Yahoo To Stream NFL Game From Wembley In October
We now know who will be partnering with the NFL for the league’s first-ever global (and completely free) live stream: it’s Yahoo. Having come out ahead of Google’s YouTube and other video services that reportedly vied for the honor, Yahoo will broadcast the October 25th International Series game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars from London’s Wembley Stadium. Unless you live in either team’s home market, Yahoo will be your one and only option for watching the Week 7 game. Recode reports that Yahoo paid at least $20 million to land the exclusive deal.
The stream will be available across desktop, smartphones, set-top boxes, and smart TVs, and all of Yahoo’s biggest properties (Yahoo.com, Yahoo Sports, and Tumblr) will be pointing users to it on game day. You choose how to watch the stream: it’ll be accessible by web and also through the company’s video-focused apps like Yahoo Screen.
Kickoff is scheduled for 9:30AM ET in the United States, which could lead to smaller ratings than your typical Sunday afternoon game. And yes, there will be ads. Yahoo sees this as a big opportunity to flex its advertising muscle and attract big-name sponsors, and from that perspective you should expect the game to resemble most TV broadcasts in the amount of ads you’ll see on screen through four quarters. Both Yahoo and the NFL plan to market this as a monumental moment for the league — because it is.
TV networks have been live-streaming the Super Bowl to web viewers for several years now, but this marks the first time the NFL itself is taking the plunge and, for one day only, shutting cable partners out of the mix. Realistically speaking, networks like CBS and FOX don’t need to worry about losing America’s biggest sport to Yahoo, YouTube, or anyone else for many years; they’ve got rights for Sunday games locked up through 2022. Similarly, ESPN’s Monday Night Football is also guaranteed to be a weekly ritual for at least seven more years. If anything, Thursday Night Football presents the best opportunity for streaming services to get into the game. NFL Network airs eight of those games each season, with CBS getting the other half. That arrangement will carry through 2015, but what happens after this year is less certain.
For right now, the International Series presented a unique opportunity for the NFL to make history, even if it’s a one-off. “We’ve had national windows before, but not necessarily a global window,” said Vishal Shah, the NFL’s VP of digital media business development. According to Shah, fans shouldn’t notice any difference between this and any other regular season game when it comes to polish and presentation. “It will look and feel and be delivered to the fans traditionally as a high-quality production would go. The talent, the storylines, the knowledge base of both the commentators and the ability to access information are going to be there.”
CBS is handling production duties for the football end of things, with Yahoo obviously focused on streaming and promotion. Over a billion people visit Yahoo’s various properties each month — with half of those visits from mobile devices. “The expectation is that just given the breadth of the reach and the breadth of the distribution, this really has the potential of being one of the leading live-streaming events that has been delivered via the internet,” said Shah. It’s a regular season NFL game, after all. People will be watching — even at 9:30 in the morning.
This article first appeared here.
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