Dive Brief:
- Yahoo’s webcast of the London NFL game between Jacksonville and Buffalo is sold out to more than 30 advertisers who are set to reach a worldwide audience via the online live stream.
- Toyota is sponsoring the halftime show with Jack Hollis, group vice president for marketing at Toyota Motors in the U.S., saying that being part of the event was something the automaker did not want to miss.
- Other advertisers include Dairy Queen, sponsor of the pregame show, Arby’s, the Emirates Airline and American Express.
Dive Insight:
It’s no secret advertisers, love professional football (see: the Super Bowl), and also love splashy events (see: the Super Bowl, again), and Yahoo’s live webcast of Sunday’s NFL game between the Jaguars and Bills being held in London is no exception. It’s the first event of its kind broadcasting an NFL game live to an international audience over the internet and Yahoo sold out the event to more than 30 advertisers.
One brand, Toyota, jumped on the opportunity as soon as the deal with the NFL was announced and will sponsor the halftime show. Toyota’s Hollis said in a New York Times article, “You don’t get a chance to be part of firsts very often. And, from a Toyota standpoint, I like to be part of historic firsts. And as a process of our partnerships with Yahoo and the NFL, it was an easy decision.” Adding that brand was excited to reach part of Yahoo’s one billion users.
The NFL has been interested in reaching the audience of streaming users, and in a Wall Street Journal article, Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s executive vice president of media, said, “There are a lot of people who want to put this into the box of an experiment or a stunt and it is not. We wouldn’t put a game out there if we didn’t think this was real distribution.”
According to insiders, Yahoo paid the NFL $20 million for the streaming rights to the game that will also be broadcast on CBS, but only in the Jacksonville and Buffalo markets. The rest of the world can watch the CBS team via Yahoo’s live stream of the game.
