by Sahil Patel

The NFL raised more than a few eyebrows earlier this year when it announced plans to live-stream a regular season game next season. The move is certainly interesting, and could pave the way for the league to distribute more games digitally in the future.

Except it’s not the first time the NFL has delivered a broadcast exclusively via the internet. The league has done it before. It was in Europe. In 1999. And it wasn’t just one game, the NFL streamed one game every Sunday during the entire season.

This all happened because of a European ISP provider called Chello Broadband. The CEO of Chello at the time Roger Lynch.

Look at the career of Roger Lynch, who started out as an investment banker for Morgan Stanley, and one thing is apparent: He has a knack for beating other innovators to the punch by several years — if not a decade.

In the case of the NFL, it was distributing games in a fashion that is still considered groundbreaking 16 years later.

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