NFL Game Rewind Could Be A Milestone For Internet Media
Dec 12th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Internet TV, Streaming Video, Video 
The NFL has launched a new service that could turn out to be a milestone in the development of Internet media, Game Rewind.Â
Game Rewind is a $19.99/season Internet video service that lets you watch every NFL game in HD quality, with no commercials. Game Rewind provides DVR functionality and lets you watch up to four games at once. The NFL is saying games will be available within, at most, 24 hours.
Game Rewind has the potential to be huge:
- It routes around cable networks and traditional networks and makes the NFL the network;
- It eliminates the need, at least for football fans, for TiVo-style devices;
- It will expand the idea of the Internet replacing television to a mass audience; and
- It will increase the length of videos that people are watching online to unprecedented time.Â
Services like this really highlight the missed opportunity that Apple has with the Apple TV. NFL fans would love to have an easy way to get this on their HDTVs instead of their television, and an Apple TV app store offering a $20 NFL purchase could be a huge hit.Â
Do you think NFL’s Game Rewind going to be huge?
This is what the internet has long-promised and from a consumer point of view it’s brilliant : no need to watch what the networks serve up and no need to go pay-per-view. Not even any need to watch it at the actual game time.
For the NFL, though, the very fact that they “become the network” and bypass the traditional delivery channels represents a huge risk. It jepordises the huge upfront fixed fees they receive for the rights to broadcast and they will need to be confident that they can match any drop in payment for the rights with the revenue from streaming online. What may help is the overseas revenue where, no doubt, the fees paid by broadcsters are relatively low.
If this works, expect other sports to follow especially in those countries where cable is the exception rather than the norm and some sports are simply not available on free-to-air. And where sport goes other programming will follow and perhaps in Hulu we are already seeing that.
Subscription to the BBC back catalogue, anyone? Yes, please!
I think every player for tenn. should be fined for taking the steelers terriable towel rubbing it into the ground and then stepping on it that was so wrong and sum1 should take care of it i mean patriots can cheat and get away with it and now this incident! what is becoming of the national football league? pathetic! gross and disgusts me!
Will Game Rewind be huge? For me, yes (I just discovered this option today at NFL.com). I refuse to pay for cable TV and get 31 channels of digitial HD reception for free using an outdoor rotating antenna in suburban D.C. I could care less for the ‘Skins, and my team is rarely on broadcast TV here. Even when I try to watch a broadcast game, the commercials and other delays drive me away.
With my flat screen TV connected to my computer, and Game Rewind promising zero commercials plus fast-forwarding zapping of, e.g., lenghty reviews and injury delays, the only negative is waiting for the NFL upload of the games. That may mean waiting until past-midnight or Monday morning to watch the Sunday’s game(s), but I already wait until Monday morning just to see the highlights. The “season pass” price of $19.95 seems like a teaser for this new service; I suspect the price for the 2009 season may be steeper. Now I wonder whether I can access the service without seeing in advance the final score of the game(s) I want to watch. Anybody know the answer or the best way to do that?
I only watch the Vikings, paying $200 @ year for Sunday Ticket. I don’t get to watch till Monday usually, because of work. They will usually play at least 3 nationally televised games a year. I pay roughly $15.50 a game to watch Sunday Ticket, I can watch all the games for $20. I’m a player.