Seen on Screen: NFL Makes Streaming Debut on Yahoo Sunday; Annual Premios Univision Deportes to Air

by Wilson Sy, Editorial Assistant

On Sunday morning, Yahoo’s global webcast of the Buffalo Bills-Jacksonville Jaguars game from London will mark the first time the NFL will offer a regular-season game exclusively on the Internet. The 9:30 a.m. telecast from London is free and available on Yahoo.com, which will distribute the telecast on every platform imaginable. It will be produced by CBS, which has assigned the announcing team of Kevin Harlan, Rich Gannon and Jamie Erdahl. Yahoo also announced on Thursday more than 30 advertisers would present sports during the game and that the webcast was sold out. The globally streamed game is an experiment by the NFL to attract American football internationally, as well as how popular a game will be when it is distributed entirely digitally. It could lead to a more extensive streaming deal in the future with Yahoo or another digital company…

…Univision Deportes announced Monday the second annual Premios Univision Deportes (Univision Sports Awards) launched successfully in 2014 as the ultimate sports award show for U.S. Hispanics honoring top athletes and teams from the leagues and sports that Hispanics care about most. Premios Univision Deportes will take place in Miami and will air live on the Univision network on Sunday, December 20, 2015 at 8:00 p.m ET/PT with a simulcast on UDC (Univision Deportes Network)…

…Media rights are projected to surpass ticket sales in 2018. According to PwC studies, estimates shown more than 35 percent of MLB, NBA and NHL teams have media rights deals that are set to expire over the next five years, but owners will continue to look for ways to further monetize teams’ on-demand digital assets. As a share of the overall sports industry, media rights will account for 28 percent ($20.6 billion) of the total measured revenue in 2019, up from 17 percent ($7.0 billion) in 2005. On the national media rights front, Sports Business Journal research indicates that between now and 2019, new deals will be negotiated for the Big Ten Conference (for rights held by ESPN, CBS and Fox), Conference USA (ESPN, CBS Sports Network and Fox), IndyCar (ESON) and UEFA (Fox), as well as rights for the NFL’s Thursday night package (CBS)…

…NBC Sports announced the launch of NBC Sports Digital Shorts, which will produce short-form content for NBCSports.com and include short-form original franchises, behind the scene footage and interviews, and highlights and clips from NBC Sports Group’s properties. The first NBC Sports Digital Short original series premiered Sunday, Oct. 18 and was titled “Sherman’s Warriors” with former Green Bay Packers head coach Mike Sherman as he coaches the Nauset Warriors high school team in Cape Cod, Mass. NBC Sports Digital will announce additional digital-exclusive programming in the coming months with episode and clips distributing through NBCSports.com and NBC Sports Live Extra…

… NBA Countdown – ABC’s and ESPN’s NBA pre-game show – will make its regular-season debut during ESPN’s first night of coverage, on Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 7 p.m. NBA Countdown will air throughout the season and NBA Playoffs, concluding with NBA Finals pre-game shows on ABC. Sage Steele returns for her third season as NBA Countdown host, joining analysts Jalen Rose and Doug Collins – also in their third seasons on the show – to form the Countdown team. The trio will generally appear on pre-game shows prior to NBA on ESPN Friday doubleheaders, Saturday Night NBA on ABC (launching Jan. 23) and NBA Sunday Showcase on ABC (beginning Jan. 31). Chauncey Billups, who joined ESPN as an analyst during the 2014-15 NBA season, will join the Wednesday edition of NBA Countdown as an analyst, alongside Jalen Rose and Doris Burke, who is in her second season on the show. NBA Countdown will emanate from ESPN’s Los Angeles Production Center across the street from the Staples Center for the fifth consecutive season…

…The start of the 2015 NFL season contributed to the Yahoo Sports – NBC Sports Network delivering its best month ever and ranking No. 2 among all sports digital sites in September with 74.3 million unique users, according to multiplatform data released by comScore. NBC Sports Group’s digital properties also had their best month ever, delivering 46 million unique users, up 28% versus the prior year. Rotoworld.com had its best month ever, delivering 5 million unique users, up 19% versus September 2014 NBCSports.com delivered 19 million unique users, up 19% versus 2014. CSNBayArea.com delivered 2 million unique users, up 194% versus 2014

In other NBC Sports digital news, Sherman’s Warriors, an original digital series starring former Green Bay Packers head coach Mike Sherman, is off to a strong start after its debut on Sunday, with the first episode ranking as the No. 1 most-viewed clip on NBCSports.com on Sunday and Monday. Episodes and clips from the program have…

…ESPN will present approximately 1,200 exclusive NCAA Men’s Basketball games across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, SEC Network and Longhorn Network. The addition of ESPN3 exclusive games. The season gets underway in world-wide fashion on Friday, Nov. 13, with the fourth annual Armed Forces Classic – this year staged from Camp Foster in Okinawa, Japan and showcasing Pittsburgh vs. Gonzaga at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN. Just prior, Colorado travels to South Dakota’s Samford Pentagon to take on Iowa State for a 5 p.m. tilt on ESPN2, while action continues throughout the night with an SEC Network doubleheader, an ESPNU doubleheader, including an early-round game of the 2K Classic featuring Siena at Duke and closing the night on ESPN with Texas versus Washington in Shanghai, China….

…The baseball season ended too soon for Cubs fans and Turner Broadcasting after being swept by the Mets on Wednesday evening. There just weren’t enough games for Turner to really cash in because of the revenue Games 5, 6 and 7 could have generated. Longer series also tend to have higher ratings as the drama builds, but the Mets left little room for it. The news is bittersweet for Fox who will broadcast the World Series with the big market Mets against either the small-market Kansas City Royals or the Toronto Blue Jays. However, the Cubs, who were looking to break a 100-year old championship drought, would have been the better story nationally and brought in more last minute dollars from sponsors…

…CSN Mid-Atlantic now presents the very best of its live coverage of the Washington Capitals to fans through an innovative new digital video product on CSNmidatlantic.com. “Capitals Rewind,” which launched alongside the team’s regular-season opener Oct. 10, efficiently packages all of the most important plays and exciting moments – including goals, top scoring chances and best saves – following each game. The expanded highlight video, which is posted shortly after the final horn, also features a digital-only recap of that night’s action and a preview of the next contest from announcers Joe Beninati and Craig Laughlin. CSN Mid-Atlantic will debut “Wizards Rewind” when the Washington Wizards open the season Oct. 28….

…Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia celebrated Brian Westbrook’s induction into the Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Fame this week with a series of vignettes that were posted on Facebook and Twitter, which generated nearly 63,000 video plays over five days.  Additionally, the network created the hashtag #CongratsBWest, which earned nearly 2,000 mentions, and launched a Brian Westbrook Big Head “find me” contest that awarded an autographed Westbrook jersey via Facebook.  Westbrook joined Comcast SportsNet as an Eagles analyst in September 2013…