The National Football League is moving to make all games available on mobile phones, but for now it will only be available for Verizon Wireless customers. Matthew Futterman explains in digits. Photo: Getty Images. Verizon Wireless will pay $1 billion for rights to air more games from the NFL about smartphones of customers, make a big bet in changing habits of the Viewer as Americans see more of their favorite shows on screens than television.
The year coming, the National Football League will begin to show games on Sunday afternoon from the domestic markets of Verizon Wireless customers phones, add more most valuable television content to the growing inventory that users can view on mobile devices. The League is already showing games on Sunday, Monday and Thursday night at Verizon phones. In general, only a game is played in those nights, while about 10 to 12 are played across the country on Sunday.
Verizon Wireless will pay the NFL $1 trillion more in four years, according to a person with direct knowledge of the terms. That is nearly 40 percent more than Verizon agreed to pay when it signed the current four-year agreement, $720 million in 2010, a rate of growth similar to what the NFL and other sports leagues have received in their latest TV offerings.
Under the terms, customers of Verizon Wireless, who register for the service will be able to access NFL games through an application on Sunday, Monday and Thursday evenings this season, as well as channel owned by League, NFL Network, and NFL RedZone, showing the score plays on game days. Beginning in 2014, it will also be able to see all games casa-mercado on their mobile phones, as well as all postseason games, including the Super Bowl.
The agreement represents a significant extension of the embrace of the League of the technology of mobile video as it breaks the long exclusivity gave broadcasting, members of cable and satellite television, including News Corp.'s Fox unit, CBS Corp. and Comcast Corp. ESPN from NBC Universal, Walt Disney Co. and DirecTV. News Corp also owns The Wall Street Journal.
In its most recent agreements, these networks also gained the ability to provide access to market of home games in 2014 in devices that are not televisions, but not smartphones. The NFL carved away the right to sell the rights of transmission on smartphones to an official wireless provider, allowing current and future that deals with Verizon. "This aims to harness technology to try to make the fan experience better and to try to improve the game," said Brian Rolapp, chief operating officer for the NFL media.
Lou D'Ermilio, spokesman for Fox Sports, said that the network was not concerned that access to mobile devices public cannibalize Sunday. "Does not seem have had an impact on the audience of the night of Sunday or the Monday night, so we did not anticipate that it will impact the audience of the Sunday afternoon", said Mr. D'Ermilio. Sunday Night Football was the most-watched series on television last year.
Verizon Wireless Ve the agreement of the NFL as a way to attract new customers, keep existing ones and make money selling subscriptions and advertising within the coil of the NFL Brian Angiolet, Vice President of marketing and communications company, said that the deals are profitable. "We are looking for these offers lead switching, the loyalty and the share subscription", said.
Mr. Angiolet does not say how many subscribers the NFL mobile app helped to add or retain, but told the company tracks the metrics, that played a factor in the decision to renew the contract. Wireless carriers in the United States have come to rely on Internet traffic, videos, streaming music, games, as a source of growth. Verizon Wireless and AT & T Inc. have tried to be to capitalize on this growth by moving subscribers to data plans that cost more money more data using.
The cost of those plans, however, could leave careful subscribers watch video too for fear to spend their allocations. NFL games streaming running approximately 2.1 megabytes a minute, or about megabytes 375 for three hours of play. That means check out five games in a month using the cellular network would use 1.9 gigabytes of data, according to the website of Verizon Wireless. Under one of the plans of the company, it would cost $60.
Verizon Wireless, a company of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, said that customers can avoid that problem using Wi-Fi networks, rather than the cellular network, to broadcast the games. There are also signs that customers are growing more accustomed to watching sports on small screens and find ways to control costs. Major League Baseball began transmission of games live to phones in 2009. The League said that it currently average more than 300,000 live transmissions per day on mobile devices, 43% over the previous year, with an average of 23 minutes of display current time. This offer is not exclusive to a particular company.
Lee Berke, a consultant to media who has worked with Verizon Wireless to recent sports agreements, said that the carrier could benefit with the agreement of the NFL, given the rapid growth in the consumption of media on mobile devices. According to CBS, about 3 million viewers saw its flow in line of the Super Bowl in 2013, up from 2.1 million in 2012.
"I can see the spectators for the NFL to continue mobile games double in the foreseeable future," said Mr. Berke. "At this point, nobody knows where is the upper limit, and that these deals are made. "In the years seventy people predicted cable it would reach a turning point in the 30% penetration, but now we are at 80-90% with pay television."
Subscribers pay $5 a month to watch matches of the NFL on their phones for Verizon. Verizon Wireless does not reveal the number of people it has downloaded your coil of the NFL, but the Google game app store said that it has received more than 10 million installations. The agreement covers only smartphones and tablets is not complete. The NFL and Verizon are also creating a new mobile application from the NFL, which will be available for all fans, regardless of your carrier, although Verizon customers will have access to a premium version that includes stats and featured improved.
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