CBS Sports will live stream two regular-season games and its four AFC playoff games -- another sign of how the league and its major media partners are exploring the wide world of
streaming. The network previously said it would stream the Super Bowl.
The network said the streams will be available on tablets, laptops and desktops and on some connected
devices including Xbox One, Apple TV, Roku and Chromecast, with no authentication necessary. (Fox streamed 101 NFL games last season via its authenticated Fox Sports Go app.)
Those
CBS games will be shown on mobile phones via Verizon’s NFL Mobile.
One of those regular-season games is the Thanksgiving Day game between the Dallas Cowboys and Carolina
Panthers on Nov 26. The other is the New York Jets-Miami Dolphins game from London on Oct. 4.
Yahoo paid as much as $20 million for exclusive global rights to stream the
Oct. 25 Buffalo Bills-Jacksonville Jaguars game from London too, which otherwise (mostly) won’t be seen on TV. That’s a first for the league and the streaming business.
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It will be
seen on TV in Jacksonville or Buffalo and Yahoo didn’t get rights to China. In Great Britain, the game also will be available via the Sky network.
But unlike that Yahoo deal, a
CBS spokeswoman said, these streamed games won’t be shown outside the United States.
Earlier this summer, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said advertisers in its Super Bowl telecast this year
will also be buying into the streaming telecast of the game for an enhanced rate to reflect the larger audience. But the spokeswoman said CBS was not commenting now on commercial arrangements for the
other streamed games.