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The NFL announced this morning that the October 25, 2015 game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars in London will be streamed live online for free on Yahoo. According to Re/code, the deal likely cost Yahoo at least $20 million, but includes exclusive advertising rights for the game.
This will be a very interesting development to monitor moving forward, as it's relatively new ground for the league. The game will not be available on television whatsoever, aside from in the Buffalo and Jacksonville markets. It will solely be available online, and there were a number of companies reportedly in the bidding for the rights to broadcast this game. Other games, such as NBC's Sunday Night Football games, playoff games, and the Super Bowl have been made available online in recent years in addition to on television, but this is the first venture into online-only games for the NFL.
The league's television contracts run through the early 2020s, so it's unlikely that we'll see any major change regarding broadcasts in the next few years, though there's the chance that some Thursday Night Football games could become available. This game in 2015 is simply the NFL testing it out to see the reception, and a 9:30 a.m. ET game between the Bills and Jaguars in London seems like a smart choice to do just that. This will be something interesting to watch moving forward, and in 2015 you'll be able to live-stream an NFL game online.