The unquestioned leader in American sports, the ubiquitous National Football League, has made small, though intriguing, media-related moves in recent days.
The NFL, whose regular season begins on September 6, has signed a deal with Sling Media, “to become the latest partner for the Clip+Sling video-sharing service“. The Clip+Sling service allows “Slingbox customers share short segments of programming, live or recorded, with other Slingbox customers as well as the audience at-large.”
While some might wonder why the NFL would make such a deal, considering the vigor with which the league protects its copyrighted property, the league’s television partners “do not foresee any copyright issues, since game highlights are available to rival networks during the game.” The move gives the NFL more of an interactive presence, while allowing the league to retain the control that is lost when dealing with video sharing sites like YouTube.
In another move, the NFL has signed on with television partner News Corporation to air a run of twenty original episodes of NFL Total Access on struggling two-year old MyNetworkTV. NFL Network: Total Access will air on Saturday nights, as part of a sports-related block on MyNetworkTV that also includes the International Fight League. Total Access regulars Rich Eisen, Marshall Faulk and Rod Woodson “will also appear on the MNTV version“.
The addition of NFL Total Access to MyNetworkTV is a strategic move on the NFL’s part, as the league attempts to gain distribution for the NFL Network. In essence, Total Access on MyNetworkTV serves as a free sample to fans; whether or not that sample will aid the NFL Network in getting on more basic cable packages is another issue.
Finally, the recent redesign of NFL.com has been acclaimed by some in the blogosphere; among the elements lauded is the “wealth of content available from the homepage“, the fact that “content that previously took 3 or 4 clicks to access is now accessible much more quickly” and “a new statistics database featuring … a record of every player to play in the NFL, player year-by-year statistics since they were recorded, and game-by-game stats for every player over the past 35 years.” The new site is a “big upgrade from what Sportsline provided … NFL.com took what works, built its site around the way the users like to navigate, and provided all of the information that users want.”
The wealth of information and a heavy emphasis on video, including extensive highlights and fantasy football resources, vaults NFL.com ahead of MLB.com and NBA.com, and along with the Sling Media deal, gives the league a more significant new media presence.
