Turner Sports and the Alliance of American Football announced a multi-year partnership that will implement live game coverage across TNT and B/R Live. TNT will televise one AAF regular season game and one playoff game each year of the deal, while B/R Live will stream one game per week for free.
TNT’s AAF regular season game this year will be the contest between the Salt Lake Stallions and Birmingham Iron at 2 p.m. ET on Feb. 16. The day of the AAF’s inaugural season-opening game on Feb. 9, B/R Live will stream a special program that introduces fans to the new eight-team football league. B/R Live’s single game per-week coverage will begin Saturday, Feb. 23, with the Arizona Hotshots against Salt Lake at 3 p.m. ET. In April, TNT will air one AAF playoff game to conclude its 2019 coverage. Additionally, all Alliance games on B/R Live will be available for replay on demand, with Turner having the right to post highlights across all of Bleacher Report’s digital and social platforms.
“Our focus has always been, and will always be, to create an Alliance of players, fans and the game. Joining forces with world-class partners like Turner Sports allows us to keep our mission moving forward and reach thousands of sports fans across their Turner family of platforms,” said Charlie Ebersol, AAF co-founder and CEO, in a press release. “Turner’s focus on providing high-quality live event programming and their commitment to digital with B/R Live, fits seamlessly into our distribution model, and ultimately offers fans the opportunity to watch more football.”
Last March, the AAF agreed to have CBS carry the opening game on Feb. 9 and the championship game in April, with CBS Sports Network carrying one game per week. AAF’s mobile app will also provide free live stream viewing of all games and will integrate fantasy gameplay features. According to Sports Business Journal, the NFL Network is expected to soon announce a deal where it will broadcast two AAF games per week in 2019.
“We wanted two things. We wanted reach, which we have with TNT. And we wanted to look to the future of media, which we got with B/R Live,” Ebersol said according to SBJ.
SportTechie Takeaway
Between TNT, B/R Live, CBS, CBS Sports Network, and the NFL Network, the Alliance of American Football has strung together a mighty list of media partners to broadcast its inaugural season. Although B/R Live is normally a pay-per-view subscription service, the platform will live stream one AAF game for free. The league’s mobile app will also stream all games for free. In addition to assembling a robust selection of broadcast partners, the AAF is hoping that making player tracking data widely available will boost engagement. The league is planning to emerge as a spring football league to compliment (not compete with) the NFL, but the AAF will face competition from the XFL when that rebooted league returns in 2020.