The Switch’s NFL Sunday Ticket streaming service threatens sports barriers, owner says
Tailgators Pub & Grill founder Jim Hallers discusses the challenges of live streaming for bar owners and the impact of the World Cup and other major sporting events on the industry during ‘Varney & Co.’
The traditional American pastime of gathering at the local sports hall to watch Sunday football is being choked by technology and finance, warns one food service industry.
“That’s why we’re talking, because the simple thing is that it’s difficult to watch all the things that are broadcast… Is it on YouTube TV? [NFL] Sunday Ticket? Is it Amazon?” Texas restaurateur and Tailgators Pub & Grill founder Jim Hallers said on “Varney & Co.” Friday.
“30 years ago, it came to us through DirecTV, and it worked for us,” he continued. “And so we like the middle ground, but we just need the technology to work, and streaming is still immature.”
Testifying before Congress on Wednesday, Hallers explained to lawmakers that the sudden division of the sports stadium into separate broadcast applications creates an expensive machine for hospitality facilities, which threatens the business model – often in rural areas – pubs that rely on NFL fans to keep their doors open in the fall.
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“Everybody has to move to broadcast. And so, literally, now, we have to buy broadcast boxes. And in a small regular bar where I have maybe 30 or 40 TVs with a DIRECTV box installed behind every television, now I have to get an EverPass broadcast box. But you can’t put an EverPass broadcast box behind every TV like that. Hill doesn’t work. “Just think at home, if you’re trying to stream, you know, Netflix 30 at once, your internet will die. Yes, it’s the same way in many bars and restaurants today.”
Fans watch Super Bowl LX at the Saloon in Boston on February 8, 2026. (Getty Images)
“One commercial video switch with enough inputs and outputs can cost over $15,000. A full upgrade including equipment, wiring and labor, will cost $30,000 to $40,000 for a restaurant,” he testified. “So instead of making business easier, the change adds another layer of cost and complexity.”
Wednesday’s conference hearing came from the Iowa Restaurant Association and the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, each representing thousands of independent restaurant and bar owners, sending letters to their state’s most powerful GOP lawmakers urging them to make “a major change in the commercial distribution of the NFL’s Sunday Ticket that threatens to place immediate and significant burdens on their small businesses” across their states.
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The concern comes after streaming service EverPass Media announced it will be the exclusive trading option for NFL Sunday Ticket starting in the 2026 season. The Iowa letter was sent to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, while the Wisconsin plan went to Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust.
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“We understand that transitioning to a broadcast-based solution for NFL Sunday Ticket may require planning, from hardware connectivity to site readiness. That’s why our team is committed to helping customers make the transition with confidence and be fully prepared before the start of the game. Our goal is simple: make sure your site is ready before the first Sunday of the season, so you can focus on what’s most important to the best visitor website: bringing the all-important E to E’s door. he is studying.
“We really need it to work,” Hallers pleaded on Friday. “It’s not about price. We want technology that works, and that’s what they’ve been taking away from us.”
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Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.
