NFL fans don’t know what to do with themselves from mid-February until late July. That’s essentially the off-season for the league, and sure there’s the NFL Draft, free agency, and the release of the upcoming schedule to get excited about for a few days, but that’s about it.
Well, the NFL might have a way to keep hardcore fans happy and entertained those five months without football because word is they are close to developing a streaming service that would include games, team content, radio, and podcasts, according to The Athletic.
Word is the new subscription service being called NFL Plus, and the NFL is motivated to do this because their deals to stream games for free via Yahoo and a few other companies ended. Plus, the NFL Sunday Ticket deal with DirecTV will end after next season.
Here’s a quote from the story in The Athletic from sports media consultant Lee Berke.
“It makes perfect sense that the NFL would be exploring the development of a streaming channel, much like they developed platforms for cable and satellite when each was cutting-edge media technology. That noted any streaming launch could tie into the NFL’s negotiations to potentially sell a portion of NFL Media to a technology partner like Apple or Amazon.”
Simply put, the NFL “needs a solution to how games are distributed via mobile, tablets, and laptops by the upcoming season,” the report said.
Amazon and Apple are two companies to keep your eye on through this process. They could play a role to stream games in NFL Plus if they step up and purchase parts of NFL Media, which includes the NFL Network and NFL.com.
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