NFL Sunday Ticket vs. ESPN Unlimited: Do You Need Both?
Publishing date: Aug 22, 2026
Update date: Aug 27, 2026
Photo: Matt Benson
Sunday Ticket hands you out-of-market Sunday afternoon games while ESPN Unlimited hands you Monday Night Football. Neither one touches the other's slot on the schedule, so the real question isn't which one to pick. It's whether your viewing habits need one, the other, or both.
Here's what each one covers, what they cost this season, and how to figure out which side of that split you fall on.
What NFL Sunday Ticket covers
Sunday Ticket is built around one narrow window: Sunday afternoon games (Eastern time) that aren't shown on your local CBS or FOX channels. There are no preseason, no postseason, no games broadcast nationally, and none of the internationally aired matchups.
The national broadcast exclusion is the easy item to forget. Sunday Night Football, Thursday Night Football, and Monday Night Football are all national broadcasts, so none of them come with Sunday Ticket no matter how many out-of-market games you're paying for.
If you live in Miami and your team is the Cowboys, Sunday Ticket is how you watch their Sunday afternoon games that Miami stations don't air. It won't get you their Monday night appearances, their national Thursday games, or the playoffs.
Sunday Ticket is sold as a season pass, not a monthly subscription. New subscribers pay $240 for the season whether they bundle with YouTube TV or buy it standalone through YouTube Primetime Channels, split into 8 non-cancelable payments from September through April.
Returning users pay more: $378 for the YouTube TV-bundled plan or $480 for the standalone version, which makes it significantly cheaper to get the bundle.
A Student Plan runs $119 flat for the season, and a Heroes Service Plan (military, first responders, medical workers, and teachers) costs $198 flat.
What ESPN Unlimited covers for football
ESPN split its old ESPN+ product into two plans in 2025. Select kept the on-demand content: out-of-market NHL and MLS games, PGA Tour golf, ESPN+ originals, and the 30 for 30 documentary library, all for $13.99 a month or $139.99 a year. None of that includes NFL games.
Unlimited costs more, $31.99 a month or $319.99 a year, and adds live ESPN channels on top of everything Select includes. That's where the NFL content comes in. It has all 17 Monday Night Football games this season, 10 of which are also shown on ABC. Since July 2026 it also carries NFL Network, which ESPN now owns, so Unlimited subscribers get NFL Network's daily studio shows, its full preseason slate, and its seven exclusive regular-season games at no extra cost.
Unlimited doesn't carry Sunday afternoon out-of-market games at all. Its out-of-market content, inherited from Select, covers NHL and MLS, not football.
A standalone ESPN Unlimited subscription isn't the only route to those Monday night games, though. Monday Night Football airs on the ESPN channel itself, so any live TV plan that carries ESPN gets you the games too:
- Hulu + Live TV's With Ads and No Ads plans already include full ESPN Unlimited access at no extra charge
- A YouTube TV Base, Sports, or Sports + News plan carries the ESPN channel with nothing to activate
- Fubo carries the ESPN channels on its Core, Ultra, and Sports + News plans
- DIRECTV includes the ESPN channel on every package
- Sling TV's Orange plan (or its $4.99 one-day pass) carries the ESPN channel on its own
None of these are worth buying just for Monday Night Football, but if one is already on your bill, the Monday night games come with it.
Price and coverage side by side
Swipe to see the full table →
| Plan | New subscriber price | Renewal price | Sunday afternoon out-of-market games | Monday Night Football |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday Ticket (YouTube TV-bundled) | $240/season | $378/season | Yes | No |
| Sunday Ticket (standalone) | $240/season | $480/season | Yes | No |
| ESPN Select | $13.99/mo or $139.99/yr | Same | No | No |
| ESPN Unlimited | $31.99/mo or $319.99/yr | Same | No | Yes |
Weighing a seasonal package like this against everything else on your bill is exactly what a Stream Engine Planner report is built for. Run your free optimization → and it'll check whether adding Sunday Ticket, ESPN Unlimited, or both fits your household's spending instead of treating them as one-off purchases.
Why the two don't overlap
Most guides say "they're for different situations" and leave it there. The specific reason is that Sunday Ticket's contract explicitly excludes national broadcasts, and ESPN Unlimited's NFL rights are limited to the Monday night package. There's no shared content between them.
A fan who wants full Sunday coverage of an out-of-market team doesn't get any of it from Unlimited, and a fan who wants every Monday night matchup doesn't get any of it from Sunday Ticket. They're not competing products with overlapping content the way ESPN Select and Unlimited are. Instead they're two separate portions of the NFL season that both come at a real cost.
That also means neither one is a smaller or cheaper version of the other. Someone comparing prices and assuming Sunday Ticket's $240 season pass is a discount alternative to Unlimited's $319.99 annual plan is comparing two products with zero shared content, not two versions of the same content.
Do you need both?
If you follow an out-of-market team and want to see their Sunday afternoon games, Sunday Ticket is the only legal way to do that.
If Monday Night Football is required for you regardless of which teams are playing, ESPN Unlimited gets you all 17 games without hoping your local ABC affiliate carries a given week's game.
It's not the only route to the ESPN channel itself, though. Hulu + Live TV includes full ESPN Unlimited access, a YouTube TV Base, Sports, or Sports + News plan carries the ESPN channel outright, and Fubo, DIRECTV, and Sling TV's Orange plan all carry it too.
A fan who wants both full Sunday coverage of an out-of-market team plus every Monday night game ends up paying for both products. At new subscriber pricing with a full annual Unlimited plan, that's $240 for Sunday Ticket plus $319.99 for Unlimited, $559.99 combined for a first season. Renewal-year Sunday Ticket pricing pushes that total to $697.99 with the YouTube TV-bundled plan or $799.99 with the standalone version, on top of Unlimited's own $319.99 renewal.
A casual viewer who mostly cares about a handful of marquee matchups, or whose team's games usually land on national broadcasts anyway, can often skip one or both. Our full breakdown of whether NFL Sunday Ticket is worth it and our ESPN Unlimited deep dive both walk through that calculation service by service.
If you're trying to figure out whether Select alone (skipping Unlimited's football coverage entirely) makes sense for the rest of ESPN's lineup, our ESPN Unlimited vs. ESPN Select comparison for Monday Night Football covers that split in more depth.
Making the call
Start by asking which games you'd miss without each service. If it's your team's out-of-market Sunday games, Sunday Ticket is non-negotiable and ESPN Unlimited won't substitute for it.
If it's Monday Night Football specifically, Sunday Ticket won't help. You'll need ESPN Unlimited itself, or a live TV plan that already carries it (Hulu + Live TV, or a YouTube TV Base, Sports, or Sports + News plan), or another ESPN carrier like Fubo, DIRECTV, or Sling TV's Orange plan.
If it's both, budget for both, since there's no bundle or crossover discount that combines them. And since Sunday Ticket is a season pass with 8 non-cancelable payments, our guide on when to pause vs. cancel a streaming subscription is worth reading before you commit, since the flexibility you'd normally have with a monthly service doesn't apply here.
For the full picture of every NFL broadcast partner this season, not just these two, our 2026 NFL streaming guide maps out where every game airs. And before you add either service, or both, a free Stream Engine Planner report checks the total against your whole household lineup instead of leaving it as an isolated decision. Run your free optimization → and see where Sunday Ticket and ESPN Unlimited fit against everything else you're paying for.
Frequently asked questions
Does ESPN Unlimited include NFL Sunday Ticket games?
No, ESPN Unlimited's only NFL coverage is Monday Night Football. Its out-of-market library, inherited from ESPN Select, covers NHL and MLS games, not NFL Sunday afternoon games.
Does NFL Sunday Ticket include Monday Night Football?
No, Sunday Ticket explicitly excludes national broadcasts, and Monday Night Football is a national broadcast. You'd need ESPN Unlimited, a live TV plan that includes ESPN Unlimited access (Hulu + Live TV), a service carrying the ESPN channel (a YouTube TV Base, Sports, or Sports + News plan, Fubo, DIRECTV, or Sling TV's Orange plan), or your local ABC channels for the games that air there.
Can I get NFL Sunday Ticket without YouTube TV?
Yes, NFL Sunday Ticket is sold standalone through YouTube Primetime Channels for the same $240 new-subscriber season price as the YouTube TV-bundled plan, though the standalone version's renewal price ($480) runs higher than the bundled plan's renewal price ($378). As a result, it's usually more cost-effective for returning Sunday Ticket customers to get the YouTube TV bundle instead of standalone.
Is there a discount for buying Sunday Ticket and ESPN Unlimited together?
No confirmed bundle exists between the two. ESPN sells its own bundle pairing Unlimited with NFL+ Premium for $41.99 a month, but that's a separate product from Sunday Ticket and doesn't reduce its price.