Football season is going to be here before we know it, and people across the United States and abroad will spend millions and millions of hours watching games throughout the fall and start of winter. Yet, in 2018, we have not had an NFL game broadcast in 4K. Is the time for regular 4K NFL and college football games coming soon? There’s no clear answer at the moment, but hopefully it is time.
Making the switch to live 4K broadcasts is costly, which is a big reason the networks haven’t been quick on delivering 4K content. However, DirecTV started delivering 4K content in 2016, and the available events continue to grow.
There have been 4K NHL, NBA, and MLB games, along with golf majors and soccer matches—including this year’s World Cup—in the ultra-high-definition broadcast. There have also been 4K college football games, and there are more coming this year. But there has yet to be an NFL game (which is by far the most popular sporting event in the United States) broadcast in 4K.
With the season coming up, it doesn’t seem likely that it’ll happen to open the season, either. Those with 4K televisions and DirecTV are in luck if they like college football, though. Last season, there was about a game per week in 4K on DirecTV’s dedicated 4K channel, and there are going to be more in 2018—though it’s unclear how many to this point, as the current upcoming 4K events schedule from DirecTV only goes to the end of the month.
On August 31, San Diego State faces Stanford in 4K via Fox Sports 1. FS1 delivering more 4K broadcasts this year indicates they have the ability to do so for some NFL games. And with FOX getting Thursday Night Football in a multi-billion deal earlier this year, it makes sense that they would offer TNF in 4K at some point. However, as stated earlier, the NFL or FOX not making an announcement yet indicates it might not be coming.
Perhaps the NFL wants to wait until they can get games regularly in 4K instead of just rolling out a handful per season. With DirecTV and the Sunday Ticket package, the capability is there for an entire slate of Sunday games to be broadcast in 4K. It would be quite the selling point for NFL fans, but there would be some things to work out between DirecTV and the league.
Would it be exclusive to DirecTV, or would cable companies get games in 4K too? The NFL might prefer the latter, which could be what’s holding up even just a few games in 4K this season.
CBS has a history with live 4K sports broadcasts—just this month, the PGA Championship was in 4K from DirecTV. CBS hosts Super Bowl LIII this February, so the NFL might feel it might be the perfect time to unveil The Big Game in ultra-high-definition before having most of the games broadcast the same way in 2019. As consumers, this would be less than ideal considering 4K is clearly a possibility, technology-wise, for at least a few games this season.
For now, as disappointing as it is, regular 4K broadcasts for the NFL remain something that would be a pleasant surprise for 2018.
I’ll take the CFB in 4k at least.
Ridiculous they don’t have it full 4K yet.
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How does college look in UHD? I’ve never watched a football game in it.
Looks fantastic. I was switching back and forth between HD and the UHD. There was a big difference in color, everything popped. You could see the blades of grass It almost made me feel like watching football in HD was like watching it in SD.
I would have thought there’s money to be made by doing games in 4K but I guess not.
The question is how much would you pay to watch Thursday Night Football in 4k? $10/a game? Full year of Amazon Prime? Or how much of an upcharge would you pay for DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket. Until local broadcasters can transmit in 4k (4-10 years) that’ll be the only way to get NFL in 4k.
It’s been often said in the early days of HD that no advertiser cared or would pay one penny more for an ad in HD.
Get it together NFL!!
NFL in 4K would be amazing.
NFL in 1080p HDR with HEVC and minimal compression would be better. Everything is so over-compressed these days! HD isn’t what it was 15 years ago.
100% NFL on fox quality especially is awful. Looks almost SD..
True that. I have a 90” Sharp HDTV. When playing blu-Ray DVDs the 1080P picture is as good as any 4K display I’ve seen. Streaming or broadcasting in 1080P would suffice. BTW, 780P turned out to be a mistake some broadcasters chose over 1080I
NFL’s a different beast in that most of their games are broadcast (over-the-air) properties and the broadcast networks hold the streaming rights, as well. (ESPN has streaming rights on MNF, too. We’ll leave mobile streaming out of this as it’s not really relevant). That’s not to say NBC couldn’t offer up a stream of SNF in 4k, but you can bet local affiliates would scream bloody murder if the stream didn’t carry local commercials and so forth. And, if you’ve noticed, not every affiliate of every network has signed off on live streaming. So, you’d need to live in a market that’s on that live-stream list. BUT… while technically possible, what’s the incentive? Show me the money.
NO NETWORK AFFILIATES CAN CARRY A 4K BROADCAST, yet. Sure, the NFL Sunday Ticket argument holds some water and might actually happen if DirecTV thinks they can make a dime off of it. But, remember. NFLST games are out-of-market only. For ANY game broadcast locally, viewers MUST watch their local affiliate or stream the game ONLY if the local affiliate has signed off on streaming through the networks’ portals. Cable CANNOT simulcast a broadcast-owned game. Even if, say, NBC trotted out a 4k SNF game on Comcast systems, local affiliates would need to waive exclusive rights for it to be shown in their markets. Few affiliates are going to sign off on exclusivity for their most-watched program. That means, if SNF did a 4k broadcast, it’s likely only people in NBC O&O markets would be permitted to view it.
Speaking of cable, ESPN doesn’t have a 4k channel and isn’t likely to trot one out since most of it’s cable clients can’t carry it. Not good business idea as driving customers to cable’s competition (Dish and DirecTV) isn’t going to play well at the next carriage negotiations. So, no ESPN 4k. That rules out MNF in 4k.
That leaves TNF as the ONLY logical choice for any 4k NFL game anytime soon. TNF is NFLN’s property. They sell broadcast simulcasts as well as streaming rights. That’s something Amazon could grab for Prime, perhaps. The NFL could also split off another Sunday morning game as they’ve done, before. (NFLN could also go 4k but, again, none of its cable clients can carry that. See the previous paragraph).
And it all comes right back to the money argument. How will the NFL or its broadcast partners make back the additional expense of distributing games in 4k? Not by advertising. Ratings won’t go up because a game is in 4k. So, the costs can’t be recouped by advertising. If you want the NFL in 4k, it’s gonna cost you. Amazon Prime, perhaps. DirecTV Sunday Ticket 4k, maybe. Local broadcast stations? Not for a long time. If ever.
Soccer’s already got games in 4K what the hells going on nfl is most watch
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The Packers Eagles game tomorrow is being broadcast in 4K HDR – on DIRECTV for the very first time. It’s much better the regular HD if the college games are any indication
Yup, we had an article on this last week! Thanks for reading and sharing that it will be in 4K tomorrow. Should be great!
https://wolfsports.com/nfl/thursday-night-football-to-be-broadcast-in-4k-via-directv-starting-in-week-4/
Being a DTV customer, I’m kind of p***ed for being charged for every crumb they throw us. Paying over $100 a month for TV is enough already. DTV is as bad as Sirius XM radio.
I completely agree. Especially considering their customer service is so bad despite AT&T being one of the biggest companies in the world. Very disappointing.
Any extra charge for the 4K game?
Thank you for reading. If you have 4K in your DIRECTV package and have the a 4K DIRECTV box (and a 4K television, obviously), then you can watch. It is not pay-per-view or anything like that if that is what you mean. But you do need the correct DIRECTV package and a 4K box if you do not have it. It looks great—noticeably clearer and better than the standard broadcasts. Some college games are also in 4K. This should give more information: https://www.directv.com/technology/4k