DirectTV has a sweet deal (for themselves), and would be crazy to not keep re-uping their deal with the NFL. I'm in the same boat as NOSaints, I pay DirectTV for the Sunday Ticket. If I didn't watch the afternoon games it comes to $22 per game ($209 ST + $99 HD / 14 games). I say 14 because one or two are primetime (non-ST) and one is usually local. Season tickets for the Saints (nosebleeds) are less than that per game.

Back to the beginning post, I doubt NFL network would go PPV. It's a year round advertisement for the league and "your" local team. It's a money maker that is continuing to grow each year. Now with the addition of regular season games and an expanded Sunday Night recap show, watch them position themselves as a player in the next round of TV negotiations. I wouldn't be surprised if come the next negotiations, they take back Sunday or Monday night games as thier own.

... technically speaking, the NFL Ticket is pay per view. You pay a fee to watch a game that is not aired in your area. I guess the concern would be with local games that otherwise are televized by the networks and you can view for free. I personally don't think that the NFL will underatke the production of 600+ games a year on their own, simply because of the cost of doing so. Economically, it makes more sense to the NFL to get money from the networks for the rights to air the games. In the future, who knows, but that's a distant future, I think.

Tell your acquaintance not to spend too much money on a hacked card. Hacked cards get routinely corrupted/wiped out by DirecTV every couple of weeks or so, with or without the phone line. The code comes in with the satellite data stream. While the card may be reprogrammed - depending on the level of the ECM - after the ECM, I'm sure the guy who's expanding your acquaintance's card doesn't give unlimited re-programs.

I think it will all go towards ppv. The advertising model is somewhat suspect, and with cable/satellite and TiVo, one can effectively bypass the ad-model, which won't take long to saturate the US. Ultimately the NFL is doing what all good broadcasters do, give it away for free, increase the product offerings, then make us pay. Soccer does it, NBA does it, soon the NFL will be doing it. Too much at risk after this current tv contract is up not to have that seque.

WTF?!??!?!?! Where did you get the idea it was mine? I know not of what you speak. :-)

MLB, NHL, NBA all have done it on cable with little or no impact to TV revenue. It will be a season package not a game by game deal. buy the NFL not a team. It will happen. Direct will lose out big time and the NFL will win big.

i gotta have my sunday ticket...its why i got direct tv and why i still have it after 10+ years

Especially now that HD is out. I can't watch a game in SD anymore.

Hey...if you guys call Directtv and complain about the price of the superfan option(HD),
they'll give it to ya for a forth the price...I do it every year..

Nice. The problem for me now is that I no longer live in New Orleans. As such, I can't get any of the games here at all, none of them, unless I do the full-blown NFL package. When I was still in New Olreans, at least there I had the option of getting all the away gamesin HD, for free, over a standard HD antenna. But that's no longer the case, unfortunately. Looks like I'll have to pony up the $$.

So how much is the NFL pacakge running these days?