In January 2003, the NFL announced a partnership with
RealNetworks to serve as its
streaming media partner, offering exclusive multimedia features during the
playoffs via the company's
RealOne SuperPass subscription service. Chris Russo, the league's senior vice president of new media and publishing, stated that the playoff content was a pilot that could lead to "a subscription program that includes elements such as video, audio, enhanced analysis and fantasy football" in the future. Ahead of the
2003 NFL season, the NFL launched two subscription services in partnership with RealNetworks, including NFL.com Fantasy Extra–which offered expanded analysis and video content oriented towards
fantasy football players, and NFL Field Pass–which would carry the radio broadcasts for all NFL games, video features on NFL.com (including game highlights), the weekly program
NFL Insider Radio, and coverage of team press conferences. To enforce exclusive regional rights and encourage use of the service, the NFL prohibited local radio affiliates from including game broadcasts in their
internet radio streams. In
2006, the NFL launched NFL Game Pass as its streaming service for international markets in cooperation with
Yahoo! Sports; without the regional or national rights restrictions in the United States, this international version could offer live NFL games, as well as live access to
NFL Network and
NFL RedZone. The league later launched NFL Game Rewind in
2008 for U.S. users, offering on-demand streaming of completed NFL games, including "Coaches Film" and "All-22" feeds. NFL Field Pass was renamed NFL Audio Pass prior to the
2010 season. That year, the NFL also started live streaming preseason games online. In
2015, the NFL merged NFL Game Rewind with NFL Audio Pass, forming a single service under the NFL Game Pass branding in the United States. The NFL previously maintained an exclusive mobile streaming rights package with
Verizon Communications, as part of its official wireless carrier sponsorship of the league; streaming of in-market and nationally televised games on
smartphones was exclusive to the Verizon-operated "NFL Mobile" service, which was only available as a paid add-on for
Verizon Wireless subscribers. This exclusivity deal prohibited the NFL's television partners from streaming their telecasts on smartphones, thus network-run
TV Everywhere streams could only be viewed on PCs and
tablet computers. Under a five-year extension of the agreement beginning in the
2017–18 NFL playoffs and
2018 NFL season, Verizon waived this exclusivity to take advantage of its acquisition of
Yahoo!; mobile in-market streams, as well as other NFL-related digital content, was made available via
Yahoo! Sports, while NFL broadcasters were authorized to stream games via their platforms on all device classes. In May 2022, it was reported that with the expiration of the NFL's agreement with Verizon (which had divested
AOL and Yahoo! to
Apollo Global Management in 2021), its teams had approved a proposal to
paywall mobile in-market streams behind a new "NFL Plus" service. NFL+ was officially announced on July 25, 2022, succeeding the U.S. version of Game Pass. The service was split into two tiers of the service, with the basic service offering in-market streaming on mobile devices, streaming of radio broadcasts and most preseason games, as well as library content from
NFL Films and
NFL Network. The on-demand replays of games then became available on the premium tier of NFL+. In 2023, live access of NFL Network and
NFL RedZone was added to the basic and premium tiers of NFL+, respectively.
DAZN also signed a ten-year agreement to distribute the NFL Game Pass International service, either as a standalone subscription or as an add-on to an existing DAZN package. In addition to offering live and on-demand replays of games, and live access to NFL Network and NFL RedZone, the international version also offers other NFL and DAZN related programming. In 2024, DAZN launched
NFL Travel Pass, a weekly subscription allowing Americans traveling abroad to stream games, who would otherwise be
geo-blocked from accessing NFL+ outside the United States and would have to pay full price for a regular monthly or annual NFL Game Pass International subscription. In 2025, ESPN and the NFL reached an agreement that includes the opportunity for fans to bundle ESPN’s DTC service with NFL+ Premium, as well as through a Disney+ bundle. == See also ==