NFL Sunday Ticket: Is Game Availability Determined By Billing Address Or Device Location? Google Answers!

By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man –Follow me on X.

Google’s YouTube earlier this week suggested in its NFL Sunday Ticket’s Terms of Agreement that a subscriber’s Billing Address (and zip code) is used to determine which games you get with the package of out-of-market Sunday afternoon football. This appeared to be a change from last season when the games were determined by your Device Location. For example, if you lived in Los Angeles, but were in Dallas while traveling, you would get the out-of-market games for the Dallas area, not your normal schedule in Los Angeles.

However, YouTube last night removed the section that included the new Billing Address language after the TV Answer Man on Monday published an article on it. And this afternoon, a Google spokeswoman provided us with a clarification: The games will still be determined by Device Location, not the Billing Address.

“NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers are able to watch NFL Sunday Ticket while traveling and will see live games available in their current device location. Billing address is used for credit card processing; access to live NFL games are based on users’ device location. We’ve updated the previous terms to clarify,” the spokeswoman said via e-mail.

Here is what the Terms of Agreement said previously:

“You will generally receive out-of-market Sunday afternoon games unless the game is locally broadcast. A regular season Sunday afternoon home game could also be blacked out within the home territory of the home team if the game fails to sell out. Your billing address (zip code) is associated with your streaming access. (Italics ours.) However, due to NFL rules, you might also see blackout restrictions based on your mobile device’s location (e.g., subscribers might not be able to stream while attending an NFL game or surrounding stadium areas). If there is an outage in your location, we’ll do our best to let you know.”

It’s unclear if the previous Billing Address language was added by mistake, was simply poorly worded and shouldn’t have used in the blackout policy section, or whether Google was contemplating a change. But it’s a moot point now.

For fans who travel and/or those who share their Sunday Ticket password with friends in different markets, this is good news. You can still watch your home team’s game if you are away from your home market so long as it’s not broadcast locally in the travel area.

The TV Answer Man is veteran journalist Phillip Swann who has covered the TV technology scene for more than three decades. He will report on the latest news and answer your questions regarding new devices and services that are changing the way you watch television. See the bio for Phillip Swann here.

Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvanswerman.com Please include your first name and hometown in your message.