With the NFL season under way, many fans start planning ahead, checking their favorite team's schedule and games.
From a company perspective, are you planning for an "NFL Bump" in your Wireless spend?
On June 5, 2013, Verizon Wireless announced that they will pay $1 billion for the rights to air more NFL games over smartphones. This is a 4-year deal that will allow Verizon Wireless customers who subscribe to the NFL Mobile app to watch NFL games on their smartphones.
For the 2013 season, subscribers will be able to access NFL games on Sunday, Monday and Thursday nights.
For the 2014 season, in addition to Sunday/Monday/Thursday night games, subscribers will also be able to access additional Sunday games (including home market games), pre-season games, and playoff games including the Super Bowl.
Verizon Wireless Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Brian Angiolet, stated, "We look for these deals to drive switching, loyalty and subscription fees". He also added that the NFL deal is profitable.
So what does this actually mean to your Data usage? Let's run the numbers.
Streaming NFL games will run about 2.1 MB a minute. A 3-hour game will be 375 MB. If an employee watches 5 games a month, this will be about 1.9 GB of data usage. Let's use this as a baseline, for a "Standard User". How does this affect the bottom line?
Verizon Wireless Non-Share Plans--A common plan is 2 GB for $30. If the "non-NFL Football" usage is 1GB, then the additional charge is $10/month (1GB normal usage + 1.9GB of NFL usage = 2.9GB, or an overage of 0.9GB). If the employee uses 1.4 GB non-NFL usage, the charges will increase to $20/month (a total of 3.3GB is used, for an overage of 1.3GB).
Verizon Share Everything Plans--If you have a 10-user pool, the Verizon Wireless tiers add $10 cost for each additional 2GB on top of the base (i.e., 2 GB = $60/month, 4 GB = $70, 6 GB = $80, ...) Thus a single user, under this scenario will cost an additional $10/month (+ $5/month NFL Mobile Subscription fee).
What can or should you do about this?
In many, if not most, cases--nothing. It is likely that a number of employees who download the NFL app are relatively high-level and/or key personnel. In addition to being a potentially career-limiting move, informing such employees of this issue is not worth the hassle. The dollar amount is probably not much and it is only for a few months. While there may be a policy in place about no subscription services, in the real world, how many companies will actually try to enforce this? Not all apps and subscription services are equal.
Data Gathering/Intelligence. While you may not be able to restrict the NFL App, it may be interesting to see its bottom line effect. Specifically: First, track the app cost, $4.99 * # of users * 12 months. Second, track some of the NFL app users' data usage during the months Sept-Dec. Is there a noticeable increase in usage? Does the usage drop to "normal" levels starting in January/February? As more people become accustomed to viewing NFL games via their smartphones, you will be able to plan accordingly (i.e. increase data usage on Share Everything plan in September, and reduce in January).
The Elephant in the Room. Not all phone users are equal. The likelihood that the NFL Mobile App will not be a big deal has a strong correlation with the user's compensation. For one user, the NFL Mobile subscription is an unnecessary and frivolous expense and an unproductive use of time. For another user, it is a welcome perk at minimal expense that allows the user to take a well deserved break in their routine.
Conclusion
Even if the "NFL impact" may be non-existent or minimal, the work of analyzing this should provide a view of a different type of impact. Specifically, the fact that you are aware of this and can provide information (costs and increased data usage) does demonstrate to others (i.e., your Executives) that you are "on top" of things.
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