NFL+ (formerly NFL Game Pass) is an

over-the-top An over-the-top (OTT) media service is a media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms: the types of companies that traditionally act as controllers or distributors ...

subscription service operated by the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) in the United States. The service offers live streaming of the

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...

broadcasts of all NFL games, streaming of the television broadcasts of in-market games on

mobile devices A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...

, streaming of out-of-market

preseason In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of Se ...

games, and library content from

NFL Films NFL Productions, LLC, doing business as NFL Films, is the film and television production company of the National Football League. It produces commercials, television programs, feature films, and documentaries for and about the NFL, as well as ...

and

NFL Network NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League (NFL) and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and NF ...

. The service's premium tier offers on-demand replays of NFL games, including alternate "All-22" and "Coaches Film" presentations. The service is an amalgamation of several streaming services previously offered by the NFL, including NFL Audio Pass (formerly NFL Field Pass)–which launched in 2003 in partnership with RealNetworks to stream radio broadcasts, and NFL Game Rewind. Audio Pass and Game Rewind were merged to form NFL Game Pass in 2015. In turn, Game Pass was merged with the NFL's in-market mobile streaming rights (formerly held by

Verizon Media Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas i ...

) in 2022 to form NFL+.

History

In January 2003, the NFL announced a partnership with RealNetworks to serve as its streaming media partner, offering exclusive multimedia features during the

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...

via the company's RealOne SuperPass subscription service. Chris Russo, the league's senior vice president of new media and publishing, stated that the playoff content was a pilot that could lead to "a subscription program that includes elements such as video, audio, enhanced analysis and fantasy football" in the future. Ahead of the 2003 NFL season, the NFL launched two subscription services in partnership with RealNetworks, including NFL.com Fantasy Extra–which offered expanded analysis and video content oriented towards fantasy football players, and NFL Field Pass–which would carry the radio broadcasts for all NFL games, video features on NFL.com (including game highlights), the weekly program ''NFL Insider Radio'', and coverage of team press conferences. To enforce exclusive regional rights and encourage use of the service, the NFL prohibited local radio affiliates from including game broadcasts in their

internet radio Online radio (also web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio, IP radio, Internet radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted ...

streams. In 2006 , the NFL launched NFL Game Pass as its streaming service for international markets in cooperation with

Yahoo! Sports Yahoo! Sports is a sports news website launched by Yahoo! on December 8, 1997. It receives a majority of its information from STATS, Inc. It employs numerous writers, and has team pages for teams in almost every North American major sport. B ...

; it would later launch NFL Game Rewind in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

for on-demand streaming of completed NFL games, including "Coaches Film" and "All-22" feeds. NFL Field Pass was renamed NFL Audio Pass prior to the 2010 season. That year, the NFL started live streaming preseason games online. In 2015, the NFL merged NFL Game Rewind with NFL Audio Pass, forming a single service under the NFL Game Pass branding in the United States. The NFL previously maintained an exclusive mobile streaming rights package with

Verizon Communications Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

, as part of its official wireless carrier sponsorship of the league; streaming of in-market and nationally-televised games on smartphones was exclusive to the Verizon-operated "NFL Mobile" service, which was only available as a paid add-on for

Verizon Wireless Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the div ...

subscribers. This exclusivity deal prohibited the NFL's television partners from streaming their telecasts on smartphones, thus network-run

TV Everywhere TV Everywhere (also known as authenticated streaming or authenticated video on-demand) refers to a type of subscription business model wherein access to streaming video content from a television channel requires users to "authenticate" themse ...

streams could only be viewed on PCs and

tablet computers A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being compu ...

. Under a five-year extension of the agreement beginning in the

2017–18 NFL playoffs The National Football League playoffs for the 2017 season began with the Wild Card Round on January 6, 2018, and concluded with Super Bowl LII on February 4, 2018, when the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the New England Patriots at U.S. Bank Stadi ...

and

2018 NFL season The 2018 NFL season was the 99th season of the National Football League (NFL) and the 53rd of the Super Bowl era. The season began on September 6, 2018, with the NFL Kickoff Game with defending Super Bowl LII champion Philadelphia defeating ...

, Verizon waived this exclusivity to take advantage of its acquisition of

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...

; mobile in-market streams, as well as other NFL-related digital content, was made available via

, while NFL broadcasters were authorized to stream games via their platforms on all device classes. In May 2022, it was reported that with the expiration of the NFL's agreement with Verizon (which had divested AOL and Yahoo! to Apollo Global Management in 2021), its teams had approved a proposal to paywall mobile in-market streams behind a new "NFL Plus" service. NFL+ was officially announced on July 25, 2022, succeeding Game Pass in the United States. The service will be offered in two tiers, with the basic service offering in-market streaming on mobile devices, streaming of radio broadcasts and most preseason games, as well as library content from

and

. The premium tier of NFL+ will add game replays.

References

External links

* {{Sports television in the United States Subscription video on demand services National Football League mass media

History

See also

References

External links