From CTE concerns to national anthem protests to the existence of the Cleveland Browns, the reasons the NFL’s ratings continue to plummet are myriad.
But considering they just doubled down on their investment in the league, it appears Verizon is not overly concerned about any of them.
As part of a deal that’s more than double the annual price of the telecommunications conglomerate’s previous contract with the league, Verizon will pay about $2.5 billion over five years for the right to stream live NFL games on mobile phones and tablets across any of its websites.
Under the terms of Verizon’s previous deal, only subscribers were able to stream games. The new agreement — which is an easy way for Verizon to generate traffic for properties it owns like Yahoo, AOL, Go90 Complex — is open to all carriers and will let fans stream national and in-market games (including playoffs and the Super Bowl) regardless of their mobile network.
And while the new deal won’t go into full effect until the 2018-19 season, the new streaming service will partially rollout next month during the 2018 postseason on the Yahoo Sports app.
“The NFL is a great partner for us and we are excited to take its premier content across a massive mobile scale so viewers can enjoy live football and other original NFL content where and how they want it,” Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said in a press release.
Once the ball drops, get your popcorn — and smartphone — ready.
Main image courtesy of Patrick Smith/Getty Images
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