We were given a glimpse of the future of how people will watch sport while away from the ground yesterday. It came in the form of a surprise announcement that Twitter had won the rights to live stream a package of ten NFL games broadcast on Thursday nights.
Here are eight elements of the deal that cover it in numbers:
- The deal is non-exclusive and lasts for only one year with an option to renew. That’s short. It’s a test.
- Twitter is paying only $10 Million for the package, compared to the $450 Million paid by NBC and CBS for the same ten games on TV, the $1.9 Billion per season paid by ESPN for Monday Night Football through to 2021 and the $3.3 Billion per annum that Fox, NBC and CBS pay for Sunday Night Football.
- It doesn’t even compare to the $17 Million paid by Yahoo to live stream one game from London last season, though that was exclusive and another test.
- Twitters monthly logged in user numbers are 320 million, declining for the first time in the last quarter, though the company claims the number who monitor the service without logging in is over 800 million.
- The ten games will all be shown live on either NBC or CBS to a free to air audience in the US; on Sky Sports in the UK and Ireland as part of a subscription or with day pass access; on cable and online via the NFL network; and on mobile devices through a paid subscription service offered by Verizon
- The coverage itself will be provided by the main broadcaster meaning that advertising revenue such as that from KFC below will stay with the broadcaster. Twitter will have a portion of the advertising slots to sell for itself.
- There is no confirmation yet of how the games will appear on screen, though it is likely to be via an adapted version of the Twitter Moments curated content service.
- Pew centre research from December revealed that in the 18-29 age group no less than 35 per cent no longer watch ‘big screen TV in the home. 16 per cent have never done so while 19 per cent are ‘cord cutters’ having opted for other forms of entertainment such as Netflix or other streaming services.
This deal was announced by the NFL on twitter yesterday afternoon. It was the first tweet NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had sent since 2014.
This fall Thursday Night Football will be streamed live @twitter so fans will see more of this. https://t.co/s6tbr9FjvY
— Roger Goodell (@nflcommish) April 5, 2016
From the NFL’s perspective it’s all about testing the water on how TV habits are changing. The main networks provide the free to air coverage for fans that keeps the sport front and centre stage but if that is changing then there is a threat to the $33 Billion revenue they deliver for the sport.
Verizon and Amazon were likely passed over for this deal because they would put the games behind a paywall and the NFL could do that themselves if they wished, in similar fashion to the existing NFL Network or like Major League Baseball, the season of which got underway this week, or indeed our own GAAGo joint venture between RTE and the GAA for overseas markets.
There is an irony to broadcast rights that while audiences are becoming more fractured, the value of the rights continues to rise.
The importance of sport is that it provides ‘appointment to view television that gathers people together at the same time, to watch an event as a society, in real time, and in front of advertisers who know you’ll be there and not time shifting through their well crafted messages.
The change has been massive and it has been rapid. In 2005 14 per cent of the Top 100 Live TV programmes were sports events. By 2015 that number had exploded to a staggering 93 per cent.
Yesterday’s announcement will be seen in future as a bell weather move. It’s impact will be massive though we do not yet know the full extent of what it will mean for sport, for the broadcasters or for the fans.
Join us on Thursday May 12th for a members event, in association with the Sponsorship Institute on the Future Vision of TV Sport. We will be revealing details of who will be joining us from the world of traditional and non traditional TV in the coming days but contact us today if you think you would be interested.
