NFL adding RedZone, NFL Network to its streaming service

In a time when streaming services are increasingly losing favor among Wall Street investors and media observers, the NFL continues to bet on its native service by finally adding live programming that wasn't available for all its subscribers when it launched. As reported in The Verge, senior vice president of NFL Media David Jureka said that the league will also develop original content for NFL+. Using its own channels for live streaming provides the league another way to reach consumers who don't subscribe to traditional cable or satellite packages, although it's asking those same consumers to fork over more money per month for another subscription service.

Prices will go up for both the standard and premium tiers. The basic NFL+ tier will go up from $4.99 per month to $6.99 per month ($49.99 per year, up from $39.99). Premium will go up from $9.99 per month to $14.99 per month ($99.99 per year, up from $79.99).

The league's network doesn't have the same cachet as it once did when it was the exclusive home of "Thursday Night Football," but it still carries Sunday morning games from the NFL International Series and late season Saturday contests.

NFL RedZone is one of the most popular channels in all of television, although because it's only active for a handful of days a year, it's not formally rated by Nielsen. The channel was boosted by the popularity of fantasy football in the 2000s through the 2010s and likely has the same fanatic following because of legalized sports betting. It was recently added to DirecTV Stream, which is one of the few multichannel streaming services to have all the channels from the four major mens' pro leagues, as well as regional sports networks.