NFL owners signed off on a series of changes to the league’s internet resolution and related policies that determine what teams can and cannot do in terms of distributing digital content and making money online.
The changes may feel like small-ball in isolation, and they are in the grand scheme of the NFL’s live game rights licensing business. But if you ask any team content strategist or sponsorship sales person, and they’ll tell you the old rules held them back.
“I don’t know that there’s a bunch of home runs in this, but the hope would be that there’s a number of singles and doubles throughout that just make sense and are ways in which we’re opening up more value creation opportunity across the 32 [teams],” said NFL EVP/Media Distribution Hans Schroeder.
Detailed policies will be sent to teams in the coming weeks, but here’s some highlights Schroeder walked me through:
Preseason games: Teams will be able to sell local rights to streamers, as I reported last week. They will also be able to distribute their games to their entire primary/secondary media markets plus another 4% of the country, and for a fee, go up to 10.5%. (Prior rules permitted 1.5% of the non-market territory for free, and then up to 9% for a fee.)
Club social handles: Team social media accounts will now be treated as an extension of the team’s owned-and-operated websites, which means fewer restrictions for sponsored social content.
Highlights: Teams can now use game highlights on TikTok and Threads.
In-game promotions: Teams can now do digital programming during games to encourage a second-screen experience, such as a prediction contest on second-quarter receptions, and sell that to a sponsor, Schroeder said.
Club shows: Teams can produce and sell original content to streamers if it’s not something that would compete with an NFL Films or Skydance Sports initiative at the league level.
If the club does create its own “Hard Knocks”-style documentary, they can only appear on owned-and-operated websites or YouTube, which they can monetize. (This was technically against the old rules, but was already happening, and the league agreed that was OK.)
Chiefs President Mark Donovan, a member of the working group that studied this issue for more than two years, complimented the league’s willingness to hear teams out while still making sure the league’s big-money media partners don’t feel undermined. In some cases, he said, the old rules simply didn’t contemplate a mid-2020s era digital content and marketing operation.
“In general, it’s an understanding that we are a lot more aggressive as business operations and entertainment vehicles, so we wanted more freedom to be able to push the envelope a bit, and they were open to that,” Donovan said. “They do their job, and have to make sure there are boundaries, and they did a good job.”
