[Dan]

As a football fan, I dont see that this is a big loss. I didnt get much out of the NFL app to be honest, and got far better news / coverage from text alerts from my local team as well as from looking up espn or fox sports.

The return on investment likely just wasn't there. I doubt it is with NASCAR even though the whole racing series is called the "Sprint Cup." Fox has such a huge tie in with AT&T with Idol and it carries over to the survey questions. If your an AT&T subscriber, you can vote on the survey with your phone via text, all others go online to vote. Verizon is heavily branded all over the TV coverage for NASCAR also, to the point where Sprint is just one of 3 carriers advertising during the races.

In the end, the NFL was going to accept bids on the rights to be the "official wireless company of the NFL" just like they sell the TV rights and take bids on that too. Sprint may have offered to continue at the same rate per season and Verizon simply out bid them, or someone within Sprint decided it wasn't worth as much as Verizon was willing to pay.

In the end, im glad that Sprint didn't waste money on renewing this agreement. They could invest that money into coverage improvements and add something like 150 towers a year, which could do quite a bit to improve native service! Or, increase the speed at which 4G is built out.....

[PokerFace23]

think of it this way:

Sprint is losing ground on advertisement on the biggest sport in the United States of the big 4 (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL). It is the exposure that will be missed.

Verizon hasn't even had it more than a week officially, and they will be providing more than Sprint ever has. Sprint only streamed live Thursday games. Verizon will be streaming not only Thursday games, but Sunday games as well. They also effectively tied in this agreement with their 4G network that will be rolling out to 20 or so markets by the time the NFL season starts.

Emails have already been sent out to stores to pull material talking about NFL Mobile/TV and it's not official until April. That's how serious the NFL is.

ATT has NCAA basketball on lock. TMobile has NBA/TNT. And now Verizon will have NFL. But Sprint will continue to be the official sponsor of Nascar. Rock on

[Dan]

Originally Posted by PokerFace23

think of it this way:

Sprint is losing ground on advertisement on the biggest sport in the United States of the big 4 (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL). It is the exposure that will be missed.

Verizon hasn't even had it more than a week officially, and they will be providing more than Sprint ever has. Sprint only streamed live Thursday games. Verizon will be streaming not only Thursday games, but Sunday games as well. They also effectively tied in this agreement with their 4G network that will be rolling out to 20 or so markets by the time the NFL season starts.

Emails have already been sent out to stores to pull material talking about NFL Mobile/TV and it's not official until April. That's how serious the NFL is.

ATT has NCAA basketball on lock. TMobile has NBA/TNT. And now Verizon will have NFL. But Sprint will continue to be the official sponsor of Nascar. Rock on

Do you think that the NFL has given Sprint advertising anywhere near the $150 million a year in payments Sprint has sent in?

Here is why I think these "official ____________ of _____________" is stupid. The Buffalo Bills have an official wireless partner, an official phone / data provider, etc. Their partner was Verizon, even though the league was Sprint. The Buffalo Sabres have AT&T as their official wireless partner, even though the league is Verizon Wireless.

In the end, all that matters is "will Sprint have advertisements on during games?" As long as CBS, Fox, ESPN and NBC have reasonable ad rates Sprint will continue to advertise. It seems to me that a well placed ad gets more attention than being the "official __________" of some company or event.

Just my observations though

[cltmhorn]

Originally Posted by big_ole_truck

Is there a SU member that is really disappointed with the NFL-Sprint alliance going away? The way I see it, you can always get game updates (and scores) on ESPN's mobile website when not watching it on a tv.

I'm very disappointed with this. Not because I watch games on my phone, but because the service allows me to stream my team's radio broadcast. Which is... was seriously awesome. I no longer live in Wisconsin, and I really enjoyed listening to the Packers.

My question is this: on precentral at the beginning of the year there was discussion of how an increase in one of the taxes would allow me to leave sprint without incurring an ETF.

If an increase in a tax is a material change to the contract, is the loss of the NFL also a material change? Would it enable me to leave w/o an ETF?

[ajac]

umm more like sprint said good bye they weren't making nutin it was worthless and they jacked the price up good ridding is what i say less crapware on my next phone! Now lets get rid of nascar make sprint tv all channels free for everything data plans oh and used the money saved to GET US GOOD PHONES

[BusyBeingBrutal]

Got some more info...

Beginning 3/31/10, when customers access the application NFL Mobile Live, they will be prompted to download the new application Sprint Football Live.
While we won’t be offering NFL Mobile, starting 3/31 we’re proud to introduce the Sprint Football Live application, offering play-by-play professional football information and college football too. This application is free to customers with any data plan.

So what will Sprint Football Live include?

Pro Football Draft
Live Draft Tracker
In depth analysis and bios on nearly 500 top prospects
Exclusive blogs from top Draft prospects Sam Bradford and Ndamukong Suh
Draft Predict-a-Pick: 32 picks in 32 days
Regular Season Football

Pro and college football coverage
Live Game Center
Real-time stats and scores
Breaking news
Game previews and recaps
Expert insight and analysis from source likes Pro Football Talk and Sports Blog Nation
Even more content will be confirmed before the start of the college and pro football seasons


Will customers still be able to get NFL audio and NFL video?

Live NFL game audio and video will not be available at this time.
Customers will be able to follow all the live play-by-play action with the Live Game Center for both pro and college football games.
Additionally, Sprint offers live stream of ESPN college football games and other great video coverage on ESPN Mobile TV and NBC Sports on Sprint TV.

How can customer get the Sprint Football Live app?

Starting 3/31/10, if a customer goes to download NFL Mobile Live, they’ll be prompted to download the new application Sprint Football Live. Customers can also text “FOOTBALL” to 7777.
The installation of the new application will replace the NFL Shield/NFL Mobile Live link on certain phones.
On some iDEN and Sprint feature phones/non-smartphones, the NFL Shield/NFL Mobile Live link will remain on the phone and direct the customer to download the new app. Once the download is complete, advise customers to remove the old NFL Mobile Live link.

Which phones will support the new Sprint Football Live app?

The plan is for all current devices that support NFL Mobile Live to support the Sprint Football Live application. See full list on sprint.com/NFL on 3/31/01.

[tbakergobuck]

Originally Posted by Perveeus

I watch live sporting event off my Slingbox all the time with no subscription to pay for.
It's high time we quit paying extra to these carriers & cable companies for content we can get somewhere else for free.

I used to only when I was away from my big screen. My slingbox stopped working and then I got a Pre. Hopefully someday slingbox works for WebOS but I think I will have to buy a new box.

[Thetaman]

You know I will miss the NFL Sprint app. It was the only Sprint app I ever used.

But the real bummer is that it is less advertising for Sprint (out of sight out of mind) and more for Verizon (vomit....I already see their damn commercials 20 times a day). Glad Sprint is still the sponsor of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association...I was really worried about them losing that sponsorship.

[Netmag]

It's the radio broadcasts that are the big loss here. Everything Sprint is going to offer is stuff that you can just get off of yahoo or something (stats, some-what live game updates).

I didn't start using the NFL application until just a while ago but the radio broadcasts were great for:
1.) If I was driving to visit family in the next state and the signal from my team got weak, I was able to just listen to the game via my phone.

2.) If I was taking the wife and kids to the aquarium or zoo, I could still jump in and listen to what was going on in the game. At least they'll have score updates but again I can get the score update from lots of sources.

3.) I "really" thought it was cool to be able to jump on another teams radio station right away to hear their game. For example, when the Saints were undefeated and were close to losing a game I started jumping into that right at the end there. Also, games that are down to the wire but are important to my team's situation.

I don't really care about stats and all that kind of stuff since I decided to take a pass on getting serious about the fantasy football stuff. Also, unless I can see my team play, I don't really care about watching the games so much. I mean I mostly only needed it when I was out doing something and radio was good enough for that. So I'll miss the live radio broadcasts. Too bad they couldn't have made a cheaper deal with the NFL to keep that and then do the rest (stats, updates) themselves.

[ajac]

Originally Posted by Netmag

It's the radio broadcasts that are the big loss here. Everything Sprint is going to offer is stuff that you can just get off of yahoo or something (stats, some-what live game updates).

I didn't start using the NFL application until just a while ago but the radio broadcasts were great for:
1.) If I was driving to visit family in the next state and the signal from my team got weak, I was able to just listen to the game via my phone.

2.) If I was taking the wife and kids to the aquarium or zoo, I could still jump in and listen to what was going on in the game. At least they'll have score updates but again I can get the score update from lots of sources.

3.) I "really" thought it was cool to be able to jump on another teams radio station right away to hear their game. For example, when the Saints were undefeated and were close to losing a game I started jumping into that right at the end there. Also, games that are down to the wire but are important to my team's situation.

I don't really care about stats and all that kind of stuff since I decided to take a pass on getting serious about the fantasy football stuff. Also, unless I can see my team play, I don't really care about watching the games so much. I mean I mostly only needed it when I was out doing something and radio was good enough for that. So I'll miss the live radio broadcasts. Too bad they couldn't have made a cheaper deal with the NFL to keep that and then do the rest (stats, updates) themselves.

this is why you get a smart phone espically a windows mobile one turn it into a wifi router turn on the laptop and just watch the game used to do that all the time

[hobbes9]

Originally Posted by Netmag

It's the radio broadcasts that are the big loss here. Everything Sprint is going to offer is stuff that you can just get off of yahoo or something (stats, some-what live game updates).

I didn't start using the NFL application until just a while ago but the radio broadcasts were great for:
1.) If I was driving to visit family in the next state and the signal from my team got weak, I was able to just listen to the game via my phone.

2.) If I was taking the wife and kids to the aquarium or zoo, I could still jump in and listen to what was going on in the game. At least they'll have score updates but again I can get the score update from lots of sources.

3.) I "really" thought it was cool to be able to jump on another teams radio station right away to hear their game. For example, when the Saints were undefeated and were close to losing a game I started jumping into that right at the end there. Also, games that are down to the wire but are important to my team's situation.

I don't really care about stats and all that kind of stuff since I decided to take a pass on getting serious about the fantasy football stuff. Also, unless I can see my team play, I don't really care about watching the games so much. I mean I mostly only needed it when I was out doing something and radio was good enough for that. So I'll miss the live radio broadcasts. Too bad they couldn't have made a cheaper deal with the NFL to keep that and then do the rest (stats, updates) themselves.

I agree that the big loss is the radio broadcasts. Fortunately on my Pre I can stream the local sports radio station (in better quality too) from the Radiotime app, but losing all of the other team broadcasts is extremely unfortunate. The NFL deal is one of the reasons I always really enjoyed Sprint. Oh well, it's still better than Verizon

[hobbes9]

Originally Posted by ajac

this is why you get a smart phone espically a windows mobile one turn it into a wifi router turn on the laptop and just watch the game used to do that all the time

It's also hard to watch a game while driving. I had my Pre broadcasting those other games via Bluetooth to my car speakers.

[ajac]

Originally Posted by hobbes9

It's also hard to watch a game while driving. I had my Pre broadcasting those other games via Bluetooth to my car speakers.

oh not that hard lol I was going to dallas one time had the laptop propped up in the seat going 75 to 80 mph would look when a big play hit but usually just listened lol

[ravage]

Originally Posted by hobbes9

I agree that the big loss is the radio broadcasts. Fortunately on my Pre I can stream the local sports radio station (in better quality too) from the Radiotime app, but losing all of the other team broadcasts is extremely unfortunate. The NFL deal is one of the reasons I always really enjoyed Sprint. Oh well, it's still better than Verizon

This is a big loss for me as well. I live in miami but am an eagles fan and i use the radio to listing to the games every sunday. I also watch NFL Network alot when i'm going to and at work. I just signed up with sprint last august and 1 of the reason i left t mobile was for all those extra features like sprint tv. Well the only good thing about sprint tv was the nfl and now that's gone. Not happy with this at all. I've been thinking maybe i should have stayed with t mobile cause now their finally getting some good phones and their upgrading their 3g network. It seems all the other major carriers are getting alot of new phones and improving their 3g network and sprint putting everything on this 4g wimax. IF this wimax don't work out sprint will be in serious trouble.

[GoldenBlaze]

Originally Posted by Dan

Do you think that the NFL has given Sprint advertising anywhere near the $150 million a year in payments Sprint has sent in?

Here is why I think these "official ____________ of _____________" is stupid. The Buffalo Bills have an official wireless partner, an official phone / data provider, etc. Their partner was Verizon, even though the league was Sprint. The Buffalo Sabres have AT&T as their official wireless partner, even though the league is Verizon Wireless.

In the end, all that matters is "will Sprint have advertisements on during games?" As long as CBS, Fox, ESPN and NBC have reasonable ad rates Sprint will continue to advertise. It seems to me that a well placed ad gets more attention than being the "official __________" of some company or event.

Just my observations though

Dan, I agree with you. People have to see the bigger picture. The millions that Sprint was paying the NFL for that mediocre advertising the NFL provided can now be spent on BIGGER and BETTER advertising through the major networks as a whole. To add, since Sprint decided to create another NFL app to replace it, WHAT CHA MAD AT??