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NFL To Be Heard On Yahoo

October 3, 2000 / 5:12 PM EDT / AP

Local radio broadcasts of nearly all NFL games will be heard on the Internet starting Sunday as part of a deal between the league and Yahoo!

The Webcasting partnership announced Tuesday means, for example, that Chicago Bears fans who will be out of town can go online to hear their hometown radio announcers call Sunday's game with New Orleans.

The radio broadcasts of about 90 percent of all NFL games will be promoted on Yahoo! Sports and heard on nfl.com or team sites, with technology provided by the Internet company.

The deal was announced during commissioner Paul Tagliabue's tour through Silicon Valley this week to promote and explore high-tech partnerships. On Monday, the league and eBay Inc. said they would soon auction NFL merchandise together, and NFL officials also spent time at ExciteHome Corp., an Internet service provider, and Electronic Arts Inc., a video game company.

"We just want to make certain that we stay on top of all the innovations in technology and services and make them available to our fans," Tagliabue said.

Tagliabue said the league's online presence helps promote football overseas where the NFL is already experimenting with showing TV broadcasts of games on the Internet, something prohibited under the leagues' North American TV contracts.

Those deals don't make such restrictions on radio Webcasts. Radio broadcasts of all four major sports and other kinds of content are increasingly being streamed onto the Internet, largely because advances in technology has improved the quality.

"At last count there were over 4,000 radio stations streaming their signal over the Internet," said Dennis Wharton, spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters. "Most stations see it as a way to enhance and extend their brand."

Five NFL teams' local broadcasts are excluded from the new Yahoo! deal. The Minnesota Vikings have their own Webcasting radio arrangement, and the Washington Redskins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New England Patriots and New York Giants are on stations owned by Infinity Broadcasting Corp., which prohibits Web transmission of its broadcasts, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said.

With the growth of fantasy sports leagues and easy online access to statistics and injury information, football fans are spending an increasing amount of time on the Internet. The league wants to capture more of that audience on nfl.com. Tagliabue said increased online chats with players and Webcasts of practices are being discussed.

"If you look at the Internet as being the front stoop in the new form of community for the nation," he said, "part of what we're looking at here is how do you make nfl.com into the equivalent of the players' parking lot outside the stadium," where fans often gather for a close look at the athletes.