Why am i being charged for a regional sports fee?

Packages Choice and higher include the Regional Sport Networks (RSNs) with the professional sport teams for where you live. Since this is market specific and not the same cost across the board, you get the RSN fee based on your address. This applies to all customers based on their address and package.

Packages below Choice (Family, Select, Entertainment) do not have RSNs, so there is no RSN fee.

Alternatively there is a special package called Preferred Xtra. No RSNs, so no RSN fee, and even the base cost is a couple dollars cheaper than Xtra. This makes is comparable to the overall cost as if you were on Choice, but with more channels, including some that Xtra doesn't have (i.e. Hallmark Movies & Mysteries). This is a nice option for those that don't watch sports (at least not the RSNs). It is not a normal publicly listed package (since one of DirecTV's biggest selling points is sports). So to see about changing to this package you must call DirecTV and when you get the voice system say "cancel" to route you to their retention department who can confirm if the package is still available and if so to change you to it.