United Brings Football to Flights with DISH, Starlink

Sports is the ultimate draw for live television on planes. It always has been. United Airlines will fill that demand on its fleet thanks to a new partnership with DISH to bring College and NFL football to its cabins.

The deal will see eight TV networks – ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, FS1, ESPN, ESPN2, NFL Network – available on its Starlink-equipped flights. Thursday Night Football via Amazon Prime will also be offered.

Starlink opens a whole new world of features and benefits for our customers, regardless of where they sit on the plane – now football fans don’t have to schedule their flights around game day.

– Andrew Nocella, United’s Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer

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The content will only be available on aircraft with Starlink internet service and in-seat entertainment screens. The channels will stream via the satellite internet link to each aircraft and then be distributed on board. Currently that covers roughly 220 mainline planes, though installations continue and are accelerating.¹

Read more: Making Marketing Pay: Beating Break-even with Ad-supported IFC

And, while live sports is the main draw, a company spokesperson confirms to PaxEx.Aero that the channels will be available even when football is not being played. This is, in reality, a live television offering couched in the context of football.

United has been clear in recent years about its plans to make the IFE system much more modular in terms of content. That includes things like an embedded Spotify client, not just the pre-stored content that launched last year. It also includes the company’s Kinective Marketing platform for targeting and personalization. And now some additional live television content.

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Separately, the carrier notes it carried 31 million passengers on its Starlink-equipped aircraft so far, with 14.2 million devices connected. A take rate under 50% is arguably lower than one might expect given the hype around the service quality, and that the service is free to passengers. Much of that comes down to the initial deployment focusing on the regional jet fleet, service shorter markets where being offline is less of an issue. As the larger planes are fitted it seems likely the take rates will increase.

1. By mid-February United expects to have 700 mainline aircraft with Starlink on board, per this most recent release. That’s a pace of roughly 100 installed each month. Which is a lot, but also slower than the planned ~1,000 total installed by EoY that was shared when the first 777 came online in June. ↩︎