NFL to drop live stream of its London fixtures following Twitter deal
The NFL has announced it will stop live streaming its London games next season as part of its new Thursday Night Football agreement with Twitter.
It was revealed last week that Twitter would be the NFL’s exclusive partner for streaming its Thursday night fixtures and as part of the agreement the league will no longer live stream games played in London as it has previously done so through partnerships with Yahoo.
A spokesperson for the NFL said: “When we discussed potential streaming packages with interested parties, there were many options on the table, including the London games.
"Ultimately the package we agreed on with Twitter involved ten of our Thursday night games which we felt was the best option at that point."
The statement left open the possibility that the games could be streamed again at a later date saying that the league would “continue to evaluate options to put our games on digital platforms, making them as widely accessible to fans around the world as possible".
The decision to drop the London games is inconsistent with the NFL’s continued push to expand its international reach through various live streaming options.
Last year it partnered with the Yahoo to stream one of its London fixtures and around one third of the 15.2 million audience was international.