I’m pretty excited for the start of the NFL season, and it seems the NFL has finally seen the light. Well, at least some light. They have removed their 45-second per day limit on online video for broadcast partners.

This means that we’ll be able to get more interviews and additional content from sites like CBS Sports and ESPN.com, but for highlights, NFL.com remains the only option. Sports Business Journal quotes a senior network exec saying:

“You go online on a Monday morning and various highlight clips are available all over the place in spots like YouTube, Brightcove and so forth…We shouldn’t force people to go hunting, as it tends to fragment out your audience.”

Fans expect to get NFL video on ESPN.com, and if forced to go elsewhere they might choose less reputable sources than NFL.com. While the league will ramp up their online video offering this season it won’t match previous years in which all news outlets including print publication websites were free to offer unlimited video content.


Above: 45 Seconds With Michael Boulware

The still enforced 45 second limit everywhere else means fans will miss out on quality content like that created by video blogger John McClain of the Houston Chronical who has resorted to put a 45 second countdown clock on the one video per day they can release.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 11:57 am and is filed under News, Video Portals, blogs, technology, video syndication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.