The Baltimore Ravens vs Indianapolis Colts game is watchable through the NFL's Sunday Ticket package on YouTube TV, CBS or Fox regional broadcasts depending on your market, free over-the-air antenna if you live in either team's home territory, and the NFL+ app for local and primetime games. Your exact option depends on your ZIP code, your device, and whether the game falls inside a broadcast blackout zone. The rest of this guide explains the machinery behind those rules so you can pick the right path on game day.
Why broadcast rights fragment by geography
The NFL sells its media rights in layers, and each layer controls a different slice of who can watch what. National packages like CBS's Sunday afternoon window, NBC's Sunday Night Football, ESPN's Monday Night Football, and Amazon's Thursday Night Football sit at the top. Below them, each team negotiates local broadcast deals with affiliates in its home market. The league then applies territorial rules that decide which stations carry which games.
When the Ravens host or visit the Colts, the game lands in one of those national or regional windows. The network holding that window, usually CBS for AFC matchups, distributes the feed to affiliates. Each affiliate decides whether to carry it based on the market it serves. A Baltimore station almost always airs a Ravens game in its window. An Indianapolis station does the same for the Colts. A station in, say, Denver only airs the game if the national window assigns it there and no higher-priority game conflicts.
The mechanism is a priority ladder. The league ranks games by market relevance, then feeds each affiliate the highest-ranked game available. That is why two viewers in the same state can see different games on the same channel at the same kickoff time. Your ZIP code, not your cable package, is the first filter.
How streaming and authentication actually work
Streaming looks simpler than broadcast, but it inherits the same geography. NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV carries out-of-market Sunday afternoon games. It does not carry games that are already available on a local affiliate in your market, because the league protects those local ratings. If the Ravens vs Colts game airs on your local CBS station, Sunday Ticket will not show it to you. You watch it on the local station instead.
NFL+ carries local and primetime games on mobile devices and tablets, with live local and primetime games available on phones and tablets. It does not carry Sunday afternoon out-of-market games; that is Sunday Ticket's job. The two products are deliberately complementary, not overlapping.
Authentication adds a second gate. Streaming services check whether your account is entitled to a given feed, and they check your location at the moment you press play. A Sunday Ticket subscription bought in one market does not automatically unlock a game blacked out in another. Location services, IP address, and account billing address all feed the entitlement decision.
The practical upshot: pick the product that matches the game's window, then confirm your market. A Ravens-Colts game in a Sunday afternoon slot means local affiliate or Sunday Ticket. A primetime slot means national broadcast plus NFL+ or the network's own app.
Quantified context: windows, markets, and blackout math
The NFL season runs 18 weeks with 272 regular-season games, and each game occupies one of a handful of broadcast windows. Sunday afternoon splits into a 1:00 p.m. ET window and a 4:05 or 4:25 p.m. ET window. Sunday Night Football kicks at 8:20 p.m. ET. Monday Night Football kicks at 8:15 p.m. ET. Thursday Night Football kicks at 8:15 p.m. ET.
Blackout rules matter less than they once did, but they still exist. The league's historical 72-hour sellout rule required a game to sell out 72 hours before kickoff to air locally. The NFL suspended that policy for several seasons and now applies a more flexible standard, so a Ravens or Colts home game rarely blacks out in its home market. Still, the rule is not dead, and a market can lose a local feed under specific conditions.
Out-of-market availability depends on how many games share a window. A Sunday 1:00 p.m. ET window can carry up to eight or more games across the country, and each affiliate picks one. That competition is why a Ravens-Colts game might be unavailable in a neutral market even though it is on national television somewhere. The number of available feeds is finite, and the priority ladder decides the winner.
Timeline: what happens between kickoff and your screen
| Stage | Timing | What determines your access |
|---|---|---|
| Rights assignment | Months before season | League sets national and regional windows |
| Affiliate scheduling | 1-2 weeks before game | Local station picks from available feeds |
| Blackout evaluation | 72 hours before kickoff | Home-market sellout and league policy |
| Stream entitlement check | At login and at play | Account, location, and subscription tier |
| Kickoff | Scheduled time | Feed locks to entitled viewers |
| In-game blackout lift | If applicable | League can restore a local feed mid-game |
The table shows where most viewing failures originate. The affiliate scheduling step, not the streaming app, is the usual culprit. A viewer who assumes Sunday Ticket will carry a locally available game learns the hard way that the product deliberately withholds it.
Edge cases that break the simple answer
A few situations scramble the clean "local or Sunday Ticket" rule. Travelers hit the first one. If you fly from Baltimore to Los Angeles on game day, your Sunday Ticket entitlement follows your account, but the local affiliate in Los Angeles may not carry the game. You can watch the out-of-market feed because your home market is not the LA market, but only if the game is not also available on an LA station.
Cord-cutters hit the second edge case. A viewer with no cable or satellite subscription can still watch a local affiliate through a free over-the-air antenna if the station's signal reaches the home. That is the cheapest legal path and the one most people forget. An indoor antenna costs about USD 20 to USD 40 and pulls in local CBS, Fox, NBC, and ABC affiliates in most metro areas.
The third edge case is the international viewer. NFL Game Pass International carries out-of-market games outside the United States, and its rules differ from domestic Sunday Ticket. A viewer in Canada or the United Kingdom does not face the same local-affiliate conflict. The mechanism is the same entitlement check, but the geography layer is national rather than regional.
The counterintuitive detail: a higher-priced streaming bundle does not guarantee access to a given game. Sunday Ticket's most expensive tier still withholds games available on your local affiliate. Paying more buys more out-of-market games, not the one already in your market. That inversion trips up casual viewers every season.
Misconceptions worth retiring
The most common misconception is that Sunday Ticket shows every game. It shows out-of-market Sunday afternoon games. Local games, primetime games, and games on national windows fall outside its scope. A viewer who buys Sunday Ticket expecting the full slate will be disappointed on Sunday night.
The second misconception is that a VPN solves blackouts. It does not reliably, and it violates the terms of service of most streaming products. Location checks combine IP address, device GPS, and billing address, so a single spoofed layer often fails. The league and its partners also actively detect and block circumvention.
The third misconception is that the NFL+ app replaces a full streaming subscription. NFL+ carries local and primetime games on mobile devices, but it does not carry Sunday afternoon out-of-market games. It is a complement to Sunday Ticket, not a substitute.
Practical actions before kickoff
Confirm the game's window first. Check the official NFL schedule for the kickoff time and the network carrying the game. The window determines which product you need. Check your local affiliate. Visit the station's website or use a TV listings service with your ZIP code to see whether the game airs locally. Test your antenna if you have one. Rescan channels a day before kickoff; local affiliate frequencies shift and a stale scan loses the signal. Verify your streaming entitlement before game day. Log in to Sunday Ticket or NFL+ and confirm the game appears in your available feed list, not just in the schedule. Keep a backup path ready. A free over-the-air antenna plus a streaming login covers both the local and out-of-market cases.
Red flags that signal a viewing failure before it happens:
The game appears in a schedule but not in your available feed list. Your streaming account's billing address differs from your current location. Your local affiliate's website lists a different game in the same window. You are relying on a single device with no antenna backup.
Limitations and what this guide cannot tell you
Broadcast rules change between seasons, and affiliate schedules are set close to game day. This guide explains the stable machinery, not a specific week's listings. Confirm the current window and network with the official NFL schedule and your local station before kickoff. Prices cited for antennas and streaming tiers are approximate and vary by retailer and region.
The article is general educational information about how NFL broadcast and streaming rights work. It is not a guarantee of access for any specific game, market, or device, and it does not endorse circumventing location or entitlement checks. For your exact situation, check the official NFL and network listings for the current season.