Yahoo Delivers High Streaming Viewers For First NFL Game

Yahoo pulled in high -- but not U.S. TV-like -- viewing numbers for the first live-streamed NFL regular-season game.

The company says 15.2 million unique global viewers sampled the game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars in London. About 66% of those came from the U.S. -- around 10 million.

Yahoo said viewers streamed a total 460 million minutes of the game. With the game 195 minutes long, that means an average of 2.36 million viewers were watching.

By comparison, Fox is averaging a Nielsen 19.93 million viewers for its Sunday afternoon broadcast of games. CBS is at 18.2 million viewers, followed by NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” at 23.9 million viewers; CBS/NFL Network’s “Thursday Night Football” with 18.1 million; and ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” at 13.5 million.

According to reports, Yahoo said it sold out its TV ad inventory, but at much lower TV advertising prices than U.S. networks charged -- as low as $50,000 in some cases.

The Sunday game broadcast live from London started at 9:35 a.m. ET., and ended around 1 p.m. Yahoo paid an estimated $15 million for the rights to the game, signing up around 30 advertisers.

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