Two days after NBCUniversal announced that it will expand its streaming rights for Sunday Night Football to mobile phones, ESPN announced Wednesday that is has done the same thing for Monday Night Football.
The Disney-owned sports network has long had the digital rights to stream Monday games across most platforms and mobile devices, including tablets, smart TVs and laptops, but its deal with the NFL always excluded mobile phones because the mobile streaming rights had been exclusive to Verizon.
That changed last week when Verizon Communications agreed to give up the exclusive rights in exchange for a fresh multi-year streaming deal with the NFL that enables the media conglomerate to stream in-market and national games across Verizon’s digital and mobile media properties to users in the U.S. regardless of mobile carrier.
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ESPN, which plans to launch a subscription-based sports streaming service in the first half of 2018, has long streamed its NFL-branded shows, such as Monday Night Countdown, across all platforms, including mobile phones. But up until now it was never able to stream live Monday night games on phones.
ESPN subscribers will get access to the games and NFL highlights on their mobile phones beginning with the NFL Wild Card weekend the first week of January and the Pro Bowl on Jan. 29. The expanded mobile rights will run through the conclusion of ESPN’s existing NFL agreement at the end of the 2021 season.
“Every day, tens of millions of fans turn to ESPN to stream events, view highlights and connect with the latest sports news and stories, so we’re thrilled that they will now be able to enjoy Monday Night Football and the latest NFL highlights as part of their experience on mobile phones as well,” Burke Magnus, ESPN’s executive vice president of programming and scheduling, said in a statement.
More than 75 percent of total visits to ESPN Digital properties come from mobile devices, according to the company. Last month, the digital sports platform averaged 117 million users.
NFL-related content has proven particularly popular across its digital properties, with an average of 10.6 million fans a day visiting its properties since the season started in August to consume NFL content. Fans have logged 30.4 billion minutes of video views over that time, up 14 percent from last year.
The NFL has been rapidly expanding the accessibility of its content as more consumers turn to over-the-top options for live sporting events.
The league’s streaming deals with popular internet companies (Amazon replaced Twitter as the digital rightsholder to stream 11 of the NFL’s Thursday Night Football games this season) as well as the expanded mobile deals with Verizon, NBC and ESPN announced over the past few weeks, represent a wider expansion of the mobile streaming options that will be available for primetime NFL games next season.