AT&T, DirecTV Expand NFL Sunday Ticket Broadband Availability

Hoping to generate a little good will post $69 billion mega merger, AT&T and DirecTV continues to expand availability of the company's NFL Sunday Ticket to a greater number of standalone broadband subscribers. The NFL has lagged behind other leagues in providing broadband streaming access to games. And while you still have to jump through a few hoops to sign up for NFL Sunday Ticket without paying for traditional satellite TV service, DirecTV and AT&T have glacially, been working with the NFL to open the service up so it's available to more standalone broadband customers.

To that end, a new AT&T announcement notes that for the first time, students at both 2-year and 4-year colleges are eligible to sign up for NFL Sunday Ticket over broadband for $25 per months for four months.

Users who aren't in college will pay $50 over four weeks for NFL Sunday Ticket over broadband, provided they do a brief tap dance with DirecTV convincing them they have trouble getting NFL Sunday Ticket over traditional satellite. How much of a tap dance this is varies by consumers, but has slowly but thankfully gotten easier over the last few years.

Quite often if you plug your address into AT&T/DirecTV's qualification tool you'll be told you're not eligible (see the warning I received to the upper left). Some customers tell me that if they call and argue with DirecTV/AT&T over line of sight problems you can sign up for NFL Sunday Ticket anyway, though youre mileage may vary.

“University students are often far from home and unable to watch their favorite hometown NFL teams,” AT&T's marketing department says of the announcement. “With NFLSUNDAYTICKET.TV U, we’re connecting them to their home and team.”

Users can check availability at their address here