The NFL has consistently been a little lacking when it comes to online offerings, frequently overshadowed by bolder efforts by MLB and the NHL. Still locked into their exclusive out-of-market distribution deal with DirecTV ($700 million through 2010), the league continues to cripple themselves, while boxing out millions of potential cable users. Many users remain annoyed they can't watch their favorite team without shelling out for satellite (and $250 for Sunday Ticket).

Worse, they do offer live streaming games online via a $110 a year service named GamePass HD, but it's not available in North America, so as not to tread on their deal with DirecTV. Is that $700 million from DirecTV worth losing out on revenue from tens of millions of additional cable, satellite and TelcoTV subscribers, and the potential ad revenue from offering games online?

The NFL hasn't even really been Internet savvy enough to capitalize on offering games online after they air, something allowed by their DirecTV contract. A lot of out-of-market fans, left in the cold courtesy of Sunday Ticket, have been heading to BitTorrent sites like TenYardTorrents to find games after they air. Apparently, the NFL has realized they should offer a paid alternative, and has has launched Game Rewind. The new video on-demand service lets users watch any game of the season in HD for $20 a season, or $5 for a day pass.

I've played with the service a little, and the quality of the actual service seems notably better than the pixel-tastic demo available at the NFL website. There's no word on how soon after airing the games will be made available to users, something that usually takes a few days for the popular NFL BitTorrent websites. The offering would probably be more exciting if users could stream the games into the living room via a service like Netflix, but again, that would probably run afoul of a contract with DirecTV that's progressively making less and less sense for the NFL.