On Wednesday it was announced that the NFL will air its first online-only game on October 25 and that Yahoo will host the livestream. It will be the matchup of the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars that is set to take place in London. The game will also air on conventional broadcast and cable TV in Jacksonville and Buffalo. Reportedly Yahoo paid $20 million for the rights to stream the game and it has exclusive ad rights for the game in return, but the game will be free to viewers. There may be some issues with airing a game in this format, but overall the NFL is smart to try this.
Both the Bills and Jaguars are small market teams and while there is a possibility Buffalo makes the playoffs, Jacksonville most likely will not. That could hurt interest. Since the game is set to take place on a Sunday afternoon in London, that means that it will air at 9:30 AM on the East Coast and 6:30 AM on the West Coast. No one knows what the quality of the streaming will be and if a viewer’s device keeps buffering during the game that could hurt overall viewership.
Even with all of those potential problems this is a good move by the NFL. First off, even though this game doesn’t feature two teams who are exactly juggernauts in the NFL, fans aren’t going to complain about an extra free game being available to them. NFL fans love watching games, even those that do not feature their favorite team. This may be because of fantasy leagues or simply because the NFL is really entertaining, but no matter the reason, people love their football.
Plus, how we view television programs is changing. People stream movies and TV shows all the time now. The NFL is simply trying to at least keep up with these changes. As Tommy’s father said in the movie Tommy Boy, “Any business that tries to wait it out will be just that, out. In [business], you’re either growing or you’re dying. There ain’t no third direction.”
The NFL is wildly popular and I’m not trying to suggest otherwise, but change is necessary even for the most popular businesses/industries. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell may swing and miss on a lot of other topics (like handing out really inconsistent suspensions), but at least he, and the rest of the NFL’s front office, understands this fact.
Most NFL games are locked up with TV networks until 2022 at the earliest, except for some Thursday night games, which CBS will broadcast this fall. Thursday night games could be available after that and we’ll see if any of those games wind up online. This may wind up being an epic failure, or it may only work this one time because it’s a novelty. But refusing to try new things like providing an NFL game online would be a mistake. I don’t know how it will turn out, but I do know the NFL is smart to try this relatively riskless move.
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