Yahoo Finance Is Hulu’s NFL RedZone Worth the Cost?
It takes a lot of game coverage to satisfy the hardcore National Football League (NFL) fan. It’s not uncommon for devout followers to rack up more than 12 hours of screen time every Sunday from early September through to the Super Bowl in February (and rack up quite the cable or streaming bill at the same time).
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But unless you have multiple televisions — or a commitment to multi-screen setups — you can’t watch all the NFL games being played simultaneously.
Enter NFL’s RedZone, a commercial-free NFL channel that plays seven hours of live game action every Sunday (but not Sunday, Thursday or Monday night football) and jumps over to any live game action, including out-of-market games, whenever any team playing enters the “red zone,” the area between the 20-yard line and the end zone. Most exciting plays and important turnovers are often covered too, according to Reviews.org.
NFL RedZone via FuboTV, Sling TV, YouTube TV and More
NFL RedZone is available via many providers, including FuboTV, Sling TV, YouTube TV, Xfinity TV, Dish TV and Direct TV. You can also order it through Hulu + Live TV, which signed a multi-year delivery agreement with the NFL Network in April 2021.
Regular NFL Network programming is available through Hulu’s Live TV base channel package — but the NFL RedZone channel, through all providers, is only accessible as an add-on package for $9.99 or more. The cheapest base package allowing further upgrade to RedZone will set you back $69.99.
But how does Hulu + Live TV compare to its competitors?
The sports-focused FuboTV provides NFL RedZone for $10.99/month and includes an additional 22 sports channels. FuboTV’s base packages cater to the sports fanatic: Its Pro base package costs $69.99 per month and features over 120 channels. Its Elite and Ultimate bases cost $79.99 and $99.99 monthly and offer 180-plus and 210-plus channels, respectively.
Sling TV is the most affordable option for the NFL RedZone Channel, even though the add-on for RedZone is more expensive than Hulu per month (by a buck). If you order the $35 Sling Blue package and add-on the Sports Extra package for $11 (which includes NFL RedZone, plus 11 other popular sports channels like the Golf Channel, NBA, NHL and MLB Networks and PAC-12), you’ll end up paying much less than going with any other TV providers.
YouTube TV’s live TV streaming service gives you the NFL Network plus major sports networks like NBA TV and MLB Network, as well as Disney, HGTV and MSNBC in its base lineup (for $65/month). You can stream the NFL RedZone Channel plus 13 other channels in its Sports Plus add-on for $11/month.
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Sports fans will stop at nothing to following their teams. By comparison, Hulu’s NFL RedZone coverage may not be worth it unless Hulu’s base programming (which is rather extensive) appeals to the general TV watcher in you. For hardcore sports fans, you’d do better to consider FuboTV, Sling TV or YouTube TV to get the best in sports-specific programming.
Hulu + Live TV: $9.99 per month with the Sports Add-on package (cheapest base package = $69.99).
FuboTV: $10.99 per month with the Sports Plus add-on (cheapest base package = $69.99).
Sling TV: $11 per month with Sports Extra package (cheapest base package = $35.00).
YouTube TV: $10.99 per month with the Sports Add-on package (cheapest base package = $64.99).
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Is Hulu’s NFL RedZone Worth the Cost?
