I have had several mails today and saw several articles that NBC "dumped" Silverlight for Sunday Night Football. I wanted to set the record straight here. NBC has not dumped Silverlight, nor for that matter forgot to use Silverlight. :) NBC and Microsoft pulled off the largest, most viewed online event ever and the video quality, along with the user experience set the bar for new, more advanced applications online. Our relationship could not be stronger with NBC, and the success of the event has propelled our partnership to new levels. We are moving forward together and we are looking to do more with them in the near future.
To better understand how this played out you have to understand how the technology decisions are made. For the 2008 Olympics, NBC had all the broadcast and online rights in the US (reported to have paid 800+ million) to the Olympics coverage and therefore was the primary decision maker in what technology would be used. In this case they chose to use Silverlight and partnered with MSN to promote and drive traffic to their application.
Unlike the Olympics, Sunday Night Football is a joint effort between the NFL and NBC Sports. The NFL made the technology choices on what technology to use online and was ultimately responsible for the application. The NFL chose flash. It's even called out in the Adobe press release.
Nothing wrong with that, the market is big enough for both, and I applaud the NFL for taking a step to push the envelope with their web efforts to support their brand. I am sure they will work out the kinks, as they have a talented team. To say, Silverlight was dumped by NBC, or forgotten by NBC is unfortunately an effort to drive more views and TBH, just poor journalism. I would love to get your take on the NFL application, what you like, don't like, etc.
Look forward to your comments.
C
Posts
