• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 10 hours ago

What would the effect on consumers be if a national TV commercial appeared that encouraged them to spend around $600 or $1,000 a year on just NFL programming?

It sounds like a tough job.

New research from LightShed Partners provides an analysis that breaks down different ways for NFL fans to get all -- or virtually -- games for an entire season when looking at multiple combinations of access.

This includes over-the-air TV networks, streaming (Prime Video, Netflix) and traditional and virtual pay TV distributors (Xfinity, Spectrum, YouTube TV, DirecTV Genie).

It even factors in NFL Sunday Ticket, which allows consumers to view out-of-home market games.

The result was a yearly NFL price range comparison: From a "streaming bundle" -- $618 for the season -- to a Charter Spectrum package of $1005. Other bundle deals come mid-range from virtual pay TV providers: YouTube TV or DirecTV for $806, for example.

Why the exercise? The NFL is now getting heat from federal regulators and others over possible antitrust business behaviors, with media rights deal-making on the rise.

For decades, the league had an antitrust waiver that allowed the NFL league office to negotiate for all NFL teams with national and local TV/media deals.

Reports suggest a new round of national TV deal-making this year could double the current yearly cost of most NFL partner TV networks.

This has been spurred on from Rupert Murdoch, chairman emeritus of Fox Corp., amid recent complaints about ever-rising NFL costs.

Federal regulators worry about this. But does this really get filtered down to consumers? They see overall rising costs -- streaming especially. But do they blame the NFL?

They know that streamers and over-the-air TV networks just don’t air NFL 24 hours a day. They get scripted, non-scripted entertainment shows, news content, and video podcasts, among other programming.

Are they really concerned over rising NFL costs that could be filtered down through whatever pay TV distributor, or streaming bundle they are buying? Perhaps.

Going back to older issues surrounding the cable TV industry, maybe it should be pointed out that bundling doesn’t really help them -- it merely masks future efforts to raise pricing even more.

Marketers would do well to think of a new term for the phrase “a la carte’ programming.