• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, August 19, 2008

With the football season fast approaching, Sprint is teaming with the National Football League to deliver live radio and television broadcasts of NFL games and other content via mobile devices.

Sprint's NFL Mobile Live offering, launching Sept. 2, includes radio broadcasts of all regular season games and telecasts of eight Thursday night games on the NFL Network starting Nov. 6.

The service is free for customers of Sprint's $99.99 monthly Simply Everything plan, which includes unlimited voice, messaging and data. Users can otherwise access the live NFL games by getting a data plan starting at $15 a month.

In addition to the live game broadcasts, the new service gives fans access to related programming such as training camp reports, season previews for each team and shows including NFL Total Access, NFL Gameday and NFL Playbook.

By selecting a favorite team, fans can also get a welcome screen on NFL Mobile Live tailored to that team including scores, players' stats and links to live coverage on game days.

The initiative also extends the NFL.com's fantasy league to the cell phone. Fantasy players can track the performance of each player on the go through real-time stats, rankings, profiles and photos. For the first time, fans will also be able to watch video highlights for some players through a link on the player's main page.

"The NFL continues to explore new ways to feed our fans' insatiable appetite to get NFL games, news and highlights, anytime, anywhere and on any screen," said Brian Rolapp, NFL senior vice president of media strategy. "NFL Mobile Live, exclusively from Sprint, enables fans to enjoy Thursday Night Football and other exclusive content on their terms."

Meanwhile, the NFL and Verizon Communications announced a partnership under which the league will provide live broadcasts of the NFL Network's regular-season Thursday and Saturday games as well as college football and other programming through Verizon's consumer broadband service. But that deal does not extend to Verizon Wireless.

Sprint has a 5-year deal to be the exclusive telecom provider for the NFL that runs through the 2009 season. The carrier's latest NFL-related initiative could help Sprint boost data usage and staunch a continuing exodus of subscribers.