America’s pastimes might officially be mom, baseball and apple pie, but don’t dare tell that to sports fans in the fall and winter on most Saturdays and Sundays. Generally speaking, those days are reserved for endless hours of watching college and National Football League games on television. Well, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is taking on a major effort here to bring an NFL game to the other big screen — online.

The NFL announced on Wednesday that it has selected Yahoo as its exclusive live streaming partner to deliver what will be the first-ever official live stream of an NFL game. The live stream is also going to be for free, and that means that the game is being catered to a global audience across all Web-enabled devices.

This partnership is said to cover the NFL’s International Series game, which is scheduled to be in London on October 25. The game will be between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars.

It appears as though all Yahoo properties will have the game — Yahoo, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Screen and Tumblr. Combined, these are said to have more than a billion users per month.

This partnership is expected to help the NFL extend its digital presence. Another boost is that the NFL will be able to leverage upon Yahoo’s audience, digital advertising efforts and delivery platforms. What this really means is that an NFL game is going to be available for free on any desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone, connected TV and set-top box.

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The big question here is what the financial cost is to Yahoo — not just what it will have to pay or share with the NFL, but also what the bandwidth efforts and seamless streaming might cost. Some investors may take the opportunity to criticize Marissa Mayer if the cost sounds too high, but the reality is that Yahoo gets to be the first of its kind. Think about this: what if this proves the commercial viability of streaming online versus being only on TV? It could be a huge coup for the company’s turnaround efforts.

Now consider that Internet companies and other types of companies spend several million dollars now just to advertise for a measly 30 seconds on a televised Super Bowl ad. The $4.5 million cost for that 30-second spot from this year does not even include the cost of producing and filming the commercial itself. This could be big business for Yahoo’s advertising platforms, even considering that the game is not a Super Bowl.

Also, unlike most regular season games, this game is playing at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time. This may be earlier than many East Coast fans and the rest of America wants to watch games, but it will have no football competition for viewership at all.

Yahoo shares ticked higher by about 1% on the news announcement, to as high as $43.75. Shares were last seen up 0.7% at $43.45 in midday trading, against a 52-week range of $32.93 to $52.62.

Whatever the cost is in the millions here, this effort could be a game-changer for Yahoo if it is a success. If the effort does not generate massive profits, at least Yahoo got the chance to try without having to make another acquisition.

Another benefit is that it could greatly elevate Yahoo’s image in online streaming. There has been speculation that games might stream officially on YouTube or other platforms, but this round goes to Yahoo.

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Yahoo President and CEO Marissa Mayer said:

We’re thrilled that the NFL has chosen Yahoo for this historic opportunity. It marks a significant change in the way users can access this amazing content. The NFL and Yahoo have both long engaged football fans around the world. Our partnership provides the ultimate football experience—with digital availability, designed for the modern fan.

Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the National Football League, said:

The NFL has always been committed to being at the forefront of media innovation. Through this partnership with Yahoo—one of the world’s most recognizable digital brands—we are taking another important step in that direction as we continue to closely monitor the rapidly evolving digital media landscape.

Here are some additional NFL statistics included in the press release:

• The 2014 NFL regular season reached 202.3 million unique viewers, representing 80% of all television homes and 68% of potential viewers in the United States.
• NFL games accounted for the top 20 and 45 of the 50 most-watched TV shows among all programming last fall (2014).
• Five NFL game telecasts in the 2014 season were watched by at least 29 million viewers (versus just one in the 2013 season).
• For the third consecutive year, an NFL game was the week’s most-watched TV show in all 17 weeks of the season.
• At least two NFL games were the week’s most-watched TV shows in 16 weeks of the season.

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