NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers appear to be in for a rude awakening when they get their DirecTV bill this year.

After a modest increase of just 2.4% last season, DirecTV is increasing the price of their Sunday Ticket package, the exclusive out-of-market option for pro football fans around the country, by much more for next season. Just how much? Try almost 10%.

The total cost of Sunday Ticket for the pre-season price will come in at $281.94, up from just $257.94 last year for the slate of regular season games.

Via TVPredictions.com:

DIRECTV has raised the 2017 pre-season price on its most popular NFL Sunday Ticket package by almost 10 percent. The satcaster, which is now taking orders for the 2017 season, has priced the basic Sunday Ticket package at $281.94. The price is good until September 9, 2017, the night before the first week of Sunday regular season games. (Prices go up after September 9.) In contrast, DIRECTV last year charged just $257.94 if you ordered the Sunday Ticket before the first week of regular season action. The increase in the pre-season price this year is 9.3 percent. DIRECTV raised the pre-season price last year by only 2.4 percent. The basic Sunday Ticket plan entitles a subscriber to watch out-of-market Sunday NFL games as well as access the Ticket Mix Channel (all games on one screen at the same time) and on-screen stats.

While not as large of a hike, DirecTV is also more than doubling the percentage increase for cost of their “Max” package. In 2016, the price for the offering that included DirecTV’s RedZone and Fantasy channels increased 1.7% to $359.94. This year it’s an almost 5% raise and the total cost for the “Max” package in 2017 will be a whopping $377.94.

Part of this is just economics. Prices are always going to increase over time and that’s just a fact of life, especially when the product is in such high demand and there’s only one outlet with the rights to it. And when it comes to watching sports, whether in the stadium or at home, prices will rarely if ever go down. (That is unless you’re the Cleveland Browns and you’re coming off of a 1-15 season.)

However, we’ve seen all over the sports media industry companies dealing with customers who are cord cutting or cord shaving precisely because of the increased costs. And with this large of an increase at almost 10%, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a number of people decide that they’re just going to skip out on Sunday Ticket this year. Either that, or Sunday Ticket subscribers will call DirecTV and try to haggle with them to at least throw in HBO or Starz for free.

[TVPredictions.com]