NFL Streaming Eight NFL Network Games Online; New Web Effort

NFL Network plans to stream the eight regular-season games that it televises over the Internet, making them available only to NFL Network subscribers, network President Steve Bornstein said at Manhattan’s Hammersmith Ballroom last night, where 650 media buyers gathered to hear the network tout its upcoming programming schedule. The network offered the streaming of live games only to Verizon FiOS TV systems last year. It also plans to use Internet-based enhanced TV applications during those games this year Bornstein said (John Ourand, THE DAILY). The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Paul Gough notes that in order to qualify to receive games over the Internet, subscribers’ MSOs or other providers “would have to meet certain penetration guidelines, and the subscriber would also have to have cable and Internet access from the same provider.” Meanwhile, NFL Network COO Kim Williams indicated that NFL.com, which the league plans to relaunch as it takes production in-house, will be the “only place on the Internet for highlights of NFL games” (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 4/26).

STAR POWER: NFL Network used some of its biggest stars — Tom Brady, Michael Strahan and Reggie Bush, as well as the soon-to-be-drafted Brady Quinn — to promote the network last night. But it was distribution, not programming, that was on the minds of a scrum of reporters, who peppered Bornstein with questions about the status of negotiations with cable operators. Bornstein said he hopes to get distribution deals completed well before the season starts in September, adding that the net will look to use some new broadband initiatives to convince MSOs to take the deal, for example the aforementioned streaming games (John Ourand).