Football On the Horn

An interesting article about the NFL and their anticipated growth of mobile/wireless features, with potential profits in a few years projected at $30M. Of course the NFL has a pile of dynamic content to distribute to millions of rabid fans -- the NFL Network is a great example. The rinky-dink combination of current mobile offerings (WML -- which is not updated quickly enough or accurately enough, Palm apps, ringtones, voting for Pro Bowl players or MVP, etc.) seem to be hard-pressed to total the kind of revenue hinted at in this article, but the ever-expected onslaught of 3G speeds may provide highlights or live video coverage to phones.

More likely revenue generators? In the near term the "Gamecenter" would make a perfect and easy port to a Midlet, and up-to-the-minute Fantasy Tools would also generate significant revenue -- who could've anticipated that having control over active/inactive lists at 1PM would be worth so much money?

The NFL's cellphone ventures are growing so rapidly that by the 2006 or 2007 season, some league officials think, wireless could generate as much profit as conventional services delivered through league Web pages and the associated advertising.

...

Pro football's ventures into wireless are "in many ways just the beginning," said Chris Russo, the NFL's senior vice president for new media. "We expect continued growth over the next two or three years, and wireless has the potential to equal or exceed what we're doing on the Internet."

Russo declined to offer specifics, but people familiar with the NFL's online operations estimate they currently gross about $140 million, yielding annual profits of $35 million to $40 million.

The full article is here.

And, hey, if we're talking about what fans would pay money for -- how about selling the coaches film footage? Maybe not each week -- even if just the last season. It's nice having that funky floating Madden-esque camera behind the LOS, but I'd love to see the secondary through the whole play.

Posted by juechi at November 25, 2004 09:23 PM