Are You Prepared For the 2026 Football Tax This Season?

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Every September, football fans get a bill. Not an actual bill, of course. Roger Goodell isn’t mailing invoices to America just yet. But if you’re a football fan, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

It’s the annual Football Tax: the price we pay to consume the greatest television product this country has ever created. Every year, the games spread out a little more. Another streaming service joins the party. Another package gets added, and another app finds its way onto your television. Every year, fans swear they’ve reached their limit. Yet, every year, opening weekend arrives and we sign up anyway.

Why? Because football delivers.

So, like I do every year, I wanted to figure out exactly what it costs to watch as much football as humanly possible in 2026. Not casually. I’m talking about the hardcore fan. The fan who wants every NFL game, every major college football game, Sunday Ticket, RedZone, conference championship games, playoff games and enough football to make family members question whether you’re ever leaving the couch.

The answer is somewhere between $1,100 and $1,200. That’s not cheap. It’s also a tremendous amount of football.

So Many Options

The foundation for most football fans is YouTube TV. At $82.99 per month, it delivers CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, NFL Network, Big Ten Network, SEC Network, ACC Network and most of the channels that carry the games we care about every weekend.

Over the course of a five-month football season, that comes to about $415. For a lot of fans, that would be enough. But we’re not talking about a lot of fans. We’re talking about football people.

If you’re serious about the NFL, Sunday Ticket remains one of the best products in sports television. Want to watch your favorite team after moving across the country? Sunday Ticket. Want to track playoff races around the league? Sunday Ticket. Want four games on the screen at once because your fantasy season is hanging by a thread? Sunday Ticket.

Returning customers currently pay about $378 for the season when bundled with YouTube TV.

Then comes RedZone, which at this point feels less like a channel and more like a lifestyle choice. Seven straight hours of touchdowns, highlights, fantasy points and Scott Hanson somehow speaking continuously without food, water or a substitute teacher. The Sports Plus package that includes RedZone runs another $10.99 per month, adding about $55 over the course of the season.

Thursday Night Football stays on Prime Video. Netflix is again part of the NFL landscape through its holiday games. Peacock continues to carry exclusive NFL inventory and remains important for both NFL and college football fans. None of these services are particularly expensive by themselves, but together, they become part of the Football Tax.

Prime Video costs about $15 per month. Peacock Premium sits around $13 per month. Netflix’s standard plan runs about $18 per month. Over a five-month season, that’s another $230 added to the tax.

Oh, And College Too

Then there’s college football, which somehow manages to be both easier and more complicated at the same time. The good news is that one service does most of the heavy lifting. The bad news is that college football rights have become as complicated as NIL.

The SEC lives on ESPN. The Big Ten is spread across FOX, CBS, NBC and Peacock. The ACC is heavily tied to ESPN and ABC. The challenge isn’t finding the game. The challenge is remembering where the game lives each week.

For the deeply committed college football fan, Paramount+ is worth adding to the lineup because it provides streaming access to CBS content and helps fill in some of the remaining gaps. Depending on the package, you’re looking at another $45 to $50 over the course of the season.

So, let’s add up the Football Tax.

• YouTube TV: approximately $415.
• NFL Sunday Ticket: $378.
• NFL RedZone: $55.
• Prime Video: $75.
• Netflix: $90.
• Peacock: $65.
• Paramount+: approximately $50.

That puts the grand total at approximately $1,128 for the season based on those figures. With the final cost varying depending on the plans and promotions you choose.

Justifying The Purchase

Now, before you spit out your Bloody Mary, remember what you’re buying.

NFL Sundays from September through January. College football Saturdays. Rivalry games. Playoff races. Conference championship games. The College Football Playoff, NFL playoffs, and the Super Bowl.

You’re investing in hundreds of games and thousands of hours of programming. In an era when television shows disappear after one season, movies come and go in a weekend and streaming services constantly fight for your attention, football is still one of the few entertainment products that consistently lives up to the hype.

Every week brings another upset, another game-winning drive, another unbelievable finish. Also another reason to stay glued to the screen.

For all the complaints about streaming, subscriptions and rising costs, football has never been more accessible. Twenty years ago, if your team wasn’t on local television, you were out of luck. Today, every NFL game and every major college football game is available somewhere.

The challenge isn’t finding the game. The challenge is remembering whether it’s on YouTube TV, Prime Video, Peacock, Netflix, Paramount+, ESPN or one of the other apps currently occupying space on your television.

Yes, the Football Tax is real. Most taxes feel like money disappearing. The Football Tax feels like an investment. Every year, football asks fans for a little more, and every year, fans grumble. Every year, we pay it anyway.

Then opening weekend arrives. RedZone fires up. College football takes over Saturday. The NFL owns Sunday. Suddenly, nobody is thinking about the bill anymore.

We’re thinking about football. And that’s the thing about the Football Tax. The bill may arrive in September.

The payoff lasts until February.

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The post Are You Prepared For the 2026 Football Tax This Season? appeared first on Barrett Media.

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