The rights to the NFL's first streaming-only broadcast of a
football game are going to Yahoo Inc., as the aging Internet portal
makes one of its biggest bets on live content to lure more
advertising dollars.
Yahoo said it will make the Oct. 25 matchup between the Buffalo
Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars available on any of its digital
platforms, whether that is in a Web browser, within a Yahoo app on
a mobile phone or on a television with a streaming device.
"Basically any digitally connected user will get it, for free,"
said Adam Cahan, senior vice president of mobile and emerging
products at Yahoo.
The Week 7 game, which will be played in London and shown at
9:30 a.m. Eastern time, will mark a dramatic shift in the league's
broadcast strategy, which always depended on traditional network
television or a cable channel to air regular season games.
The game is something of an experiment for the NFL, which wants
to see how viewers, advertisers and technology companies will
respond to games on digital platforms. It also allows the league to
reach viewers who don't subscribe to traditional pay-TV. Brian
Rolapp, the league's executive vice president of NFL Media, said
the test balloon is also designed to get ideas from tech giants on
how they would handle game broadcasts. The league—which has teased
the idea of a partnership with an Internet company for years—said
its only request was that the winning company have a broad
reach.
"When we do television packages, we kind of know the rights and
how we want to sell them," Mr. Rolapp said. "This is a lot more
open as far as the response."
For now, Mr. Cahan said, Yahoo's focus will be to distribute the
game without a hitch, but also to explore different ways to engage
advertisers. He said the Internet-only broadcast will open the door
to nontraditional NFL advertisers who have a relationship with
Yahoo or to traditional NFL sponsors seeking a global audience
since the game will be available world-wide.
Mr. Cahan said Yahoo will focus on bringing advertising features
to NFL games that can't exist on traditional broadcasts like "links
to the ads, a companion experience or tracking elements."
Yahoo is betting it on its ability to lure marketers to the
streaming game at a time when the overall company is trying to
reignite ad sales growth.
The deal adds a high-profile piece of content for Yahoo Chief
Executive Marissa Mayer. Mr. Cahan said she was directly involved
in negotiations, beating out what the league said was a "who's who"
of tech companies looking to broadcast a regular season game.
Both sides declined to comment on financial terms of the
arrangement. CBS Corp. pays about $300 million to broadcast eight
Thursday games. The NFL already has content deals with Twitter,
Facebook and YouTube for game highlights and other video, but they
cannot show full games.
The pressure is on for Ms. Mayer to invest in and grow mobile
and video advertising fast enough to offset the company's declining
legacy businesses of display and search ads on desktop computers.
Already three years in, her turnaround effort is faltering as
search and display ads both fell in the first quarter for the first
time in years.
To help bolster its video and digital platforms, Yahoo has hired
stars such as Katie Couric for its news team, acquired former NBC
sitcom "Community" and developed other scripted shows, like "The
Pursuit," which will launch in 2016. Mr. Cahan compared the NFL
game to a live Yahoo broadcast of a recent Taylor Swift concert,
which he called an "Internet phenomenon" that was a "flawless
consumer event."
A broadcast crew from CBS, which likely would have handled the
game if it were a typical regular season matchup, will do the
production. The game will still be broadcast on network television
in the teams' local markets of Buffalo and Jacksonville.
Mr. Cahan said he hopes the one-game deal will be the start of a
long-term relationship. The league and Yahoo both admit there will
be no true benchmark for success in this first streaming attempt.
The game was never expected to be a ratings bonanza given the
timing, location and the two teams, which are not expected to be
contenders next season.
"I'm not sure we have any expectations what viewership will be,"
Mr. Rolapp said. "Our first hurdle for success is that the quality
is high for the fan. Other than that, that we successfully learn
and to see how we innovate.... We'll know a lot more about this
after this year."
Write to Kevin Clark at kevin.clark@wsj.com
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