If you tend to get up early on Sunday morning, or you happen to be a hardcore fans of the Buffalo Bills or the Jacksonville Jaguars, you can participate in an interesting experiment this weekend.
The Bills and the Jaguars are playing their NFL game in London this weekend, but the 6:30 a.m. PDT game won’t be offered by one of the national television networks. Instead, the game will be streamed live on Yahoo!. That means the very few people in the country who don’t have a desktop or mobile device hooked up to the internet will not be able to see the game. But the broadcast will be available to everyone else through the wonders of technology.
The NFL will be crunching the numbers on this broadcast, trying to figure out just how many people watched the game, how many watched in each of the markets of the teams, how many watched outside of those markets and how long people watched the game. If the numbers are right, you can assume that the NFL is already plotting ways to expand streaming in the future as more and more people tend to slide away from traditional cable television models.
Many sports are already streamed on computers and smart phones and tablets, but this is the National Football League. As the NFL goes, so goes the rest of the sports world. Streaming has several advantages, not the least of which is you know the people who are getting on their device to watch the game are true fans of that sport or that team.
It doesn’t take much imagination to see a future when the PGA Tour, the LPGA, the Champions Tour or individual franchises like the Dodgers or Angels or Cowboys or Broncos might have their own streaming channels to sign up for, at a price of course. And if you doubt that, remember 30 years ago, no one would have believed a satellite television service could give you every NFL game each week. Sports evolve, and so does the way we watch them.
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Jason Barrett is the President and Founder of Barrett Media since the company was created in September 2015. Prior to its arrival, JB served as a sports radio programmer, launching brands such as 95.7 The Game in San Francisco, and 101 ESPN in St. Louis. He also spent time programming SportsTalk 950 in Philadelphia, 590 The Fan KFNS in St. Louis, and ESPN 1340/1390 in Poughkeepsie, NY. Jason also worked on-air and behind the scenes in local radio at 101.5 WPDH, WTBQ 1110AM, and WPYX 106.5. He also spent two years on the national stage, producing radio shows for ESPN Radio in Bristol, CT. Among them included the Dan Patrick Show, and GameNight.
You can find JB on Twitter @SportsRadioPD. He’s also reachable by email at Jason@BarrettMedia.com.
