Yahoo To Stream Terrible London NFL Game Anywhere In The World For Free

The October 25 snoozefest in London between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills will be streaming for free anywhere in the world exclusively on Yahoo. The game will also be available on over-the-air TV in the Buffalo and Jacksonville markets, per the NFL's TV contract with CBS. While the terms of the deal with Yahoo remain undisclosed, everyone across the world can watch the game for free online. Whether anyone in the world actually wants to watch a game between two NFL also rans is up for debate.

The NFL and Yahoo are promoting this as a major step forward, with Goodell stating in a press release, "The NFL has always been committed to being at the forefront of media innovation"—a debatable point if you've ever tried to stream Sunday Ticket—while Yahoo President and CEO Marissa Mayer glowed, "We're thrilled that the NFL has chosen Yahoo for this historic opportunity."

For those of us in the United States, this is hardly revolutionary. It's functionally identical to the NBC's free stream of Sunday Night Football that's available every week. To boot, the Buffalo-Jacksonville game would have been televised across the United States anyways, since it's kicking off at 9:30 AM Eastern Time, like the Lions-Falcons game last year. In effect, the NFL is sacrificing the 55 million Americans who don't have high-speed internet and will therefore be unable to watch the (presumably terrible) game for the chance to accurately gauge its global audience.

The NFL's international ambitions constitute a vital component of Goodell's stated goal to have $25 billion annual revenue goal by 2020. The NFL can't triple its domestic income, but it can expand to markets where it's currently making very little. The NFL can make a lot of money if it knows exactly where to go.