NFL Sticks Toe in Web Streaming Waters

Written by Steve Donohue

Monday, July 28. 2008 at 05:15 PM EDT Post a comment

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The National Football League is beginning to experiment with broadcasting live games on the Web, striking a deal with NBC Universal to distribute 17 Sunday Night Football Games on NFL.com and NBCSports.com this fall.

NBC and the NFL say they'll use Adobe Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: ADBE)'s Flash Media Player to deliver the games, beginning with the season kickoff on Sept. 4 between the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants.

NBC plans to use Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT)'s Silverlight platform to distribute live and on-demand programming from next month's Summer Olympics in Beijing, but uses Flash to deliver other videos on its Website.

The NFL, which has never offered live games to U.S. Web surfers, is classifying the "Sunday Night Football Extra" Webcasts strictly as a test. The league won't stream live football games on the Websites of CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS), Fox Broadcasting Co. , or ESPN, and it hasn't committed to running live games on the Web next year, whether produced by NBC or any other network.

NBC and NFL officials said they'll run separate ads from the commercials that will be broadcast during NBC's TV coverage of the game.

The key selling point for the live games on NBCSports.com and NFL.com will be the interactive coverage that the NFL and NBC can offer on the Web.

Internet viewers will be able to choose from several different camera angles, including one camera which will follow a star player during each game. The streaming video games will also contain a picture-in-picture option which will allow users to view multiple video streams at the same time. The NFL and NBC will also supply live statistics to viewers watching the games on the Web, and offer in-game video highlights.

NBC Sports broadcasters Al Michaels, John Madden, and other talent will look to drive traffic to the Webcasts by inviting viewers to interact with the NBC cast, and NBC staffers will also produce a live blog for the games.