NFL expands partnership with Bruin’s OverTier using Deltatre for OTT tech
OverTier and the NFL expand agreement for NFL Game Pass, the league’s premium subscription OTT service
The National Football League (NFL) and OverTier, a Bruin Sports Capital company, have announced an expansion of their partnership for OverTier to operate NFL Game Pass, the league’s premium subscription OTT service.
OverTier was created by Bruin to build and operate next-generation, sports, and entertainment direct-to-consumer streaming services. Bruin company, Deltatre, provides the streaming platform technology.
Since 2017, OverTier has held the rights to operate NFL Game Pass exclusively in Europe in 61 countries. The new agreement now brings the service to a combined 181 countries and territories worldwide including Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, and South Korea.
The deal sees it take over from DAZN and Neulion in various territories.
Jason Bradwell, director for product marketing and communications at Deltatre Group, commented on how OverTier is using Deltatre’s network to make this offering work: “Managing distribution across its offices in LA, London, and Turin, Deltatre provides the streaming technology that underpins NFL Game Pass, including the video acquisition, encoding, app build across 11 target devices, including Samsung and LG connected TVs, and ongoing development.
“Leveraging its expertise in streaming sports of all kinds to audiences all over the world, Deltatre has rolled out innovative new functionality to enhance the fans viewing experience, including Watch with RedZone on the web,” he added.
NFL Game Pass audiences are on the up in Europe
NFL Game Pass offers all live NFL Games, NFL Red Zone, NFL Network and a deep catalogue of original programming, documentaries, series and specials from the award-winning NFL Films. It is available across 11 platforms through connected TV, games consoles, web and mobile.
“We are excited to expand our partnership with OverTier to bring the NFL directly to fans around the world on their favourite viewing platforms with NFL Game Pass,” said Chris Halpin, NFL chief strategy and growth officer. “OverTier has a proven track record of innovation in Europe, and we look forward to unlocking significant potential across other markets.”
Said Sam Jones, OverTier CEO: “We are delighted with the progress we’ve made with our NFL partners. Together we have built a detailed understanding of how to cultivate and super serve fans throughout Europe and have turned that into meaningful business gain with great long-term potential. We look forward to applying our unique model to these expanded global markets and with the league develop more fans and opportunities worldwide.”
There has been growth in subscriptions to NFL Game Pass in Europe; total NFL GPE regular-season viewership was up 46% year on year (2017-2018), with average minutes per viewer increasing by 20% to 62 hours.
Live Super Bowl viewership was up 33% year on year and playoff viewership up 30%.
Mobile viewership increased by 26% year on year, while the total number of devices subscribers used to watch GPE increased by 33% (a GPE subscription allows up to five concurrent streams).
Altogether, 800 million hours of content was streamed, representing over 91,000 years of content. The Android app was the highest rated of all sports subscription OTT services globally.
Among the innovations to be rolled out in 2019 are: Watch Around The World where NFL Game Pass subscribers will be able to use their subscription in any of the 181 territories it is active; Watch with RedZone where new split-screen functionality means Season Pro subscribers will be able to watch NFL RedZone alongside one live game (outside of Europe); Smart TV and PS4 apps; Film Sessions – Season 2, where across the 2019 season, 17 new instalments of the hit series NFL Game Pass: Film Sessions will be available exclusively to NFL Game Pass International subscribers.