Do you have your streaming TV situation settled for the 2026 football season?
If not, you may be surprised to find things are a bit more expensive than last season.
Major sports streamers ESPN Unlimited and NBC’s Peacock have announced price increases in the weeks leading up to the 2026 NFL and college football season.
This will soon impact “full-time” subscribers of these products.
But the “part-time” subscriber who pays for these services during football season and cancels or pauses in the “off-season” is likely to return this month and learn they’ll owe more right away.
Let’s take a quick look at how each service will increase its pricing and talk through a couple of ideas for optimizing your subscription strategy to get the most value for your dollar this season.
ESPN Unlimited and Peacock Raise Subscription Fees
ESPN Unlimited, which is a major hub for college football and the NFL’s Monday Night Football, and NBC’s Peacock both announced price increases in August 2026.
Here’s a breakdown of what each is doing:
Peacock
NBC is home to 22 NFL games this season, including the weekly Sunday Night Football telecast. It also carries major college football games, including much of Notre Dame’s schedule and select Big Ten matchups. Subscribers to Peacock’s Premium and Premium Plus tiers can stream these events live.
On August 18, Peacock announced it is raising prices across all three subscription tiers. That increase is effective now for new subscribers, while existing subscribers can expect to see a bump on their first billing date on or after September 17, 2026.
This increase will impact both monthly and annual subscription pricing, with monthly fee bumps ranging from $1 to $3 and annual increases ranging from $10 to $30.
ESPN Unlimited
Roughly one year ago, ESPN launched its much-anticipated “sports-only” streaming service that allowed you access to its family of sports networks without having to pay for a full cable, satellite or live TV streaming subscription.
ESPN Unlimited gives you access to live streams of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, SEC Network, ACC Network, ABC on ESPN, and more. This is where you’ll find the NFL’s Monday Night Football broadcast, as well as the overwhelming majority of SEC and ACC football games this season.
On August 23, ESPN revealed it plans to raise the price of its ESPN Unlimited subscriptions effective September 17.
This increase also impacts any legacy Disney+ bundle that includes ESPN Unlimited. Check your upcoming bill for more details on how that will impact your specific bundle’s pricing.
Strategies for Finding Streaming Value During 2026 Football Season
If you’re a big football fan who needs to see all of the college and NFL action, you have a couple of money-saving strategies you can use to mitigate the increased pricing of these services:
Install an antenna at your home to get games for free. Money expert Clark Howard implemented this strategy last season, and he’s able to pull in high-quality reception of all games that are played on ABC, NBC, FOX and CBS via over-the-air transmission. It costs him nothing beyond the initial antenna purchase and he says he sees the action much faster than his friends who are watching via slight delay on streaming services.
Consider returning to live TV streaming via skinny bundle. Many of the top live TV streamers (YouTube TV, DIRECTV, Fubo, Sling TV) have started offering niche “skinny” bundles to attract customers who are primarily interested in a specific genre of content. Each of them offers a sports package that costs less than their full streaming subscriptions. And several of them now feature ESPN Unlimited as an included part of the subscription price.
For many cord cutters who implement a “part-time” subscription strategy for football season, the simplest answer may be to simply eat the extra few bucks a month on the ESPN Unlimited and Peacock subscription to keep their strategy intact for 2026.
Will these price increases impact your decision to keep either of these services? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the Clark.com community.
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