Over the past few decades, the NFL has been an organization quick to retain its modernity through advancements in on-the-field equipment and off-the-field technology, as well as giving attention to current trends and social behavior. The League hasn't been quite has speedy on embracing online streaming, but steps have been taken, and this Sunday marks the crossing of a horizon. CBS has announced a new branch of its partnership with the NFL that will bring all NFL on CBS games to its standalone streaming service CBS All Access. Are you ready for some buffering football?
This first-of-its-kind deal will finally bring Sunday afternoon NFL coverage to streaming on a regular basis, and it's not too surprising that CBS is the network that pulled it together, since execs have been hinting at such a resolution for a while now. The deal has obviously been in development for some time, assumedly while bandwidth-based work happened behind the scenes, as CBS All Access will already begin streaming games on Sunday, December 4, rather than the beginning of next season. The service is doing well for CBS, but isn't on Netflix levels of subscribers or anything, so hopefully there won't be any streaming issues that first day if a slew of customers tune in.
There may only be five weeks left in the regular season, but that doesn't mean there are only five weeks left of NFL games streaming on CBS All Access. The multi-year deal between the NFL and CBS extends to postseason games as well, so you won't have to miss any explosive playoff contests if you're stuck somewhere without a TV on winter weekends. And you won't have to wait for the next regular season to start streaming, as CBS' preseason games are also part of the deal. It's not clear if the next Super Bowl on CBS would be included, but it's presumed.
Football fans have gotten a taste of streaming NFL games in the past, thanks to the League's deal to stream Thursday Night Football games on Twitter. The advantage there is that Twitter is free for anyone, and CBS All Access has a small price tag on it, but the streaming service has a ton of other programming to further justify that cost, and that includes the highly anticipated Star Trek: Discovery, which premieres next year. Should this NFL deal be as successful as everyone involved is hoping for - and probably paying out the ass for - then we can expect CBS All Access to continue expanding its offerings to customers. Win-win for everyone.
The NFL never too far away from controversies and backlashes, but most fans just want to watch games being played without all the background chatter. And if you're on CBS All Access streaming games on Sundays, then it'll be that much easier for you to avoid the chatter. And if you want to do your own commentating, that's cool with us, too.
Because the NFL season can't last forever, head to our midseason premiere schedule to see what you can start watching after it's all said and done.
