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Goodell on livestream: 'We're really thrilled with it'

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell joined ESPN's *Mike and Mike Show *Tuesday morning and spoke on a variety of hot topics, including the global livestream of Sunday's Bills-Jaguars game.

The league and Yahoo! partnered to deliver a global livestream across multiple platforms of the matchup between the Buffalo Bills and the Jacksonville Jaguars, the second of three International Series games in London this season. Goodell says that the stream was an overall success.

"We're really thrilled with it. It took a game that was going to have a limited amount of distribution on television -- it probably would have gone to 10 percent or less of the country on Sunday had we not chosen this distribution," Goodell said. "We reached new fans through this platform. ... We can really formulate our media strategy and how we can continue to reach the broadest number of fans."

» Goodell also touched on the topic of a team or teams relocating to Los Angeles. Though there is no pressing news to report on the matter, Goodell notes that the topic remains fluid.

Oakland, St. Louis and San Diego will each host public hearings this week as part of the league's procedures for evaluating potential franchise relocations.

"There's been a lot of discussion publicly and otherwise. In fact, we have league representatives in all three of those markets this week holding public hearings," Goodell said. "There's been a tremendous amount of discussion about this. We take the relocation policies seriously. We want to make sure we do everything we possibly can to make sure we can find solutions in their current communities. And when we can't, we want to apply this policy evenly and fairly."

Goodell believes that Los Angeles is still a viable and exciting option.

"We'd also love to get back to Los Angeles if there's an opportunity," Goodell said. "We are fortunate to have two alternatives in Los Angeles that are both exciting for us. ... We have 20 million fans in that market that would love to have a franchise. But, we've got to do this responsibly -- there's a process and we're going through that process. I expect that we'll be meeting as a league in December, probably have another meeting in January and February if we need to."

Goodell was asked about his expectations about will take place in the next few months and into next year:

"I don't expect anything other than I think we're getting to the point now that I think we have sufficient information both in the home markets and ... by the time we make this decision ... on Los Angeles to make a smart decision but a decision that's thoughtful and considers all the different issues."

» On the increasingly controversial subject of daily fantasy sports:

"Whether it's gambling or not, it's a decision made by state authorities, attorney generals -- they've made that determination," Goodell said. "We do understand our fans are interested in playing daily fantasy. We just want to protect our fans and make sure there's proper consumer protection in there for them, and we've encouraged that and we think it's important that our fans have that protection."

» Goodell firmly believes that sports gambling should not be legalized.

"We're not in favor of legalizing sports gambling," Goodell said. "We think that's a mistake for sports. The integrity of the game is the most important thing. We want to make sure that our game is above any kind of influence. We do not want to participate in that. That's something we've had a longstanding position -- we continue to have that."

» The NFL officially filed its appeal of Judge Richard M. Berman's decision in federal court this week, furthering the Deflategate saga. Goodell defended the decision citing that the appeal has to deal with the decision, not a particular player.

"This is about our rights in the collective bargaining agreement," Goodell said. "That's all it is. We filed this litigation initially to reinforce the fact that we had this right in our collective bargaining agreement. We had a decision from Judge Berman, we disagree with it.

"I'm not spending any time on this issue, but it's important for us to know what we bargained for, what we agreed to in our collective bargaining agreement and make sure those processes that are agreed to in our collective bargaining agreement are followed. ... It has nothing to do with any individual player or anyone else. It has something to do with Judge Berman's decision and that's what we're appealing."

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