Verizon, Apple, Google & Amazon Are Supposedly Vying for NFL Streaming Rights

dgstorm

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There's a big battle going on behind the scenes, and the prize for the fight is NFL streaming rights. According to the latest report, the National Football League is shopping digital streaming rights for their Thursday Night Football games.

Supposedly some of the heaviest hitters in the world are negotiating to control these rights. The players in this arena are none other than Verizon, Google, Amazon & Apple (and there may be others). Here's a quote with some additional detail,

"On Monday, the NFL announced two-year TV broadcast deals with CBS and NBC to divvy up the Thursday matches, with each network securing rights to five. CBS for the last two seasons had rights to eight “Thursday Night Football” games.

In announcing the TV deals, the league said it is “in active discussions with prospective digital partners” for global over-the-top streaming rights to the same games.

The NFL didn’t say what companies those were, but multiple sources say Apple, Amazon, Google and Verizon Communications are among the players expected to put in bids for the marquee property. The “Thursday Night Football” digital rights could be sold to more than one distributor, and the league is considering a variety of scenarios, including potentially mixing in games played overseas, according to one source familiar with the talks."

None of these four tech titans would respond with any comments from the media on this subject, which is unsurprising. It will be interesting to see how much these folks are willing to spend of their massive cash reserves in order to secure these NFL streaming rights. Who do you think will win the bid?

Source: Variety
 

DrumsOfGrohl

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My vote is Apple, considering their Apple TV efforts.
 

JohnDroid

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I watched Yahoo stream the London game this season and it was great. I'd love to see an entire season streamed and it might save me from paying for the Sunday Ticket with DirecTV.
 

zinethar

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Apple could make it proprietary so only Apple users could stream it. I had a lot of lag/SD in my HD stream over a 30mb internet connection from Yahoo's stream so I hope this improves. At least Amazon has streaming experience.This is the future of likely all programs. The cable/sat companies caused this themselves by not offering a-la-cart offerings that people could actually afford.
 

eebvending

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They need to do team packages. There are so many people who live out-of-market that just want to see their team's games and don't need Sunday Ticket.
 

kodiak799

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I had a lot of lag/SD in my HD stream over a 30mb internet connection from Yahoo's stream so I hope this improves.

Interesting. I've had Sunday Ticket a few times through PS3 and just the internet...both times had stuttering and freezing that made it virtually unwatchable. Might only be 4-5 times a game, but on key plays that's maddening.

And THIS year the Ticket over the internet was absolutely unwatchable at least twice because updates to flash broke their service. What a rip off.
 
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