NFL Dumps Sprint for Verizon; Plans Mobile RedZone Channel

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 9, 2010 - 8:38am.
New York - The National Football League (NFL) announced on Tuesday that it has signed a new four-year agreement with Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) to handle its mobile services, replacing former partner Sprint (NYSE: S), which had held the contract for the past five years. The Wall Street Journal pegged the value of the deal at $720 million.

The NFL Mobile service on Verizon will include the NFL Network's RedZone Channel, which for the first time allow fans to view live look-ins of every key play and touchdown from Sunday afternoon games.

It will also offer on-demand video of highlights; live audio broadcasts of games; access to fantasy football data; and customizable NFL alerts.

While the league had previously been guarded about expanding access to its Sunday broadcast television ratings cash cow, the NFL believes the live mobile video won't affect its audience.

"We've been adding this stuff every year for the last three years, and ratings just keep going up," Brian Rolapp, the NFL's vice president for media strategy, told The Journal.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uqfpz

http://snipurl.com/uqfpm (WSJ)

Comments

Bias

Talk about bias headlining! Read the press release from Sprint which came out yesterday morning, the NFL didn't DUMP Sprint, it's the other way around. Sprint CHOSE not to renew their "deal" with the NFL which they had to pay HUGE sums of money for it and because NFL was opressive with extensive unreasonable and draconian demands which yielded virtually ZERO return on that investment. Imagine yourself in the same situation for 5 years..."Hey I'll be your girlfriend only if you pay me $350 million per year and here's a laundry list of my expectations and demands, and by the way you get absolutely NOTHING from me in return!" How long do you think you'd keep that "relationship" and how insulted would you be when you finally kicked her to the curb and all your other friends kept saying she dumped you and moved on to someone better? In my book we'd call her a gold-digging B*tch!

Bias Headlining

Talk about bias headlining! Read the press release from Sprint which came out yesterday morning, the NFL didn't DUMP Sprint, it's the other way around. Sprint CHOSE not to renew their "deal" with the NFL which they had to pay HUGE sums of money for it and because NFL was opressive with extensive unreasonable and draconian demands which yielded virtually ZERO return on that investment. Imagine yourself in the same situation for 5 years..."Hey I'll be your girlfriend only if you pay me $350 million per year and here's a laundry list of my expectations and demands, and by the way you get absolutely NOTHING from me in return!" How long do you think you'd keep that "relationship" and how insulted would you be when you finally kicked her to the curb and all your other friends kept saying she dumped you and moved on to someone better? In my book we'd call her a gold-digging B*tch!

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