app, and online at CBS.com.

• Fox Sports: The Fox TV Everywhere app offers live coverage of local-market games and regional sports networks. You can also access the games through most cable-style streaming services, such as FuboTV, Hulu + Live TV, and YouTube TV. You can watch NFL games via FoxSports.com on your laptop or tablet and some streaming devices—including Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, and Roku. You get access only to the channels in your TV lineup.

• NBC Sports: NBC will stream every 2022 “Sunday Night Football” game live on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports App. Both require authentication proving that you have a subscription to a cable TV, satellite, or streaming cable-replacement service, and both will let you watch football on an Android or iOS smartphone or tablet, a computer, a Samsung smart TV, many streaming players, and Xbox game consoles. The games will also be available on NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service (see below).

• WatchESPN: ESPN’s mobile app delivers “Monday Night Football,” along with shows such as “SportsCenter” once you authenticate that you get ESPN via a paid TV service. The newer $10-a-month ESPN+ streaming service doesn’t have live “Monday Night Football” games, though they are coming in 2023. This year, though, ESPN+ will have one live international game, the Broncos vs. the Jaguars at London’s Wembley Stadium on Oct. 30. You can access WatchESPN on your computer, smartphone, tablet, Xbox game console, and streaming players, including Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Google Chromecast, and Roku.

Basically, NFL Game Pass—which used to let you watch pretty much any game you wanted, but only after the game’s original broadcast is over—has now morphed into NFL+, the league’s new streaming service. The service also replaces the NFL Mobile app, which allowed you to watch live games on a mobile device.

There are two pricing tiers. The basic NFL+ plan costs $5 a month and lets you watch games live on a smartphone or tablet, and also access the on-demand NFL Films library. NFL+ Premium costs $10 a month and adds full-game and condensed-game replays, plus access to the Coaches Film (all the plays from each game).

One other note: It appears that you won’t be able to cast games to your TV from a mobile device if you were thinking that was a way around the mobile-only limitation.

Sign up here: NFL+

If you like watching Sunday afternoon football games, you’ll want access to CBS. Cord-cutters can use the company’s Paramount+ streaming service (previously called CBS All Access). It offers access to the entire CBS NFL football season. (Note that this year the Super Bowl shifts to Fox.)

In addition to regional AFC Sunday afternoon games, you also get an AFC Wild Card showdown, AFC divisional playoff contests, and the AFC Championship game. (A second Wild Card game will be added to the CBS Sports lineup during the 2024, 2029, and 2033 seasons.) Also included are all NFL-related pregame shows, including “The NFL on CBS,” plus “Inside the NFL,” which has moved from Showtime to Paramount+.

The games will be available on both the $5-a-month ad-supported Paramount+ Essential service and the $10-a-month ad-free Premium version. You can also stream games on mobile devices.

Sign up here: Paramount+

Peacock, a streaming service from NBCUniversal, lets you watch Sunday night NFL games broadcast on NBC, provided you opt for one of the paid Peacock services—live football isn’t available on the free version.

The ad-supported Peacock Premium service costs $5 a month. The $10 a month ad-free Premium Plus tier removes the ads, but only on nonlive programming.

Peacock has added some 4K movies to its lineup recently, but NBC hasn’t yet said whether it will offer any NFL games in 4K this year.

Sign up here: Peacock

Sling TV is a mixed bag for football fans. Though it includes NBC, Fox, the NFL Network, and ESPN in many markets, it’s missing ABC and CBS, so you won’t get some of the Monday Night Football games simulcast on ABC, or the AFC games that CBS shows on Sunday afternoons. Also, you’ll need to subscribe to both the Blue (NBC, Fox, NFL Network) and Orange (ESPN) plans to get all the games. Each plan costs $35 a month, but you can get a combined plan for $50 a month. You can add NFL Red Zone as part of an $11-a-month Sports Extra add-on.

Sign up here: Sling TV

YouTube TV offers 70-plus channels—including all the major broadcast networks, plus the ESPN networks and Fox Sports—for $65 per month. So YouTube TV subscribers should have access to all the NFL action except for “TNF” on Amazon.

It also has the NFL Network, plus the ability to add NFL RedZone in the Sports Plus tier for an additional $11 per month.

Also, YouTube TV now has a 4K HDR option, which costs an additional $10 a month for the first year. As we noted above with FuboTV above, it’s not clear whether Fox will offer any regular-season games in 4K this year, as it did with “TNF” games in 2021. But it is likely that Fox will broadcast Super Bowl LVII in 4K in February.

Sign up here: YouTube TV

Whichever service you choose, you’ll enjoy the game more if you use a trusty device to stream it to your TV. Here are a few of the best-rated streaming media devices from CR’s ratings, listed in alphabetical order.

Correction: A previous version of this article, most recently published on Sept. 8, 2022, stated that DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket was available to some DirecTV Stream subscribers. It is available only to satellite customers and people who can’t access the satellite service. The article has also been updated to clarify that the Thanksgiving Day 2022 games will be shown on CBS, Fox, and NBC.

James K. Willcox

I've been a tech journalist for more years than I'm willing to admit. My specialties at CR are TVs, streaming media, audio, and TV and broadband services. In my spare time I build and play guitars and bass, ride motorcycles, and like to sail—hobbies I've not yet figured out how to safely combine.

How can I watch NFL games for free on Apple TV?

How much does it cost to watch football on Apple TV?

Does football play on Apple TV?

Does Apple TV have NFL Sunday Ticket?