Bills To Be Featured In Another NFL First; Twitter Live Streaming
During the 2015 Season, the Bills and the Jaguars made history. They both were a part of the first NFL game to be streamed online, free of charge. A first will once again happen this year for the franchise and the NFL.
The September 15th matchup against the New York Jets will be the first primetime NFL game streamed on Twitter and will once again be free of charge. This is big news for the NFL as the previous game made available to stream was a lower quality matchup in another country (United Kingdom).
The more recent explorations into the new age by the National Football League are increasing. The NFL is becoming more aware of this new frontier and is now one of the more experimental leagues out of the major four (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL) in terms of new technology exploration .
Last year the NFL was able to contract out the Buffalo – Jacksonville NFL in London matchup to Yahoo for a mere $17 million. Not a bad price for the rights to be the first streamer. The results could have been better on the field, but the audience was a solid 15 million viewers, around the same as a regional game on a typical Sunday.
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This year Twitter really stole the cake. They agreed to pay around $10 million to stream a whopping ten games on their platform per Bloomberg.
This new turn to the digital, cable-less platform is growing. The contract amount is dwarfed by the astronomical amount ESPN is paying for the rights to Monday Night Football. ESPN pays the NFL roughly $1.9 billion per year to host Monday Night Football per The New York Times.
So many people will ask, Why the movement to streaming? Why now?
This deal comes at a time when many fans are a part of the increasing number of people who are cutting cable. People are simply getting rid of cable or satellite that the NFL wants to capitalize on. In addition to that, there are so many people who can’t see their teams play on a weekly basis because they are out of the market. I for one have had a lot of experience with that aspect.
Being a transplant to the Tampa Bay Area, many times I have had to suffer through Buccaneers games or hope that the Bills get regional action on TV that trickles down to me. It’s a struggle and that struggle often makes me blame the league. It makes me want to try to understand why a league with such high revenue can’t be accommodating to my fandom in some way. It’s not that hard, right?
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In 2016, such a large amount of content we see now is done by streaming. We have Netflix, HBO, and so many other apps that make it’s easier to watch what you want, when you want. Why not the NFL? It’s cheap and it’s a large market that the NFL clearly understands is something they need to pivot and cater to.
This new deal with Twitter is a step in the right direction for the NFL. It’s a step that helps people everywhere watch the team they love without having to go through websites with pop-ups and unpredictable streams. It helps fans that may not be able to watch the game they love and I am a fan of that.