Neil Hughes
CBS on Wednesday announced that it will stream the Super Bowl, the AFC playoffs, and two regular-season NFL games to a wide range of devices and platforms, including Apple TV, for free, with no authentication required.
CBS will offer free streams of the New York Jets vs. Miami Dolphins in London on Oct. 4 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern, as well as the Carolina Panthers vs. Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26, at 4:30 p.m. Eastern.
Those will be the first time ever for the NFL on CBS to stream a regular season game.
Coverage will continue with the AFC playoffs, when CBS will stream the Wild Card, Divisional, and Championship games. And like rival network Fox did last year, CBS will also stream Super Bowl 50 live.
However, last year Fox made the Super Bowl available on iOS, but this year's championship situation is murkier.
In its press release, CBS said that streaming coverage will be available on "laptops, desktops and tablets at CBSSports.com," with smartphones left out of the mix. The network did say that streaming coverage on phones will be available to Verizon customers on phones through NFL Mobile, suggesting that a potential exclusive contract could be at play.
It is unclear whether CBS and the NFL plan to block CBSSports.com Web streams on mobile phones. The press release also made no mention of Apple's iPad, though presumably that would fall under the tablet category of compatible devices mentioned by the broadcaster.
Other "connected TV devices" that will stream the games are Microsoft's Xbox One, Google's Chromecast, and Roku players.
"We're very excited to offer more NFL on CBS streaming coverage across more digital platforms than ever before," said Jeffrey Gerttula, senior vice president and general manager of CBS Sports Digital. "All NFL fans will have access through their computers, tablets and now Connected TVs to two regular season games for the first time in addition to all of the AFC playoff action, culminating with a truly historic Super Bowl."
Charles Martin
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10 Comments
Whoa. This must be part of the announcement. Too bad the Super Bowl stream wasn't an Apple exclusive.
This is good, One this I heard and read that most people agree unless live sports are stream people will not give up thier cable TV systems. It looks like the NFL is testing the waters.
I know my Brother-in-law watchs baseball on his ATV and does it so he can watch his home town team which is not broadcast locally. What was interesitng it blanks out the video with a message that said paused for local advertising.
This stuck me as interesting and I feel that Apple will solve this problem I bet they will offer advertising based on location of the ATV at the time. This way no matter where you are in the country and what you are watching ads will be local. This is the issue that has exsited for a long time is making sure ads are local to the market person seeing them in. I think Apple can solve this porblem which others failed at.
Meh. Nobody watches the Jets and the Pathers.
(Free Brady!)
[quote name="anantksundaram" url="/t/187991/cbs-to-stream-super-bowl-50-afc-playoffs-two-regular-season-nfl-games-free-to-apple-tv#post_2769833"]Meh. Nobody watches the Jets and the Pathers. (Free Brady!) [/quote] I don't know about the Panthers but tons of people watch the Jets.
I assume these will all be free with advertising, just shifting from OTA/cable to streaming. It will be interesting to see how many people utilize it, if they have streaming issues, etc. Since this is CBS (and not a cable channel), most if not all should be available OTA via HD antenna. Would be nice to compare quality, see if there are any additional options (pausing for eg) with streaming, etc.