Reportedly, Yahoo! Inc. YHOO has partnered with National Football League (NFL) to offer the first-ever live online streaming of a single regular-season football game for free.
Per the agreement, Yahoo will provide live streaming video of NFL’s International Series game, to be held in London on Oct 25 this year. The match between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars can be viewed on various Yahoo properties and devices, including Yahoo, Yahoo Screen, Yahoo Sports as well as its social media platform, Tumblr.
The deal with NFL will help Yahoo find a way to connect better with the youth while expanding its video game content inventory. It will help the company to solidify its presence in the online video content space. On the other hand, it will be a major step for NFL as the game will be broadcast live on such a wide platform for the first time.
Nevertheless, this deal would be a concern for TV and cable companies like Disney DIS and Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. FOXA which are heavily dependent on these live sporting events to drive growth and sustainability.
For Yahoo, this could be an effort to focus on areas other than the search business. As the company has virtually bowed out of the search market, this partnership clearly indicates that CEO Marissa Mayer is not ignoring other growth areas. She is looking to protect Yahoo’s share in the online video market by creating and reviving content related to games, style, health, food, and technology.
Moreover, to counter the competition, Yahoo has been striving to offer good content for quite some time now. Last year, it began a series of digital magazines revolving around topics like food and technology to boost advertising revenues.
On the live streaming front, Yahoo announced a deal for an electronic-music competition series with Simon Cowell. Yahoo also signed deals to stream live concert video with Live Nation and several music festivals.
However, it still has a long way to go. Yahoo’s streaming service will be competing with the likes of Amazon.com Inc. AMZN and Netflix, which do more than just stream online video content. Additionally, it would be a challenge to gain preference over conventional programming among TV viewers
Currently, Yahoo carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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