Facebook is said to have withdrawn its bid to stream big NFL games (FB)

Facebook has withdrawn its bid to stream NFL games, according to Bloomberg.

Facebook’s vice president of partnerships, Dan Rose, had previously confirmed to Variety that Facebook was in talks with the NFL about streaming “Thursday Night Football” games. It was competing with other bidders, including Amazon and Verizon.

Sources told Bloomberg that Facebook “balked” at the NFL’s advertising model, and wanted its live video to be commercial-free.

Facebook had previously said that it would tackle NFL games differently than other media companies.

“There’s a lot of interesting things we can do with sports,” Rose told Variety. “If you think about how people engage on Facebook today, it’s not really around watching three hours of video … There are a lot of different cuts you can imagine.”

Live video has been a big push at Facebook recently. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly “obsessed” with making Facebook’s live-video service a success.

Why?

Facebook is so focused on live video because of its high engagement, Rose told Variety. Users watch live video for three times longer than they watch recorded video, he reportedly said.

Facebook declined to comment.