After signing a four-year, $720 million deal with the NFL to stream games to mobile phones, Verizon Wireless is now looking to extend its relationship to include tablets. “The NFL will be on a tablet,” said Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s SVP of media strategy told the WSJ. “It’s a question of what shape or form. We are currently talking to Verizon about it.”
While many mobile content deals today allow third parties the ability to stream video to mobile phones, they did not take into account the quick rise in popularity of the iPad or the upcoming onslaught of other tablet computers. Now many third parties and content owners are forced to go back and renegotiate old contracts or form new deals that answer the main question at hand: What is mobile? The debate is largely centered around the rate structure, and whether the larger screen of the tablet could be considered a cable replacement, and therefore demand a higher rate, or whether it’s more similar to mobile phones.
Verizon Wireless is hoping to leverage its relationship with the NFL to increase consumers’ appetite for video on the mobile phone. To watch full video broadcasts of the games, subscribers will have to pay $10 a month for Verizon
Which tablet providers?