
NFL’s First Live-Streamed Game on Yahoo Attracted 15M Viewers - phamilton
http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/26/the-nfls-first-live-streamed-game-on-yahoo-attracted-over-15-million-viewers/
======
legitster
As a reminder to non-football fans, this was for a game between two teams few
people were very interested in, broadcast at a time when half of America was
still asleep.

I caught the game while still laying in bed, mostly out of curiosity for what
the stream was like. And it did not disappoint. Already it was a better
watching experience than any other medium available. That doesn't even say
anything about new possibilities going forward, like offering different
commentary tracks, overlays, camera angles, etc.

Yahoo, not only was it good, I would be willing to pay decent money for more
services like this. Make it happen!

~~~
protomyth
> That doesn't even say anything about new possibilities going forward, like
> offering different commentary tracks

This is one place where the MLB has a bit of an advantage over the NFL since
most MLB games are broadcast for both the home and away audiences so you have
2 commentary tracks available on MLB.tv (in addition to the various radio
audio).

~~~
rcavezza
The NFL has announcer coverage for both markets - you notice this on NFL
rewind sometimes. When you add in radio coverage, each game typically has 4-6
commentary tracks.

~~~
Retric
Radio coverage can be a lot better than what ends up on TV. We used to mute
the TV and have a radio going which worked great, though the commercials could
end up somewhat surreal.

------
gmisra
Key points:

1\. The 15M number is massively inflated for unique viewers, as the game was
auto-playing on the Yahoo! and tumblr homepages. More detailed breakdown of
the numbers here: [http://deadspin.com/not-nearly-as-many-people-watched-
bills-...](http://deadspin.com/not-nearly-as-many-people-watched-bills-
jaguars-as-yaho-1738659352)

2\. The NFL will not be rolling out a la carte streaming packages any time
soon, as they have a preference to selling exclusive rights at a premium, e.g.
\- DirecTV has exclusive rights to broadcast all games, and stream all games
digitally through 2022 ([http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/11624442/nfl-
extends-sunda...](http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/11624442/nfl-extends-
sunday-ticket-deal-directv)) \- Verizon has exclusive rights to broadcast all
games on smartphones through 2022
([https://www.verizonwireless.com/news/article/2015/09/live-
st...](https://www.verizonwireless.com/news/article/2015/09/live-streaming-of-
local-and-primetime-nfl-games-and-nfl-network-now-included-with-all-price-
plans.html))

3\. For comparison, both MLB and NBA offer streaming plans for all of their
games, for reasonable prices ($130 for MLB, $200 for NBA). These plans are
only limited in not showing local market games. They also have great app
support (iOS, Android, Roku, "Smart" TVs, etc)

~~~
utnick
the NBA league pass service is also limited because you can't watch nationally
televised games ( any games on ESPN, NBAtv, TNT, NBC, ABC, etc etc )

~~~
acheron
For MLB, IIRC the only exception is for Sunday night games on ESPN. All other
national games are non-exclusive: while ESPN/TBS/Fox are broadcasting it
nationally, the local stations are broadcasting as well, which can be streamed
through the mlb.tv package. Sunday nights are the only games that are
national-only, and so can't be streamed through mlb.tv.

Once the playoffs start though, all games are national only, and there are
different rules, making the playoff games more difficult to stream.

------
paulcole
The video was auto-played on Yahoo's homepage as well as the homepage of
NFL.com, which is inflating these numbers quite a bit.

That said, the stream was impressively high quality. Much better than
DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket streaming package that I pay $50/month for. I
didn't have any buffering issues and the quality only dropped below HD a
handful of times throughout the broadcast.

I'd love to see a better online streaming option for live sports, but it's
unlikely to happen anytime soon. The networks and ESPN simply need the NFL too
much to give up control or be outbid anytime in the near future.

~~~
sbierwagen
It also autoplayed on the dashboard of the Tumblr mobile app.

------
dreaminvm
The stream quality was beyond my expectations, it was crisp and clear. This is
a service I would happily pay for since DirectTV's Sunday Ticket streams are
often lag/time out for me on other devices.

------
PeterWhittaker
The NFL has considerable experience streaming and they are quite good at it:
The NFL has been streaming games for a while now, via Game Pass (available on
AppleTV, e.g.).

What's different here is that someone else licensed the rights to stream the
game, i.e., Yahoo.

I cancelled cable years ago and would dearly love for the NFL to sell me what
I want, but they won't, at least not yet: Game Pass allows the customer to
stream the regular Sunday afternoon games, but not the evening games
(Thursday, Sunday, and Monday) and not playoffs. I cancelled Game Pass when I
realized that (yup, failed to read the fine print).

(What about those Sunday games? Well, I have an OTA antenna, and get a full
Sunday afternoon's worth of NFL for free, even if I don't get to choose the
games - which I could do with Game Pass. I also get many of the playoff games,
at least for now, since they tend to be carried by the major networks, and not
the cable-only sports channels. (I'm in Canada.))

~~~
toxican
All I want is to be able to pick my team, pay like $15/mo and be able to watch
my team play. I don't care about any other team at all, and my team isn't
local by any means so I can't use an antenna. AFAIK, I don't have a legal
option to watch my team play unless I grab an overpriced cable/satellite plan
that I don't want. GamePass isn't for the US (if I remember correctly), and
even if it were, the pricing is terrible and has the issues you mentioned.

My only option is shady SD streams. It's better than nothing, but I'm willing
to throw money at the problem if they'll let me.

~~~
pflats
>My only option is shady SD streams. It's better than nothing, but I'm willing
to throw money at the problem if they'll let me.

>I don't have a legal option to watch my team play _unless I grab an
overpriced cable /satellite plan that I don't want_.

Sounds like you do have another option! (DirecTV pays the NFL 1.5 billion
dollars a year to be able to offer you that overpriced plan.)

~~~
toxican
A realistic option, then? I've no use for anything else that DirecTV has to
offer. I've got Netflix and Hulu, so I'm set on TV shows and movies. Unless
you think paying that much money just to watch football is a realistic option?

~~~
phamilton
You'd be surprised at how the cost works out. Bundles exist so expensive
content can be subsidized by cheaper content. ESPN costs the provider much
more than most channels. In other words, getting ESPN a la carte is going to
run you $20-30/month. The other channels in the bundle make it so non sports
fans can subsidize your subscription.

------
bryang
Serious questions:

If sports viewing goes online (like MotoGP) wouldn't the organization lose a
considerable amount of money and effectively ruin their relationships with tv
networks that pay serious money for rights coverage? I'm of the mindset MotoGP
is doing ok because they never had insane tv rights viewership or
distribution. Another example, the NHL has their online viewing program but it
blocks out regional games or games with specific rights attributions.

And then, theoretically, let's say these organizations do survive by moving
all (or the vast majority of) their viewers onto their own live platform -
would that be considered a monopoly of some sorts by forcing out all the other
players?

That being said, I'm totally ok with all of this because the cable box as we
know it is dying fast and sports are the only thing keeping it alive.

~~~
ascagnel_
For that, look at the WWE Network.

They maintain production and distribution rights on their most valuable
content, pay-per-view events that go for something like $60-80USD on cable.
They compete with themselves by offering a yearly lock-in for what's basically
the price of one of these events. It's not complete, since they don't have
full distribution rights on their weekly show, which appears on their
streaming service after a one-to-two week delay.

If the service takes off, that'll be a big nail in the coffin of TV sports.
That said, it's had middling success to date (I haven't paid close attention,
as I'm not a wrestling fan in the least).

Other sports contract out their production and distribution rights to TV
networks, so trying to go to a streaming model will be very difficult by
comparison. They'll be building out what is basically a full on-air platform
at the same time they're building out a streaming service that can support the
added demand of local viewers while simultaneously breaking off relations with
their current broadcasters. And to make things even more complicated, some of
those broadcasters own the teams they carry (in hockey alone, the NY Rangers
and Cablevision TV are both owned by Jim Dolan, while the Toronto Maple Leafs
are owned by a conglomeration of Bell and Rogers telecoms). With these
complications, the rights may be the bigger block than the technology.

------
taway1234567890
Apparently that 15M number may be a bit inaccurate: [http://deadspin.com/not-
nearly-as-many-people-watched-bills-...](http://deadspin.com/not-nearly-as-
many-people-watched-bills-jaguars-as-yaho-1738659352)

------
sputknick
I watched my first football game since getting rid of cable thanks to this.
The stream was much higher quality than I expected, froze two or three times
for less than 5 seconds, pretty awesome for a first effort if you ask me. I
have a theory that the TV networks know sports is the only thing holding a lot
of people back from cutting the cable, and their next TV deal will be HUGE,
but it won't stop people from cutting the cable, but will instead lead to
fewer people being interested in professional sports, and that both the TV
networks and the sports leagues will lose in the long run with this monster
deal.

~~~
samirahmed
You can buy an antenna from Amazon for 20$ and watch all the local channels
and the games. Just fyi...

I have never had cable but watch almost every Sunday night game on NBC.

------
phamilton
An interesting stat from another article[0]:

"CNN's recent debates peaked with almost 1 million simultaneous live streams.
Last season's Super Bowl peaked with 1.3 million."

Apparently this game had 2.3 million simultaneous streams.

[0] [http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/26/media/nfl-yahoo-live-
stream-...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/26/media/nfl-yahoo-live-stream-
results/)

------
randlet
I've been a subscriber to Dorna's MotoGP VideoPass[1] for a couple of years
and it is incredible (yes it's got some issues but overall it's fantastic).
Stream practice session, qualifying, races, press conferences live or access
later at your conveniencef (from a No-Spoiler page none the less!). All
completely _advertisement free_. You can also access a full archive of
historical races year round! It's amazing and a model that should be emulated
by other sports organizations.

I don't currently follow NFL but mostly because I don't have cable or any way
to selectively choose when I watch a game. I would happily pay for NFL access
the same way I do for MotoGP.

[1]
[https://secure.motogp.com/en/subscribe](https://secure.motogp.com/en/subscribe)

------
yk
Yahoo had a nice stream, but actually it was not even the best stream I found
yesterday. Interestingly Yahoo had apparently some problem with their CDN, at
least when I switched on a US VPN, the stream improved considerably.

------
swang
Yeah they kinda skewed their numbers by showing two not so good teams at an
hour where most west coast Americans were asleep.

NBC Sports used to (still do?) have an Internet feed for their Sunday Night
Football games and TNT did it for some NBA games.

I feel it was way better for me since I could put it in the background or on
my other computer and kind of watch it in the background. When you're kinda
just watching sports by yourself its kinda boring waiting for the action so
being able to control your experience from your computer (volume up, volume
down, switch to other game) rather than having to fetch the remote is nice.

------
dchuk
The NFL's streaming offerings are why I pirate game streams and don't have a
lick of remorse about it. The only option I have to legally stream games is to
not only pay for the gamepass package, but also to have satellite TV
installed.

I'd be happy to pay a few hundred bucks a year for HD streaming of games, but
it's just not an option. The best I can get is streams of games after they've
finished, which is pretty much worthless to me.

------
jpindar
People keep saying the quality was great. It was pretty good - for a live
stream. It still sucked compared to cable or satellite HDTV. NFL games are
really the only reason I get DirectTV, and a blurry, pixelated stream isn't
going to change that, even if it is slightly less compressed than other
streams. (It didn't buffer much at all, I'll give it that.)

Or was my internet provider (Comcast) messing with it?

------
pnathan
I strongly believe that pay-per-view sports streams are a thing that should
exist. I have subscribed to FuboTV, which is a bundle of soccer-oriented
channels, for the (shockingly low) price of $7/mo. I'd pay a good $10 per game
I am interested in, I think.

~~~
igorgue
I agree :) I'd go as far as saying every single tv show should be available
for pay per view streaming live. That's the world I wanna believe in.

Btw, UFC does it already (and is all on their site), the problem is the old
school sports.

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joesmo
I saw at least a handful of commercials for this game on TV and not one of
them mentioned it was possible to live-stream. With such a marketing fumble
(pun intended), the numbers seem rather irrelevant.

~~~
phamilton
Were you "in-market" for this game? It may have been intentional to not
cannibalize TV viewership.

~~~
joesmo
No, not at all.

------
megaman22
That might be the death-knell for cable TV.

~~~
legitster
To be fair, football is already the most cable-cutter friendly sport there is.
I can watch every game except for MNF using just my antenna.

~~~
freehunter
More cable-cutter friendly than Major League Baseball? On MLB.tv you can pick
the home/away feed for almost any game at almost any time, plus view replays
and highlights of any game going back to basically the first televised
baseball game. And you can watch it on basically any device.

The only downside is the blackouts for home markets.

~~~
ascagnel_
Every major North American league has a similar service (except the NFL), but
the local blackouts make it a non-starter for the vast majority of the viewing
audience.

Football is more cable-cutter friendly because local games are almost always
put OTA, so it's a matter of setting up an antenna if you don't want to pony
up for cable.

There are services that try to do an end-run around local blackouts, but that
doesn't really apply here (since the goal is to have a 100% legal, approved
means of watching the games live online).

