Most North American sports leagues use digital distribution primarily to offer out-of-market games to paid subscribers, but the NFL’s media plan is instead beholden to only one goal: reach.
For the past four seasons, only Verizon customers were able to stream all NFL games to their smartphones. In 2018, for the first time, anyone who has “a mobile phone with an app store” can watch games, said the NFL’s chief business and media officer, Brian Rolapp, at the league’s season preview media event on Wednesday.
All in-market games will be available to watch live in the NFL or Yahoo Sports apps, without the need to authenticate a cable subscription. Rolapp compared this free access to putting “rabbit ears or a digital antenna on your television.” Expanding from Verizon to all mobile carriers roughly quadruples the number of devices with access and thus, potentially, the audience.
“Our entire model—and I think this is different than other sports—is based on reach,” Rolapp said. “It’s based on reaching as many people as we can, as long as we can.
“Traditionally, the best way to do that has been broadcast television. You knew you could get into every household in this country. As that landscape changes, reach is still really, really important to us. It’s just more complicated.”
While MLB, the NBA, the NHL, and MLS have robust streaming subscription packages for out-of-market games, the NFL’s in-market approach is unique and could counteract a ratings decline last year. As Rolapp said, “Our view is to use digital as an extension of broadcast television.”
In 2016, anyone with a Twitter account could live stream 10 Thursday Night Football games, and that viewership was predominantly mobile. The NFL accepted Amazon’s bid to carry that set of Thursday games as part of its Prime Video service before last season. In comparing the two platforms, Rolapp said what stood out about Amazon was its broader number of compatible devices, its international reach, and its potent marketing machine. After a series of one-year deals with Twitter and then Amazon again, the league signed a two-year contract with Amazon in April.
“What we’re learning with any partner is, if you’re doing something for just a year, you learn a lot, you get momentum, and then you have it taken away—it’s hard,” Rolapp said. “Give them two years of runway to really do something special with it becomes pretty [desirable].”
The intentions of the tech giants in sports media—Amazon, Facebook, and Google—were another talking point in a panel discussion with Rolapp and Rich Greenfield, a media and tech analyst for BTIG. Greenfield referred to those three as “behemoths” in light of their respective market caps. (The combined worth of that trio is more than $2 trillion.) In contrast, Greenfield said the traditional legacy media companies in network TV are comparative “pimples.”
“We’ve seen them nibble, but the single best thing we’re focused on over the next two years is, ‘Are we going to see the big move?’” Greenfield said, adding: “When do we see one of these big tech companies do to sports what they’re doing right now to traditional entertainment?”
The current nine-year broadcast deals run through the 2022 season, a time that Rolapp referred to as “an inflection point.” He paraphrased Mark Twain to say that the rumors of broadcast TV’s death had been greatly exaggerated but acknowledged change was possible. While Facebook and YouTube have massive numbers for reach and duration of engagement, the infrastructure for 25 million concurrent viewers hadn’t been proven out yet.
“That will get worked out, but that’s just one of the things that has to be resolved,” Rolapp said. “If you look at the timing—by ’21 or ’22—will the world look different in that way? Probably. Money is not the issue for these guys.”
Greenfield went on to predict that Amazon Prime would have more subscribers than ESPN by then, though questions remain about whether the streaming platform can drive appointment TV tune-in.
For now, the league is excited that its mobile streaming rights are not shackled to one mobile carrier, an idea that was always antithetical to its reach-above-all strategy. NFL COO Maryann Turcke noted that bolstering streaming capacity would help attract a younger audience, too.
“The digital distribution will be unprecedented this year,” Tucke said, before later adding: “What’s the next phase after that? Well, maybe there’s interactive content that goes along with those streaming games. It just leads into all of that.”