The National Football League yesterday kicked off its first Sunday of the 2020 season, and many people were excited to follow the action by subscribing to the Red Zone Channel on the NFL’s mobile app.
In 2019, the price of a standalone subscription to the channel on the app was just $34.99 for the entire season. But when fans went to the app last week, the Red Zone page said the price would be $34.99 a month, not for the entire year.
What?!
Potential customers immediately took to social media sites to complain, adding that they would never pay $34.99 a month, particularly during a year when the Coronavirus pandemic could shorten the season at any time.
Redzone is $34.99 a MONTH as a stand alone!?!? That is a little steep
— chris, wrestling fan (@sportsbrain) September 13, 2020
NFL RedZone was $5/mo. 3 years ago, and was $8.99/mo. last year.
Now, the NFL app is saying … $34.99 a MONTH. I really like RedZone, but that seems more than a little too high. pic.twitter.com/uu6Ft8YuCj— Scott Andera (@sanderaSTL) September 13, 2020
The $34.99 a month posted price seemed especially odd because when you clicked on the subscribe button, the order page said, ‘$34.99/per year,’ not per month. However, it would appear that many fans never got past the advertised price of $34.99 a month, and decided not to subscribe.
if it was 34.99 for a year I would do it in a heartbeat. But yea thats absurd
— chris, wrestling fan (@sportsbrain) September 13, 2020
This morning, I asked Alex Riethmiller, an NFL spokesman, for an explanation. He said this afternoon in a one-sentence e-mail that the price was “$34.99 a month on the app.”
I responded that that didn’t seem right, and asked for further clarification. A few hours later, Brenna Webb, another NFL spokesperson, responded to me by e-mail:
“Apologizes for the confusion. The price for NFL RedZone is $34.99/year. The current copy saying $34.99/month is incorrect and our team is (currently) working to get it corrected on the marketing copy. Again, apologizes for the confusion this caused and thank you for bringing to our attention.”
So, yes, the price is $34.99 for the season. But how many potential Red Zone subscribers did the NFL lose for the season by posting the wrong price is a question that can’t be answered. But I would bet it’s quite a few.
Wait a minute,
Did NFL redzone really go from $1.99 a month on my @Verizon phone to $34.99 a month? pic.twitter.com/NkPtRnXpGQ— Jim Nightshade (@Jim_Nightshade_) September 13, 2020
By the way, here’s the NFL app page with the wrong price. (It will probably won’t stay up much longer.):
Here’s the page with the wrong price: https://t.co/J7Dm3TRTxm pic.twitter.com/ZxSCOCcejC
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Yes it’s pricey but I like the service. I can watch the channels I want (all of them), I don’t suffer interruptions on the internet and occasional rebooting (especially at a critical moment). The customer service could be improved using native american speakers that I can easily understand.Yes it looks like ATTis trying to cherry pick customers so they can sell Direct TV.
ATT is an example of stupid management ruining a great product by being greedy and trying to artificially increase the bottom line to justify the big bonuses they get at the expense of customers, employees, and shareholders.
Strange. I pay 0.00 a month for reddit. I seem to find the redzone every week streaming somewhere FO FREE.
Would you like to share where…..?
Thanks…!
Hmm, its $10/mop for youtube tv and sling tv subs. I just bought it from Sling and can decide to cancel at any time. No need to pay for an entire year.
And despite having the NFL app on my android tv and having an account at NFL.com, I never ever heard of them offering Redzone directly. Poorly handled througout.
And while we’re here, I have game pass and half the games from sunday showed ‘full game’ with 40-something minutes of actual game play and the “condensed will appear in 2-3 hours” wasn’t until the next day.
For a business that runs on billions and billions, it sure as heck isn’t going through much of that on customer facing issues.
I called Sling Tv to add RedZone like I have previous years. They were not carrying it. Had to go back to Spectrum to stream. Got a better deal. Today I saw Sling is now carrying it?? Too late! I’m set!!!