Ryan Stoffield
Mrs. Straub
Insight AP Economics
26 October 2015
NFL Online
Every Sunday millions of Americans hop on their couch at 12 and turn on FOX or CBS to watch some football. The demographics of these people are very different, some are tech savvy, some are the old fashioned people who just want to watch football the same way they have been in the last 30 years. Fans watching the Sunday game in London on Oct. 25 had to watch the game on something different than the TV, Yahoo.
Yahoo has paid $20 million for the rights of the broadcast (Blanc). By doing the NFL is trying to expand the brand globally and increase revenues. Not only does the NFL benefit from their brand being expanded, Yahoo benefits from being the first company to actually try this. Every Sunday there is a high demand for NFL football. The NFL is trying expand the options that its viewers have to watch their favorite teams on Sunday. 
The NFL is extremely profitable and this has been a large part due to the television rights that its broadcasters pay them. Broadcasters like CBS, NBC, ESPN, and FOX dish out extreme amounts of money which makes the NFL so profitable. This allows them to experiment with new ideas, such as the online streaming. Fans watching the game will have less commercials to watch, and more game action.
Fans who prefer the old fashion way of watching football will have a trade-off and be unable to watch the game. For the fans who switched they should enjoy the fact that Yahoo will be streaming games twice the speed than usual. Fans will be given a much better product because of the other online competitors that were also bidding for this air time. This is a perfect competition, where there are many competitors in the marketplace.
The NFL streaming games on the internet is a new and interesting idea that could change the way we watch sports and entertainment. As a fan myself I actually think that watching NFL games online is really cool and adds a different, more interactive experience to the game watching. The more interactive, the better experience for the fans and the better product they will receive. If this grows the way they think it will the demand curve for computers/phones to watch the games on will shift to the right as the demand increases. One thing that could be concerning is the inaccessibility to wifi of some of the fans. On the other hand it could encourage fans to purchase wifi for the games, or increase attendance to bars/viewing parties.
Yahoo broadcasting NFL football games could be something that could revolutionize the way we watch football on Sunday afternoons. It’s definitely something that would take some time to get used to, but could frame the way everyone views television in the future. As the younger generation moves in the NFL has to adapt to the new ways of watching football. With more and more people watching games on their phones, ipads, and computers the experience is getting more interactive.
Most fans will be watching their favorite NFL team play on something other that the television in 5 years, and that excites many young fans. On the other hand television contracts go through 2022 so fans will still be seeing gameday on your main networks. Not only will this affect the way fans watch games it will impact the growing online economy even more. Expect to see a increase in demand (shift to the right) in the amount of fans who will be wanting to watch the games on their phones or tablets. One day the NFL could be broadcasted all over the web, wouldn’t that be interesting.
Works Cited
Blanc, Martin. "Yahoo! Inc. Shells Out $20 Million To Broadcast NFL Game Online." Bidnessetc. N.p., 03 June 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
Goldman, David. "NFL to Give Live-streaming a Try out This Fall."CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 24 Mar. 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
Marvez, Alex. "NFL's Yahoo Streaming Experiment Offers Glimpse of the Future." FOX Sports. FOX Sports Interactive, 23 Oct. 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
"NFL and Yahoo! Partner to Deliver First-ever Global Live Stream."NFL.com. NFL Enterprises, 3 June 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2015
Shapiro, Steven. "Going Global: The NFL to Live-stream UK Game on Yahoo." Yahoo News. Yahoo News, 23 Oct. 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2015..
Great job on your post, Ryan! This is a very interesting topic that you chose, something that I personally didn't think about or have any background knowledge in. However, it would've been helpful to describe the trend in cable TV recently. Your suggestion that more people will trend towards the demand for mobile streaming or "yahoo" streaming is correct, however it may not be because of the aging population, but rather the fact that Cable TV is losing its numbers/consumers. Not many people have cable anymore due to the expensive costs, as more people are getting Netflix and TV sources like that, overall the demand for Cable TV is decreasing, a shift to the left in demand. The people who are getting rid of cable have the opportunity cost of the NFL Sunday games, however now they may be able to "have it all" because of internet streamed games. This may even result in the deconstruction of the Cable network industry because there will soon be no one who wants to buy Cable TV. Also, it would've been interesting to describe the reactions of people watching it on the internet. I'm sure that the marginal utility would be the greatest after watching it online for the first time, however who knows how long internet-streamed games will last with the diminishing marginal utility that is applied to the matter. Great job!!
ReplyDeleteWhen I first heard the the game was going to be broadcast on Yahoo I thought it was just because the NFL doesn't have any TV slots that early in the morning. However your writing made me realize that this could actually be the gate into the future of watching football. Maybe eventually it'll switch to only the local game will be on the TV and all the other games will be streamed. Overall I thought this was super interesting and it will be crazy to see how it pans out in the next few years.
ReplyDeleteI must say that Yahoo and the NFL are definitely testing the waters on how fans react to live games streamed online. Some background information that I know about this subject is that Yahoo was advertising at least one week in head of the game that the full game would be broadcast through them. Basically, to the viewers (or myself) it wasn't a surprise that you needed to watch the game through Yahoo. Now going back to my point of "testing the waters", Yahoo didn't "buy out" the rights to a very high end football game respectfully. Meaning the Bills and Jaguars are pretty average teams at best. As you mentioned Ryan, it costed Yahoo 20 million to broadcast the Bills vs Jaguars game. How much would the rights cost of a NFL game like the Packers vs Broncos (both undefeated teams with tons of talent)? Would it cost 20, 50, 100 million? I'm honestly not sure, but one thing is for sure which is this "experiment" was differently an interesting marketing strategy that NFL fans may be seeing in the future whether it's through Yahoo or other companies. Good blog post Ryan!
ReplyDeleteYou can watch every NFL games live online on NFLHDTVE .COM .NFL Red Zone,NFL Network,the entire NFL Films Archie and more here : NFLHDTVE.COM . Works on Computer,Laptop,Tablet,Andriod,iphone,ipad,Xbox.PS4,Roku or smart TV.
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