Yahoo has announced it had landed exclusive rights to broadcast the Bills v. Jaguars game in London this October, making it the first time a regular-season NFL game will be live-streamed for free to online viewers around the world.
Now MLB At Bat has been around for years which let’s you stream out of market games to you TV, phone computer or Tablet. But non-playoff games, which are aired national,or your local teams games are block. Plus it is pay to watch service.
This move follow in the foot steps of FIFA streaming World Cup last year which became the most-streamed live event ever. In the wake of that success, ESPN launched a web-only subscription service that allowed people to watch the Cricket World Cup online without a cable subscription. Meanwhile, CBS, HBO (power by MLB Advanced Media) , and—starting in July—Showtime have launched standalone streaming services that include access to their own sports programming.
There’s been ongoing speculation for years that the NFL will soon have a team in London, catering to what NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has called “tremendous demand” for the sport in Europe. Regular season games have been played in London since 2007, which Goodell says was a turning point for American football’s popularity abroad.
Still, until now, the majority of these spikes in streaming TV activity have been due to special events; not even CBS has had permission to air regular NFL games on its service. All of which makes the Yahoo deal both a watershed and a test case for how the average sports fan will respond to getting the game online.
