Even as television ratings have fallen, television rights fees continue to climb for the NFL.
Part of that stems from simple competition, as plenty of networks want in on the action. That extends to the online world to.
Via Jason Del Rey of Recode.net, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki reiterated her desire to eventually broadcast NFL games in the future.
“I’d love to stream the NFL,” Wojcicki said during a conference in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Monday.
She’s bid twice before, but the NFL elected to go with Twitter two years ago, and Amazon last year. But those two drew an average of 240,000 and 370,000 viewers, respectively.
YouTube boasts 1.5 billion logged-in viewers a month, so it has the potential for even larger audiences. They’ve also had millions of viewers at one time for rocket launches, so they can handle big crowds. Wojcicki also said they could add e-commerce functions to help sell stuff, and we know the NFL likes that.
Whether YouTube’s latest bid is more successful than the first two remains to be seen, but the simple act of expressing the desire is good for the NFL as they negotiate the next round of deals.