Say what? That may not make a lot of sense for a global company like Google considering that American football is pretty much localized to . . . well, America. But if Google decides they want it, they certainly have the cash.
Interesting. Wonder if it would include a workaround for blackout rules?
Moved MPSIMS --> the Game Room.
Being a global company doesn’t mean ignoring individual markets. Pretty much the opposite, really. Most multinational companies offer entirely different products and services to different markets. There are fifteen different flavors of Kit-Kat available in Japan. I think the UK still has just the one, and they invented the damn things. But apparently there’s not much of a demand outside of Japan for purple sweet potato flavored chocolate.
Youtube has already had a tie-up with the Indian Premier League(cricket) for broadcasting matches live. If you missed seeing that, Youtube obviously can, and will, limit content to countries.
I think everything Google does, even the seemingly unconnected ventures like driverless cars, is designed to funnel as many eyeballs as possible to its pages. Which is its real core business.
Agreed. And with what, over 300M eyeballs in the US, I can see the economic logic even behind a purely regional play. The thing with that is though, they’re then competing on the same footing as regular broadcasters who, I have to imagine, are going to be able to squeeze more money out of advertisers - but I don’t actually know that for a fact, I’m just guessing. I just don’t see somebody like Hyundai paying a gazillion bucks for a 60 second ad on youtube - not that the pricing scheme is the same, but you get the idea.
I figure if Google does this, they’ve done some research and have much bigger plans for this. Personally, I don’t see why American football isn’t more popular. I’m sure we aren’t the only people who like violent entertainment. I mean just look at the movie industry. Sex and violence sells. And what about the UFC? Does that have an int’l audience? Boxing? WWF? I have to believe with a little marketing, American football could branch start to branch out. Maybe you wouldn’t have int’l teams in the NFL or even any int’l teams at all, but I think you could definitely drum up some eyeballs.
This might be a small skirmish in the beginning of the global wars for sports eyeballs. The NFL’s new rival is FIFA. And while the NFL has a wide world left to conquer, which means plenty of potential growth, FIFA still has yet to grab the share it wants in the world’s most lucrative market.
While there may be room for only one global No. 1, there should be room for both in a world growing in affluence. The most interesting battles may take place for those two billion consumers in China and India. Which has the more likelihood of success, selling Messi’s exploits in Mumbai or RGIII’s in Beijing?
My first thought was, they could show the games on a one-hour delay, which is what the league is enforcing for “blacked-out” Raiders preseason game TV broadcasts in the San Francisco area.
However, if it’s a replacement for NFL Sunday Ticket, then it has to be live. If the quality is typical YouTube quality, I don’t see the NFL having a serious problem with live broadcasts in all areas - after all, there are no blackout rules for NFL Red Zone.
Can YouTube videos be restricted by ZIP Code - and even if they could, how is the server supposed to know the location of the client?
I think enforcing locality restrictions is going to become increasingly difficult. The crack down by ISP’s on torrenting has created a golden age for VPN vendors. You can now subscribe to a VPN service and change your IP address from Singapore to Paris to the Seychelles with the flick of a mouse.
Of course there’s always the question of market penetration - how many people are actually savvy enough to do this. I don’t have the google-fu to figure that out, but I suspect that if sufficiently motivated, they can figure it out pretty quickly - plus it’s pretty cheap when you compare it to what DirecTV charges for Sunday Ticket.