NFL on Google? Could be on agenda in the 2020s

Get ready people because the TV revolution truly is just around the corner.

The notion of watching the NFL via Google isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds.

In an interview with Peter King of MMQB, Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s executive vice-president for media, acknowledged the platforms likely will be much different in the next decade.

“(People ask) ‘when is Google going to carry a game package?’” Rolapp said. “I think the answer is once an Internet player can sustain 30 million users at the level and the quality that they expect to get on television. Five years ago, we were like, We don’t see that. Now? That might be possible as we sit with the Google guys.”

Rolapp explained how the set-up might work.

“Our broadcast contracts go through 2022,” he said. “We’ve made our bed. And in 2023? I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that. I’m also not convinced that it has to be exclusive … When you have close to 70 percent of your fans having a second screen open while they’re watching the game on television, they’re doing all sorts of things. So it’s not necessarily about the internet or technology replacing the game on television, it’s about supplementing it and adding to it and making it better. So I think those are all avenues open to us.”