NFL wants games on tablets and Verizon is listening

Verizon Wireless (VZ) is talking to the National Football League about extending its exclusive mobile partnership to include programming via tablets, according to The Wall Street Journal.
It’s pretty safe to safe that football fans have been ready — in some cases, longing — for football on their mobile devices ever since their screens started growing and getting good enough for video. DirecTV already offers its NFL Sunday Ticket via computer and smart phones, but that comes with a pretty large fee.
There are no details about cost or what such an arrangement directly between the league and its official wireless partner would look like, but NFL games on tablets is an eventual certainty.
“The NFL will be on a tablet,” Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s senior vice president of media strategy, told the Journal. “It’s a question of what shape or form. We are currently talking to Verizon about it.”
Verizon has been a stalwart presence in the mobile video space with its constantly evolving range of V Cast services and partnerships with the likes of FLO TV for broadcast TV on specialized handsets. In fact, the only surprise would be if Verizon did not leverage its $720 million four-year deal with the NFL and offer customers more than rebroadcast games on the NFL Network through the NFL Mobile app.
Getting rights to every game might be tough considering the NFL’s long running exclusive broadcast arrangement with DirecTV, but the league and carrier would both benefit if they at least open up some games to live broadcast on tablets. It’s an obvious move and one that many NFL fans and Verizon customers are likely to embrace if they don’t get charged too much.