Shrinkflation is coming for pro sports: The cost of watching the NFL jumped 28.6%—and attending a game 72%—since 2015

America’s most popular sport is back—and the NFL just set a new record in its opening week: it was the highest-scoring Sunday in week one ever. But the average viewer would have to jump through hoops to have seen all those touchdowns—it takes subscription after subscription to catch kickoff.

The NFL is running into a shrinkflation problem—the league is downsizing the amount of games available in individual packages even as costs climb for fans. And attending a game in-person hasn’t gotten any cheaper either. The country has seen five straight years of inflation above 2%, and that has translated into bouts of shrinkflation in response.

For example, take a look at NFL Sunday Ticket, the league’s out-of-market Sunday afternoon package that has been an option for fans to watch since 1994—allowing fans to catch games outside of their local teams. It originally was an exclusive partnership with DirecTV, with the satellite company losing the rights for the service at the end of the 2022 season—leaving the program in the hands of YouTubeTV since the 2023 season.

NFL’s Sunday Ticket carried 191 games in the 2025 season, a decline from 211 in 2021 during DirecTV’s tenure—and while the 2026 season boasts roughly 200 games, it’s still under that 2021 total. The reason? The league expanded game time across a Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday night slate—and it doesn’t include international and holiday games. What used to be a once-a-week-on-Sunday couch marathon has turned into fans tuning in day after day, and the package doesn’t include the games outside of 1:00 PM and 4:00 PM on Sundays.

And to add insult to injury for football........

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