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Every gameday during the NFL season, millions of fans head to their local sports bar to watch their team. Football season brings big money to the staff and owners of these establishments. Some rely on it to survive.
A recent change by the NFL has some accusing the league of putting those livelihoods at stake.

Dante Deiana (@barstooldonte), a DJ and Barstool Sports writer based in Chicago, recently went off on the NFL’s streaming pivot and its punishing effect on sports bars across the country. And the receipts mostly check out.
In a viral TikTok, Deiana explains what he calls a raw deal for bar owners heading into the 2026 NFL season.
“There’s only one legal way to do it now, and it’s through one company called EverPass,” he said. “There’s no more DirecTV; there’s no backup, no shopping around.”
He’s mostly right. The NFL and DirecTV, which carried the package for over three decades, couldn’t reach a renewal deal. So now EverPass Media, co-owned by the NFL’s venture capital arm, 32 Equity, and RedBird Capital, is now the sole authorized commercial distributor of NFL Sunday Ticket.

Deiana cited a Texas bar owner who testified before Congress that a single commercial video switch costs $15,000, with full upgrades running $30,000 to $40,000 per venue.
Jim Hallers, founder of Tailgators Pub & Grill and Citizens Grill in Houston, Texas, told the House Judiciary Committee on June 10 that bars can’t simply swap 40 satellite boxes for 40 streaming devices. “The internet capacity, hardware, control systems, and reliability are not there yet,” Hallers testified.
Where Deiana gets a little loose is calling the NFL “110 billion dollar league.”
That figure refers to the league’s 11-year media rights package — not its valuation or annual revenue, which sits around $23 billion.

He also characterized NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s absence from the hearing as a “no call, no show.” Goodell actually formally declined through NFL general counsel, citing ongoing Sunday Ticket antitrust litigation. Nobody from the league showed up or responded afterward — but it was a communicated refusal, not a ghosting.
His claim that the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission are investigating is true.
The DOJ opened an antitrust probe in April. The FCC is also actively reviewing whether sports leagues should continue to benefit from antitrust exemptions under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.
People sided firmly with Deiana in the comments.

“They are a billion-dollar business, they know exactly what they are doing,” said one commenter. “The NFL is awful now. The costs are ridiculous. I am a die-hard fan, and now I am considering my fandom. You are correct they don’t give a s*** about the fans.”
Another person said they were glad Deiana spoke up and explained how the constellation of streamers has changed everything for fans of all sports, not just football.
“I’m glad someone is finally talking about this,” they wrote. “My family and I are big hockey fans and this Stanley Cup season, the NHL would switch which streaming service would livestream the games. So one night you’d have to pay for Hulu, while the next night you’d have to pay for ESPN, and some nights it would only be on HBO Max. It’s all getting out of hand.”
During his testimony, Hallers told Congress that the transition isn’t just about cost. It’s literally everything required to run a business. “It is one thing to stream a game at home,” he said. “It is another thing to stream 10 noon games at once while also running point-of-sale systems, credit card processing, security cameras, online ordering, music, office systems, and customer Wi-Fi.”

The pressure extends well beyond bar owners.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez testified at the same hearing that the economics of watching sports have fundamentally changed.
“What used to arrive through an antenna, available to anyone regardless of income, has increasingly migrated behind a growing stack of subscriptions and league-specific apps,” Gomez said. “For a family trying to follow their team through a full season, the cost of piecing together access across multiple platforms adds up quickly.”
The Big Lead reached out to Deiana, the FCC, and the NFL via email for more information.
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