NFL, IBM Team Up
By Karen Brown -- Multichannel News, 7/23/2003 9:24:00 AM
The National Football League is tapping "Big Blue" to create a digital catalog with 80 years of game video, pictures and text under a new three-year deal announced Wednesday.
Under the agreement, IBM Corp. will help the NFL to design and launch a centrally managed digital-asset database of video, audio, images, text and statistics accumulated during the league’s 80-year history.
The resulting secured database will initially be used to distribute footage and information to coaches, scouts, players and broadcasters. But in the future, it may also fuel the NFL’s new media-distribution and electronic-commerce efforts aimed at fans.
IBM will supply hardware and database software, as well as business-management services. In exchange, it will receive the rights to use NFL and Super Bowl logos and imagery in its advertising campaigns, as well as placement of its own logo on various NFL outlets including NFL.com (www.nfl.com) and DirecTV Inc.’s NFL Sunday Ticket out-of-market package.
IBM also will become a charter advertiser for The NFL Network, set to launch Nov. 4.
"The NFL continues to align itself with partners that will help move the league into the next phase of information technology, an element that is critical to continue to deliver on the needs of our fans, member clubs and business partners," said John Collins, the NFL's senior vice president of marketing and sales, in a release.
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