NFL, NBC to Stream Games Live
NFL, NBC Sports: Entire Sunday Night Football schedule to be streamed online.
By Ben Grossman -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/25/2008 9:51:00 PM
As reported Friday by B&C, the National Football League and NBC Sports announced Monday that they will stream the entire Sunday Night Football lineup online at both NFL.com and NBCSports.com.
It will mark the first time a complete NFL contest will be streamed free-of-charge live in the United States. The streaming will be delivered under the title “Sunday Night Football Extra.”
The live coverage on both Web sites will come from NBC’s television coverage of its 17-game Sunday Night Football schedule.
It remains to be seen what the agreement will mean for the NFL’s online strategy going forward. Prior to this, none of the NFL’s other broadcast- or cable-television partners (Fox, CBS, ESPN) have been able to stream games free-of-charge as part of their partnerships with the league. The league informed those partners of the NBC deal in recent weeks.
Some industry insiders wondered if this is the first step toward the league eventually making all of its games available free-of-charge online. That, however, would take some wrangling with DirecTV. The service’s subscribers who purchase the additional out-of-market “NFL Sunday Ticket” package can also view games online. But they must subscribe to DirecTV, order the Sunday Ticket package (which retails for about $269) and also order the “Superfan” upgrade (which costs another $99).
The deal with NBC was called a “one-year experiment” by a source with knowledge of the situation. NBC executives hope the “experiment” does not cannibalize viewership of its $600 million-per-year package and instead keeps more viewers around -- for instance, in the case of a lopsided contest.
The streaming will not include the ads that run on NBC’s network coverage. Instead, a separate package will be sold jointly by the NFL and NBC. The Web presence also creates the opportunity for a presenting sponsorship to be sold online, as well as other potential sales elements.
Sunday Night Football Extra will contain a number of bonus features available only online. Among them are expected to be additional camera angles such as a dedicated camera following a star player, in-game on-demand highlights and picture-in-picture capability.
NBC will also leverage its Football Night in America studio team to bolster the online package, with the talent providing special in-game studio updates. The package may also include a live blog featuring both NBC and NFL Network talent.
The Sunday Night Football Extra online delivery will debut with NBC’s season-opening telecast of the Washington Redskins-New York Giants game Sept. 4 at 7 p.m. (EST).
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Please hurry. I would love to see my Chicago Bears recapture the Super
Bowl this year. Direct TV charges alot and they lock you in to them for 2
years. I have cable because of the 3 Package Deal. I cannot afford to do
Directj Tv to get the football package because you need to buy a very
expensive package before you can get NFL. I hope things go well where
we can use our computers to see the teams we want to see. I am not a
local fan. It is hard when you follow a team that is not in your area. Good
Luck.
Rosemarie A. Fiore - 7/31/2008 6:19:00 PM EDT -
Finally someone to give Rupert some competition. Direct TV has more than doubled the price of Sunday Ticket since it's beginning. Started out paying $129.00 for the package. Hopefully a package will come about that let's a fan get the team that they want, every week, although any game is great to watch. Also hope that NBC's stream works better than CBS' March Madness stream. Suggestion to NBC Use Windows Media Player as a viewer for the programming. Very simple to bring to full screen.
Bruce Cox - 7/30/2008 1:16:00 AM EDT -
TALK ABOUT CANNIBALISM!
This will be the death of the station business.
The net and TV can co-exist... but what's wrong with making the full TV experience something special and exclusive? At least demand some kind of monetization from the net.
Very short-sighted. Station groups, unite!
Adam Smith - 7/27/2008 4:56:00 PM EDT
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