U.S top mobile carrier company Verizon Communications Inc. is going to pay the sum of $2.25 billion for a five-year partnership with the National Football League. The deal would allow users of their network to stream games on their Yahoo and go90 platforms and also on their mobile devices. This was revealed to Reuters by sources who are close to the matter.
As part of the deal, Verizon would be able to renew an agreement to stream NFL games on its mobile devices though it would lose the exclusive rights to air the games.
Representatives from both Verizon and NFL declined to comment on the financial terms of the agreement, but Verizon stated that the deal would come into effect by January with the streaming of NFL playoff games on Yahoo and Yahoo Sports. This will also be in addition to the go90 streaming platform and the NFL mobile app that are already available.
Verizon further added that the partnership between the two would also include having mobile access to original content to be jointly developed.
Jennifer Fritzsche, an analyst at Wells Fargo, in her research note mentioned that the deal is an indication that Verizon is trying to expand its mobile advertising platform. Six months ago, Verizon acquired Yahoo’s main assets for a fee of $4.8 billion, combining them to their AOL to create their Oath business.
Fritzsche said that “With the recent consolidation of these properties in the Oath division, we would expect this to take on more of a growing focus for (Verizon) in 2018.”
Verizon also revealed that it had attained over 200 million U.S. monthly unique mobile and digital users. The company further added that its target for Oath is to be able to contribute $20 billion in revenue by 2020.
This development comes at a time when the company announced that it is launching its 5G broadband service in the U.S by next year, a move that was criticized by rivals T-Mobile who believed that Verizon doesn’t have what it takes yet to develop the technology.
After the announcement, the shares of Verizon went up by 0.4%, trading at $51.27 on Monday.
