Sports Business: Verizon "Goes For It" with NFL Deal

-WSJ

Verizon is upping the ante when it comes to content. As part of a mission to become “the first screen for live sports,” Verizon has splashed about $2 billion on a new rights deal with the NFLthat will see the carrier offer access to football games across Yahoo, Yahoo Sports and go90 mobile platforms, WSJ reports. Verizon’s annual rights and sponsorship fee is rising from $250 million currently to more than $450 million, according to people familiar with the deal. Previously, Verizon’s NFL agreements demanded exclusivity to distribute national and in-market games only to customers on its own network. But now it’s opening up games to users on rival carriers as the focus is on bolstering its content platforms, especially given Verizon’s $4.5 billion purchase of Yahoo earlier this year to join with AOL and form Oath. The games will appear with ads, where it seems likely Verizon’s sales team will tout Oath’s ad-targeting abilities to an audience they might not be able to find on TV.