Sports Streaming Cost Calculator 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research and Alex Rivera · Last updated: October 20, 2026 · Prices verified: October 19, 2026
Sports Streaming Cost Calculator
Pick your leagues and how much you watch. The tool builds the cheapest legal plan, counts shared services once, and bills only the months your seasons run. Prices verified 2026-10-19.
Your setup
Services you already pay for counted as $0 extra
| Service | What it covers for you | Active months (Aug → Jul) | Billing | 12-month cost |
|---|
Subscribe / cancel calendar
Dark squares mark the month a season pass or annual plan is paid upfront. Monthly billing is modeled as one charge per calendar month in season; your real cycle starts on your signup date.
| Route | Services | 12-month cost | Avg / month | CPTG | vs cheapest |
|---|
Every route covers the same games you selected. “Without a live-TV bundle” excludes YouTube TV plans; the YouTube TV routes force that plan in and fill the gaps as cheaply as possible.
Season passes and annual plans appear in the month they are charged, which is why one month can spike.
| Service | Price used | Notes | Source |
|---|
List prices before tax, verified . Promotions, student and carrier discounts are excluded unless toggled. Channel lineups and local-channel availability vary by ZIP code; confirm with each provider before subscribing. Report a stale price: [email protected].
Built by Axis Intelligence Research. Estimates, not invoices. Legal services only. Not affiliated with any league or streaming service.
Quick answer: Watching your local NFL team plus every national game costs $213.89 for the 2026 season with an antenna, or $363.79 without one, according to Axis Intelligence Research’s calculation from official and published prices. Adding every out-of-market Sunday game pushes it to $693.89–$756.89. Cancelling services in the off-season is the single biggest saving.
What This Tool Does
The Axis Intelligence Research Sports Streaming Cost Calculator builds the cheapest legal plan for the leagues you follow. Choose a viewing level for the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB, tell it whether you have an antenna and which services you already pay for, and it searches every combination of 18 priced services. Shared services are counted once, each is billed only in the months your seasons run, and monthly versus annual billing is picked automatically. You get a subscribe-and-cancel calendar, a month-by-month bill and the Cost Per Team Game.
How Much Does It Cost to Stream Sports in 2026?
It depends far more on how many leagues you follow, and whether you cancel between seasons, than on any single price. The table below shows what the calculator returns for common fan profiles, seasonal billing, no services already owned.
| Fan profile | With antenna | Without antenna | Cheapest services (with antenna) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NFL: local team + all national games | $213.89 | $363.79 | ESPN Unlimited, Prime Video, Netflix (December) |
| NFL: + every out-of-market Sunday game | $693.89 | $756.89 | Sunday Ticket standalone, ESPN Unlimited, Prime Video, Netflix |
| NFL + NBA national games | $427.76 | $549.70 | ESPN Unlimited, Peacock, Prime Video, Netflix |
| NBA: national + League Pass | $487.78 | $487.78 | ESPN Unlimited, Peacock, Prime Video, League Pass |
| NHL: national + out-of-market | $353.36 | $353.36 | ESPN Unlimited, HBO Max Standard |
| MLB (2027): national + MLB.TV | $653.26 | $653.26 | FOX One + ESPN Unlimited bundle, HBO Max, Peacock, MLB.TV, Netflix |
| All four leagues, every game | $1,598.77 | $1,663.68 | 10 services incl. Sunday Ticket, League Pass, MLB.TV |
12-month totals are Axis Intelligence Research calculations from the price table below, assuming you subscribe only in season months (NFL Sep–Jan, NBA and NHL Oct–Apr, MLB Mar–Sep). Antenna hardware cost excluded.
The pattern is plain once it is laid out: the antenna only matters for football, because local CBS, FOX and NBC carry most NFL Sundays for free. Hockey and basketball fans pay the same either way.
What does a single league cost per game?
Axis Intelligence Research’s Cost Per Team Game (CPTG) divides the 12-month plan cost by the regular-season games of the teams you follow: 17 for an NFL team, 82 for the NBA, 84 for the NHL and 162 for MLB. A national-games NFL plan with an antenna works out to $12.58 per team game ($213.89 ÷ 17). The full four-league plan, every game, comes to $4.63 per team game ($1,598.77 ÷ 345).
What Is the Cheapest Way to Watch the NFL in 2026?
With an antenna: ESPN Unlimited for the five NFL months, Prime Video for Thursday Night Football, and one month of Netflix for the Christmas games. That is $213.89. Local CBS and FOX Sunday games and NBC’s Sunday Night Football come free over the air.
Without an antenna, the calculator’s cheapest answer is not a live-TV bundle. It stacks Paramount+ Essential for CBS, the FOX One + ESPN Unlimited bundle, Peacock Premium, Prime Video and Netflix for $363.79. YouTube TV’s Sports Plan route costs $378.89, $15.10 more, and the full YouTube TV Base Plan route costs $468.89.
If you only need your team’s games on a phone, NFL+ costs $6.99 a month or $49.99 a year and covers live local and primetime games on phone or tablet, per the NFL. Seasonal billing makes that $34.95 for five months.
Is NFL Sunday Ticket cheaper through YouTube TV?
Only if you would pay for YouTube TV anyway. Sunday Ticket costs $378 for the 2026 season as a YouTube TV add-on and $480 as a standalone YouTube Primetime Channel for returning buyers, according to YouTube’s Sunday Ticket page. The add-on is $102 cheaper, but it requires an active YouTube TV plan. First-time buyers pay $240 either way.
The calculator settles it per household. With an antenna, the standalone $480 pass wins: $693.89 for every NFL game, against $756.89 through the YouTube TV Sports Plan. Without an antenna, the order flips and the Sports Plan route ($64.99 a month for five months plus the $378 add-on) is cheapest at $756.89. First-time buyers on the $240 price pay $453.89 for every NFL game with an antenna, or $603.79 without, and the standalone pass wins in both cases because it needs no YouTube TV plan.
Sunday Ticket season passes cannot be cancelled or refunded, per YouTube’s help center. Buy it knowing you will use it.
How Much Does It Cost to Watch the NBA in 2026-27?
The 2026-27 regular season runs October 20, 2026 to April 11, 2027, with national games split across ABC/ESPN, NBC/Peacock and Prime Video, according to the NBA. Every national game streams on the ESPN App, Peacock or Prime Video.
For national games only, the cheapest stack is ESPN Unlimited, Peacock Premium and Prime Video for seven months: $377.79. Add League Pass at $109.99 per season (or Premium at $159.99) for out-of-market teams and the total is $487.78. League Pass blacks out national and local games live, per the NBA, so it supplements those three services rather than replacing them.
How Do You Watch Out-of-Market NHL Games?
NHL Power Play in the ESPN App carries more than 1,050 out-of-market games in 2026-27, according to ESPN. The 84-game season opens September 29, 2026 and ends April 10, 2027, per the NHL. National games sit on ABC/ESPN and TNT, which streams on HBO Max.
Hockey has the simplest answer of the four leagues: ESPN Unlimited plus HBO Max Standard for seven months covers national and out-of-market games for $353.36. HBO Max’s live sports require the Standard or Premium plan; Basic with Ads has none, per HBO Max’s help center.
How Much Will It Cost to Watch MLB in 2027?
The 2027 season opens March 24 on Netflix and ends September 26, according to MLB. MLB.TV costs $149.99 for the season on MLB.com, and $134.99 for existing ESPN Unlimited subscribers, as reported when ESPN took over MLB.TV distribution.
The calculator uses that discount. Its cheapest every-game MLB plan pairs the FOX One + ESPN Unlimited bundle (FOX, FS1 and ESPN games) with HBO Max for TBS, Peacock for Sunday Night Baseball, two Netflix months, and MLB.TV at the ESPN price: $653.26. MLB’s labor contract expires December 1, 2026, so treat 2027 dates and prices as provisional.
Does Cancelling Between Seasons Really Save Money?
Yes, and it is the largest lever in the calculator. Take a fan following NFL and NBA national games without an antenna: seasonal billing costs $549.70; keeping the same services all year costs $915.62. Cancelling in the off-season saves $365.92, which is 40% of the year-round bill.
The calculator does this automatically, then checks whether a 12-month prepay beats paying monthly. Prepay wins only when a service is needed most of the year: in the four-league plan, ESPN Unlimited’s $319.99 annual price beats 12 monthly payments of $31.99 ($383.88).
Why Following Several Leagues Costs Less Than It Looks
Pricing each league on its own double-counts ESPN, Peacock and Prime Video. A fan buying the cheapest every-game plan for each of the four leagues separately would pay $2,188.29. The combined plan costs $1,598.77, a $589.52 difference that comes entirely from shared services and longer billing windows tipping them onto annual plans. Axis Intelligence Research reports this as the calculator’s “Saved by one combined plan” figure.
That is also where most guides go wrong. A list of “the best service for each sport” adds up four bills that overlap.
Is YouTube TV Worth It for Sports?
On price alone, rarely. In every scenario in the tables above, the YouTube TV Base Plan route ($82.99 a month, per Google) was never the cheapest. For a four-league, every-game fan without an antenna, the Base Plan route costs $1,808.68 against $1,663.68 for the cheapest plan. The Sports Plan ($64.99 a month, per YouTube TV) gets closer and wins outright for no-antenna fans buying Sunday Ticket.
What YouTube TV sells is convenience: one app, unlimited DVR, local channels without an antenna. The “Compare routes” tab prices that convenience exactly for your selections.
How It Works
The calculator treats each set of games you want as a coverage requirement with one or more ways to satisfy it. NBC’s Sunday Night Football, for instance, can come from an antenna, Peacock, YouTube TV or the YouTube TV Sports Plan. It then tests every combination of the services that involve a real choice, assigns each requirement to its cheapest option, and keeps the lowest total.
The formulas, as implemented:
- Service cost = the cheapest of (monthly price × months needed), the 12-month prepaid price, or the season-pass price
- Months needed = the union of the season months of every league that service is used for
- 12-month plan cost = sum of service costs + any local-network cost you enter × season months
- Cost Per Team Game (CPTG) = 12-month plan cost ÷ regular-season games of your teams
- Off-season savings = same services kept 12 months − seasonal plan cost
- Combined-plan savings = sum of each league’s cheapest standalone plan − the combined plan
What is the Cost Per Team Game?
The Cost Per Team Game (CPTG) is an Axis Intelligence Research metric: what your streaming plan costs for each regular-season game your teams play. It counts games scheduled, not games watched, and excludes in-market regional broadcasts unless you add their cost.
Price Table
| Service | Price used | Source |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube TV Base Plan | $82.99/mo | YouTube Help |
| YouTube TV Sports Plan | $64.99/mo | YouTube TV Sports Plan page |
| NFL Sunday Ticket (YouTube TV add-on / standalone) | $378 / $480 per season; $240 for first-time buyers on either | YouTube |
| NFL+ / NFL+ Premium | $6.99/mo or $49.99/yr / $14.99/mo or $99.99/season | NFL Support |
| ESPN Unlimited / ESPN Select | $31.99/mo or $319.99/yr / $13.99/mo or $139.99/yr (from Sep 17, 2026) | NewscastStudio, Aug 24, 2026 |
| FOX One + ESPN Unlimited bundle | $39.99/mo | Sports Media Watch; FOX announcement |
| FOX One | $19.99/mo or $199.99/yr | Sports Video Group |
| Peacock Premium | $12.99/mo or $129.99/yr (from Aug 18, 2026) | Peacock price notice via Droid Life |
| Prime Video (standalone) | $8.99/mo | DealNews |
| Netflix Standard with ads | $8.99/mo | Netflix price change, Mar 26, 2026, via FOX stations |
| Paramount+ Essential | $8.99/mo or $89.99/yr (from Jan 15, 2026) | 9to5Mac |
| HBO Max Standard | $18.49/mo or $184.99/yr | HBO Max Help |
| NBA League Pass / Premium | $109.99 / $159.99 per season | NBA.com |
| MLB.TV | $149.99/season ($134.99 with ESPN Unlimited); $29.99/mo | MLB.com; Cord Cutters News |
All prices before tax, verified October 19, 2026. The calculator’s Prices & sources tab lists all 18 services.
Why It Matters
Sports rights now sit across a dozen apps, and each price rise looks small on its own. ESPN Unlimited went from $29.99 to $31.99 on September 17, 2026; Peacock Premium from $10.99 to $12.99 on August 18. The bill that hurts is the one nobody totals: overlapping services left running through the off-season. The calculator turns that into a dated, per-month plan you can act on before the next renewal date.
Limitations
- List prices only. Taxes, carrier perks, student plans and most promotions are excluded; the $240 first-time Sunday Ticket price is a toggle.
- Several prices are from trade and consumer press, not the provider’s own page, because those pages did not render for us on the verification date (ESPN, Peacock, Prime Video, Netflix, FOX One, Paramount+). Each is corroborated by at least one report citing the provider.
- Local channels and regional sports networks vary by ZIP code. In-market games on regional networks or team apps are not priced; enter your local cost in each league card.
- NHL Power Play access is reported inconsistently. Some 2026-27 guides list it with ESPN Select; ESPN’s own release wording points to ESPN Unlimited or pay-TV sign-in. Confirm in the ESPN App.
- Apple TV’s MLB Friday Night Baseball is not priced because its 2026 status was reported inconsistently.
- Totals assume a full season. If you start mid-season, untick the months already played; a Sunday Ticket season pass is still priced in full.
- Monthly billing is modeled per calendar month. Real cycles start on your signup date, so a season that starts mid-month can cost one extra cycle.
- YouTube TV channel lists come from YouTube TV’s plan pages and press coverage; NBC Sports Network carriage of Peacock-exclusive NBA games is per the NBA’s 2026-27 schedule release.
- No picture-quality or reliability ranking. This compares cost and coverage, not streaming quality.
Data Freshness
Prices and season dates were first retrieved on October 7, 2026 and re-verified on October 19, 2026 from YouTube Help, YouTube’s Sunday Ticket page, NFL Support, NBA.com, MLB.com, HBO Max Help, the NBA 2026-27 schedule release, the NHL 2026-27 schedule release and the MLB 2027 schedule release, plus the press sources named in the price table.
Review trigger: this page is re-verified when any priced service changes its rate, when NFL Sunday Ticket 2027 pricing is announced, when MLB’s 2027 season is confirmed after the December 1, 2026 labor deadline, or 30 days after the last check, whichever comes first. Spot a stale price? Email [email protected]; corrections are noted at the bottom of this page with a date.
Related Resources
- AI video generation cost calculator — the same keeper-cost approach, applied to AI video
- Markup calculator — price a resale or service margin
- AI ROI calculator — test whether a subscription pays back
- Streaming statistics — subscriber and churn context for the services above
- Robux to USD calculator — another consumer-subscription cost tool
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the cheapest way to watch sports without cable?
An antenna for local CBS, FOX, NBC and ABC, then only the apps that carry what the antenna misses, bought month by month in season. For NFL national games that means ESPN Unlimited, Prime Video and one month of Netflix: $213.89 for the 2026 season, per Axis Intelligence Research.
How much does it cost to watch every NFL game in 2026?
Between $453.89 and $756.89 for the season, depending on whether you have an antenna and whether you qualify for YouTube’s $240 first-time Sunday Ticket price, according to the calculator. For returning buyers, Sunday Ticket alone costs $378 with YouTube TV or $480 standalone.
Do I need YouTube TV for NFL Sunday Ticket?
No. Sunday Ticket is also sold as a standalone YouTube Primetime Channel for $480 per season, or $240 for first-time buyers. The YouTube TV add-on is $378 for returning buyers but requires an active YouTube TV plan, starting at $64.99 a month for the Sports Plan.
How much is NBA League Pass for 2026-27?
$109.99 for the season, or $159.99 for League Pass Premium with no commercials and three streams, on NBA.com as of October 19, 2026. National and local games are blacked out live.
Is ESPN Unlimited worth it for sports fans?
For most fans with an antenna, yes: it was in the cheapest with-antenna plan for every NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB profile in the table above, either alone ($31.99 a month) or in the $39.99 FOX One bundle. Without an antenna, NFL fans buying Sunday Ticket do better with the YouTube TV Sports Plan. It carries ESPN, ABC simulcasts and NFL Network games.
Cite this tool: Axis Intelligence Research. (2026). Sports Streaming Cost Calculator. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/sports-streaming-cost-calculator/