Watching the NFL used to be fairly simple. You turned on the television, adjusted the antenna and eventually found a game between two teams wearing enough mud to make uniform colors irrelevant. The 2026 season still offers plenty of football for free, but the complete schedule now stretches across broadcast networks, cable channels and a collection of streaming apps that looks suspiciously like a monthly credit card statement. You used to be able to pony up a few $$ to get NFL Sunday Ticket and be set. Not anymore.
The good news is that an antenna remains one of the best bargains in football. CBS and FOX will carry the familiar regional Sunday afternoon games, with CBS generally leaning toward AFC matchups and FOX toward the NFC. NBC continues to air Sunday Night Football, the season-opening NFL Kickoff Game and the Thanksgiving night game. ABC will also show 10 Monday Night Football simulcasts, the Week 18 Saturday doubleheader, select playoff games and Super Bowl LXI on February 14, 2027. Free television is not dead. It is merely surrounded.
The major streaming services mostly mirror those broadcast windows. Paramount+ carries the CBS game available in your local market. Peacock streams NBC’s NFL coverage, while FOX One carries FOX games available in your area. ESPN Unlimited provides the ESPN games inside the ESPN App, including the full Monday Night Football slate. The important phrase in several of those descriptions is “your local market.” Paying for an app does not grant magical access to every regional game, although the monthly bill may suggest otherwise.
Prime Video remains the exclusive home of Thursday Night Football, along with its Black Friday game and additional holiday windows. Netflix has also expanded beyond Christmas football. Its five-game 2026 lineup includes the Rams and 49ers in Australia, Packers at Rams on Thanksgiving Eve, a Christmas Day doubleheader and a Week 18 game that will be selected later. Apparently Netflix looked at losing an entire Sunday to football and decided it wanted several holidays too.
NFL Network will carry seven exclusive regular-season games. Five come from the league’s European schedule in London, Paris and Madrid, followed by a Week 16 Saturday doubleheader. NFL Network is available through participating television providers and can also be streamed through NFL+ and ESPN Unlimited. This makes the channel easier to find than in previous seasons, which is useful because discovering that your team is playing at 9:30 on a Sunday morning is confusing enough without also having to locate the broadcast.
NFL Sunday Ticket remains the answer for out-of-market Sunday afternoon games on CBS and FOX. It does not include local broadcasts, Sunday night, Monday night, Thursday night or the streaming exclusives. NFL+ serves a different purpose. It offers live local and primetime games on phones and tablets, plus NFL Network and live game audio. NFL+ Premium adds RedZone and full game replays, but those live local and primetime games still cannot simply be moved onto the television. The NFL has created several products that sound nearly identical while doing very different things. Somewhere, a branding consultant is enjoying a very nice boat.
The simplest approach is to start with the free channels available in your area and then add services based on the games you actually watch. Prime Video is necessary for Thursday nights. Netflix is needed for its five special games. Sunday Ticket matters most for fans who live outside their team’s television market. NFL+ is useful for mobile viewing, NFL Network and replays. There is no single subscription that unlocks everything, but with a decent antenna and a little planning, you can watch most of the season without turning your entertainment budget into a salary-cap violation.