NFL Sunday Ticket cheaper than ever this year

Apparently all you have to do is buy the Anniversary edition of Madden for PS3 or XBox360 for $100 and you get a coupon for free online access of Sunday Ticket and Red Zone channel.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CF7KVMI?pf_rd_p=1589295942&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_i=1001215841&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0GBSR3BMWXZ33HTBV68S

 

I got it for free just by switching back to DirecTV from Uverse. Of course, most people are getting it free this year just by signing up for DirecTV.

The problem is if you don't cancel it before next year, you will be charged the full price for it. And while I love DirecTV, their customer service is for shit. A decade or so back, I called and canceled both MLB Extra Innings and Sunday Ticket packages in the offseason. Our next bill, they started to take out the monthly payments for Extra Innings and Sunday Ticket. I called and was told by the lady that because they had already started billing me for them, they couldn't cancel it, but she told me to make sure and call after the season to have them cancel it.

 

I just call and threaten to cancel each August and they drop the price by 25-50 percent.

 

The price they charge is insane anyway. It should be 25-50 percent lower to begin with. I realize with the exclusive deal they can charge whatever they want. But I eventually dumped my DirecTV because I decided I no longer wanted to overpay for Sunday Ticket, and Verizon Fios had a better deal on bundled services that ended up saving me money.

But if you spend too much time thinking about it, it'll make you sick. I paid (I think) $129 for MLB.TV and get seven days a week of baseball for six months on multiple devices. But 17 Sundays of football costs, what, $300? Or $225 ... or whatever break they cut you? Come on. I can't watch eight games at the same time anyway, no matter how much of a fanboi wet dream that may be. It's just not worth it.

If the NFL was forward-thinking at all, it would offer the games a la carte and pay-per-view on multiple platforms and cable systems. If they want to charge $300 for all games, fine. But take DirecTV out of the equation, and how many displaced fans would pay $8 or $10 a week just to see their team?

 

Speculation is NFL will be ending the exclusivity with DirecTV in the next round of contracts. If so, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the pricing.

I paid extra for the SuperFan package just so I'd get the Shortcuts replays. I'd watch the Steelers live on Sunday, maybe one other big game and the DVR all the shortcuts. By Wednesday or Thursday, I'd have watched every game played that week - minus some lousy SNF and MNF games.

 

This is an insane deal. I can sell the game for $75 and get the NFL Ticket for $25.

 

I think the entire pricing structure of DirecTV is fucked - and I've been a customer for years. Every few months, I call and ask if there are any specials available for my account, and inevitably get $10 off my bill for 6 months, free movie channels for 6 months and stuff like that. Every August I call, ask for someone in retention and ask why new customers are getting Sunday Ticket for free when I'm a loyal customer who has spent money with them for years and years, and have to pay full price. They come back and usually give me the Sunday Ticket for free (one year out of the last 5, they offered it at half price. Every other year it has been free).

I'd rather not have to jump through those hoops to get their best price on stuff, but if I'm still a customer of theirs after all this time, I guess they are doing something right.

 

I would love to known DirecTV's churn rate.

 

I just switched to DirecTV. Even after they raise the price of the TV package I purchased back to regular price after the deal expires, I'll still be paying less per month than I was for cable. And cable didn't even include DVR or multiple TVs hooked up to HD.

When I cut the cord with cable, I was paying $109 for just cable TV. We didn't need to bundle because we use my roommate's business internet after she's done with her job for the day and on weekends and neither of us needed a home phone. The DirecTV package I opted for is regularly priced at $78 or so (I forget how much sales tax adds exactly).

My thought on why DirecTV is always willing to cut a deal is that they want to keep as many people as they can and will do as much as they can to keep them. The cable company doesn't seem to care very much. I turned in the cable box on Monday and the reaction of the guy at the counter was along the lines of, "Oh, well." He didn't even ask why I dropped them. It's like this cable company is on the short end of a losing battle and is conceding.

 

Just can't get on board with DirecTV. Any TV system that goes out when the weather gets bad is absurd. Living in Florida, where the weather is unpredictable and it storms nearly every day during the summer, I don't want to be sitting staring at a blank screen when it's a monsoon outside and that's my only option for entertainment.

 

The Sunday Ticket package must have some serious competition from some of the cable companies these days. I have Comcast and pay an extra $8 a month for the sports tier that includes the cable version of the Red Zone channel, plus ESPNU, the Pac-12 and Big Ten Networks, and a few regional Fox College Sports channels that show random games, among others.
Red Zone by itself was enough to get me to get the extra channels. It's basically the best stuff from Sunday Ticket anyway.

 

Monsoons are OK. It's the minor rains that will get you.

Eye of Hurricane Wilma passed over my house in 2005. Never lost reception during all the wind and rain . . . until the dish was blown off its mountings. But a nothing shower can freeze the signal for several minutes.