The NFL is "selling the rights to stream its 'Thursday Night Football' games next season, and at least four big tech companies are interested," according to Kurt Wagner of RE/CODE. Sources said that Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and YouTube have all "submitted proposals to the NFL in the hope of streaming the games." All four companies also "talked to the NFL last year about the same deal," which Twitter won with a $10M bid for 10 games. Wagner noted it is "possible others have also submitted proposals." The league is "likely to make a decision within the next month. Twitter "didn’t report a meaningful spike in user growth or revenue as a result of last year’s games," so while the NFL deal is "high profile, it’s tough to tell how valuable it actually is." The NFL "knows what to expect from Twitter, which helps." Sources said that Twitter "pushed its NFL deal very aggressively with the media and its users last fall and was able to sell all of the ad inventory the NFL offered up." Wagner wrote Facebook "probably makes the most sense here." The company has the "same benefits of Twitter ... but on a much, much bigger scale." Facebook also "isn’t dealing with the business drama that Twitter is." Amazon was "one of the companies that offered more money for these streams than Twitter did last year," but Twitter "made a better pitch around distributing the games internationally." Amazon’s ads business also is expanding, and the company "created a new sports group to help facilitate deals like these." And while YouTube has "lots of video advertisers, the company is going through a bit of an advertiser crisis at the moment" (RECODE.net, 3/23).
FARM HANDS: VARIETY's Todd Spangler writes it is "not at all surprising that the NFL is reevaluating partners for the free, live-streaming games, as league execs have described the distribution strategy as experimental." The NFL is "not betting the farm," as the "TNF" package "comprises only 10 games -- just 4% of the 256 regular-season matchups." Meanwhile, big digital-video platforms have "clearly signaled that they’re hungry to acquire live sports to attract and retain users" (VARIETY.com, 3/24). CNBC's Contessa Brewer said, "The traditional companies are spending big bucks to air the games and if they're allowing some of these social media companies to stream them, is it going to encourage more cord-cutting because a lot of people right now only keep their cable subscription for live sports" ("Worldwide Exchange," CNBC, 3/24).
