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September 04, 2006
NFL Mobile on Sprint
As the NFL season approaches, Sprint and the NFL have teamed up to offer NFL Mobile to Sprint customers. I haven't seen the service in person yet, but if I had to guess, my guess would be that the service is a J2ME application that customers download over-the-air(OTA)on to their handsets. The download is initiated by texting "FANTASY" to 7777 on selected Sprint phones. Some of the exclusive features of the service include same-day NFL video highlights, customizable player and team alerts, real-time game information with GameCenter, and access to the NFL Network's video-on-demand
The move to offer the NFL mobile service by Sprint is an interesting move since Sprint already provides the network for ESPN's ailing MVNO service, Mobile ESPN. Industry analysts have been calling for Mobile ESPN to shutter it's doors. Citing that few subscribers are willing to pay for it's 'premium' content. Could the move by Sprint to offer up a free NFL mobile service be a sign that the 'pay-for-content' model of MVNO's be in jeopardy? If anything, the launch of the NFL Mobile service should be a sign to the mobile industry that rich-media content should be 'free of cost' and 'widely distributed' as opposed to monetized and controlled like what the MVNOs such as Mobile ESPN, Amp'd Mobile, and Disney are doing.
Posted by richard ting at September 4, 2006 09:00 PM
