Last season, Verizon acquired the rights to stream local and nationally televised NFL games on smartphones and tablets. As part of the deal, wireless customer could stream NFL games that are locally televised on CBS & FOX, as well as all nationally televised NBC, ESPN, and NFL Network games on their smartphone or tablet for free.
The games became accessible on the NFL App and Verizon-owned properties like Yahoo Sports and AOL. This season, though they’ve expanded it to four new places: Yahoo! Fantasy Football App, NFL Fantasy Football App, NFL.com Mobile Website, and the various NFL Club mobile properties (like the team apps).
Unfortunately, just like last year, the apps won’t let you stream the games on our TV — you’ll need a Live TV Streaming Service like Hulu Live TV, PlayStation Vue, or YouTube TV for that.
With the additional new outlets to watch the games, live streaming across Week 1 game windows on NFL, Verizon Media, and broadcaster digital platforms delivered an average minute audience of 514K, up +43% versus Week 1 in 2018. This was just below the Thursday Night opener between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears which saw an Average Minute Audience (AMA) of 627K viewers — which was up 10% from last year’s NFL Kickoff Game (570K).