By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man –@tvanswerman

TV Answer Man, YouTube has a video where the guy says if you subscribe to the Sunday Ticket, you can watch the NFL apps with your subscription. My question: Do you get the NFL Plus sub with that? Is it free with your Sunday Ticket subscription. — Marcus, Reno, Nevada.
Marcus, you are not the only one asking that question. YouTube, which has the NFL Sunday Ticket this year after it was an exclusive for 28 seasons on DIRECTV, has posted a video i which a company representative says the following: “(The NFL Sunday Ticket) allows you to access streaming on NFL.com and NFL mobile apps. Just use your YouTube login to access these sites.” You can see the video here. (It’s also at the end of this article.) The video is nearly seven minutes; the NFL site/apps comment comes at around the 2:30 minute mark.

Since the video was posted, I have received several e-mails from excited readers asking if this means you can watch NFL Plus for free with your YouTube Sunday Ticket subscription. It’s an understandable assumption. NFL Plus is part of NFL.com and the NFL mobile app. And it’s understandable that fans would get excited about the prospect of getting NFL Plus for free with your Ticket sub. The NFL Plus base package ($6.99 a month) has the NFL Network, live out-of-market pre-season games, live game audio, NFL Films content and full and condensed game replays. Plus, Plus (sorry for that) now has the NFL RedZone channel with its $14.99 a month Premium plan, which also includes the features mentioned above. If NFL Plus comes with the base Ticket plan, you wouldn’t need the Ticket bundle, which is $40 more and includes RedZone.

Over the last few weeks since the YouTube video was posted, I have asked several people if NFL Plus is included with the Ticket. Google’s customer support team provided vague and conflicting answers and Google’s PR department did not respond. But finally, I got an answer to this question last Friday. An NFL spokesman told The TV Answer Man:

“These logins and products are separate, but we are working to enable watch ability for both product entitlements in our experiences/applications.” I then asked: “So even if you have a Sunday Ticket sub, you cannot watch NFL Plus unless you subscribe to it separately. Is that correct?” The NFL spokesman answered: “Correct.”

The spokesman added that “essentially you can authenticate (log) into your YT / Sunday Ticket account on NFL.com and the NFL App. This does not require an NFL+ subscription. The YT entitlements in our eco system are still being worked on and are targeted for the regular season.” That sounds like the NFL could still offer different benefits for YouTube/Sunday Ticket subscribers, perhaps even including some perks regarding NFL Plus. But for now, you need an NFL Plus subscription to watch NFL Plus. The Sunday Ticket credentials won’t work.

Here’s the YouTube video:

Marcus, hope that helps. Happy viewing and stay safe!

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— Phillip Swann
@tvanswerman