NFL, DAZN bring free content to YouTube

TSN to air past NFL games on Monday nights

Wish there were more NFL content to watch on your streaming device or on TV during these sequestered times in Canada?

Well, you’re in luck.

DAZN Canada and the NFL have partnered to provide Canadians with on-demand access to top 2019 games and select NFL Network programming, Postmedia has learned.

For free. At YouTube.com. At any time.

What’s more, TSN has decided to start airing classic NFL games starting this Monday.

DAZN, the live-streaming sports giant that owns exclusive rights to streamed NFL content in Canada (including the league’s Game Pass on-demand service), has arranged with the NFL to provide free content on YouTube.com, via the DAZN Canada channel.

This content, available 24/7 starting some time next week, will be geo-blocked on YouTube outside Canada.

According to both DAZN and the NFL, free YouTube content will include:

❚ Best games of the 2019 season (15 episodes);

❚ 2019 RedZone channel replays (17 episodes);

❚ NFL Network series on the 100 greatest teams (four episodes);

❚ NFL Network series on the 100 greatest plays (four episodes);

❚ NFL Network series on the 100 greatest games (four episodes);

❚ NFL Network series on the top five free agency moves of 2020.

Last week, Postmedia learned the NFL and DAZN were in talks to bring some form of free visual content to Canadians on a social media platform.

This came a week after the NFL had announced — as a gesture to its fans around the world — that during this taxing time of physical distancing and isolation brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, it would begin making available to citizens of every country (except two) free access to its on-demand “Game Pass” service, until at least May 31 in the U.S. and until July 31 everywhere else.

Canada and China were the exceptions.

Some Canadian NFL fans, of course, took offence.

NFL Game Pass is a digital product available across multiple platforms and devices, which the league describes as “an extensive library of football programming” including past regular-season and playoff games, NFL Films series such as Hard Knocks and A Football Life, plus film sessions with star players and coaches.

DAZN makes all of its sports properties (which also includes Premier League and Serie A soccer) available to all Canadians who subscribe, so it’s understandable that even in the event DAZN could gain permission from all its other leagues and sports organizations to make its content available free to all Canadians, for this limited-time NFL purpose it surely couldn’t do so without intensive, long-term negotiations.

That’s why the NFL and DAZN were in talks over the past two weeks to try to arrange something quickly for Canadian NFL fans, akin to the offer the NFL made elsewhere.

That’s good news for Canadian NFL fans. And it doesn’t stop there.

Bell Media, which airs NFL games on its TV channels and satellite system, will start showing recent playoff and classic league games on TSN, including every Monday night on a short-term basis.

These broadcasts kick off this coming Monday with the 2020 AFC and NFC championship games, in a doubleheader starting at 7 p.m. EDT. Kansas City rallied past Tennessee in the former, San Francisco crushed Green Bay in the latter.

Super Bowl LIV, in which the Chiefs rallied to knock off the 49ers in February, will air on April 11-12 weekend, with specific date and time to be determined.

TSN also will continue airing ESPN’s hour-long NFL Live news and commentary show weekdays at 2 p.m. EDT, and now will slot in occasional NFL Films productions, too.

NFL Network, a leagueowned TV channel available to Canadians as a pay-tier offering via their cable or satellite provider, is airing a slew of 2019 game rebroadcasts and best-of specialty content nearly round the clock.

RYAN FLUSHES HIS INSULT

Rex Ryan called Dallas wideout Amari Cooper “a turd” on ESPN Friday morning, then issued an apology hours later.

“I wouldn’t have paid this guy,” Ryan said in reference to the US$100-million, five-year second contract with which the Cowboys rewarded Cooper two weeks ago, per a transcript at ProFootballTalk.com.

“To me, (Cooper) is the biggest disappearing act in the National Football League. He doesn’t show up on the road. He doesn’t show up … when the competition’s good, when he’s against the top corners. That guy disappears … This is who he is.

“He doesn’t love football. Hell with it, he stops his routes, he does all this. I wouldn’t have paid this turd. No way in hell.”

The former New York Jets and Buffalo Bills head coach has been an ESPN on-air commentator since 2017.

By mid-afternoon, Ryan walked his comments back. Well, some of them.

“I can’t believe I said that, used that word,” Ryan told ESPN’s SportsCenter show of calling Cooper a turd, per ProFootballTalk.com.

“Obviously, it was a poor choice by me to say what I said about Amari … I think the world of every player and have a great deal of respect for every single player in the National Football League, including Amari Cooper.”

Ryan also apologized to Cooper. But he did reiterate his criticism that “an elite player, to me, shows up on the road, he shows up against great corners, and he shows up in crunch times. And those are three things that Amari Cooper has not done so far in his career.”