Thursday morning showed a sign of promise when word broke that the San Francisco 49ers would be live-streaming their preseason games on the team’s official website.
The #49ers became the first NFL team to activate streaming rights with their local broadcast partner, KPIX Ch. 5, to provide free live-streaming for all four preseason games. Those games can be viewed at https://t.co/4pWVQudRY3, beginning Thurs., Aug. 9, vs. the Cowboys.
— Matt Maiocco (@MaioccoNBCS) June 28, 2018
There was promise because for out-of-market Cowboys fans, finding preseason games can be difficult. There are an occasional one or two on national television, but outside of that people typically have to purchase a way to watch these games.
Unfortunately while the 49ers are going to live-stream their games, they won’t be available out of market. From our friends at Niners Nation.
The San Francisco 49ers are set to start streaming their four preseason games on the team’s official website, according to Matt Maiocco. Unfortunately, it is only going to cover those in the 49ers markets. That means primarily the Bay Area and Northern California.
So basically we’re in the same boat, we just gave the boat a fresh coat of paint and adjusted the furniture inside of it (I’m using “furniture” loosely).
It’s definitely great to see the NFL experimenting with alternative methods like live-streaming, in fact we’ve seen them stream their own Thursday Night Football package to a degree on Twitter and Amazon Prime.
What would be even better though is if the NFL used the internet to the degree that this bad boy was meant to be used. Streaming is the perfect avenue to reach out-of-market fans, but for now it seems like the NFL wants to profit those purchases themselves.