Warner Bros. Discovery will be adding a live sports tier to its Max streaming service on Thursday, October 5.

The Bleacher Report Sports add-on will be free through February 29 and costs $9.99 a month after that.

The sports tier will feature 300 live games annually from Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association, the college basketball championship tournament (March Madness) and other leagues, plus The Match golf events and studio programming including Inside the NBA with Charles Barkley and the gang.

Sports are slowly but surely migrating to streaming as media companies look to make the programming on their direct-to-consumer services broader in order to attract and keep subscribers and turn red ink into profits.

“We’re thrilled to offer WBD’s incredible portfolio of premium U.S. live sports — featuring simulcasts of our must-see MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA and U.S. Soccer events, among others — as part of B/R Sports Add-On’s wide assortment of compelling multi-sport content on Max,” JB Perrette, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO and president, global streaming and games, said. “The greatest collection of Entertainment, News and now Sports all in one place … this makes Max the most complete streaming service for consumers and reaffirms why Max is truly The One To Watch.” 

Warner Bros. Discovery last month announced the addition of live news to Max with CNN Max and WBD CEO David Zaslav said that the company was making plans to add sports to the streaming service.

“We want to be everywhere sports fans are and our unparalleled offering of leading sports, combined with the power of the Bleacher Report brand and content, including the unique way B/R engages with young sports fans, all delivered through the new Max platform will enable us to broaden our audience and delight new fans,” Luis Silberwasser, chairman and CEO, Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, said. "We are uniquely positioned to offer viewers the best selection of premium sports and exciting events and fan-focused additional programming, all within a fantastic multi-sport product that will meet the evolving consumption needs of our viewers – both casual and hardcore sports fans.”

All live games airing on a Warner Bros. Discovery linear network (including TNT, TBS and truTV) will be available on Max through the B/R Sports Add-On. 

There’s no word on how cable operators will react to exclusive sports content being available via Max.

In addition to live game coverage, the B/R Sports Add-on will offer live pre- and postgame programming and extensive VOD content, including sports documentaries (from the HBO Sports and WBD Sports libraries), Bleacher Report highlights and events, special features and extended series.

All of Bleacher Report’s live video, including originally produced coverage of the NFL Draft, popular podcasts featuring Mookie Betts, Von Miller, Micah Parsons and Travis Hunter and Creator League competitions, among others, will be available on Max through the B/R Sports Add-On.

During the free tryout period for the Bleacher Report Sports tier, the service will feature attractive events including the MLB postseason, 60 NHL games, NBA Opening Night, the NBA In-Season Tournament, The NHL Winter Classic and the NBA All-Star festivities.

After that it will have high-profile events such as the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball championship game and Final Four, the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs and the NBA playoffs.

Bleacher Report is ready for some football.

Long dominated by its hoops coverage, the digital sports hub for millennial and Gen Z fans this season launched a football brand--Gridiron--and is heading to the Super Bowl in Miami for a live experience that will tie in other parts of parent company AT&T and sponsors including Taco Bell, DiGiorno, Wrangler and State Farm.

“Our Miami activation will be the first physical manifestation of B/R Gridiron the consumer will see,” said Ed Romaine, CMO of Bleacher/Report, a division of Turner Sports.

Gridiron was designed to broaden the appeal for Bleacher Reports beyond basketball into other sports, including football, he said.

Fans will be able to register to be in the audience as shows are being produced live at the event. Fans can also  take part in happy hours, sample pizza, take pictures for social media, take part in trivia contests and other activities. Celebrity guests will include Dwyane Wade, Peyton Manning, Dak Prescott, Keenan Allen, Jonathan Adams, Jamal Adams, Landon Collins, Ed Reed and Brian Westbrook.

B/R Gridiron at 1111 Lincoln is being held from Wednesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. in a historic event space in Miami. 

Fans at 1111 Lincoln are likely to be younger than the normal Super Bowl week crowd, but not quite as young as those who head to Florida for spring break.

“People that are tuning into our programming are young,” Romaine said. “When the Super Bowl takes over a city, tons of people descend on the market and that’s a good opportunity for us to broaden awareness for the shows that we do that are specific to the NFL.”

At the event, Taco Bell will be giving out free beer during daily happy hours and DiGiorno will be sampling its pizza. Wrangler will have a giant denim-covered football and branded content. State Farm is the official sponsor of a Family Feud game on Ditch the Playbook featuring NFL stars Keenan Allen, Jonathan Abrams and Landon Collins.

The Dan Patrick Show and the Rich Eisen Show will originate from B/R Gridiron during the week. Also being shot in Miami for B/R in Miami are Untold Stories Live: The Ed Reed Super Bowl Special on Tuesday; Ditch the Playbook Live with Lefko on Wednesday; The Lefkoe Show with Warren Sapp, on Thursday;  The Lefkoe Show Live with Brian Westbrook on Friday and Stick to Football Tailgate Live on Saturday.

At the same time B/R Betting will be streaming Super Bowl Betting Show Specials on Wednesday and Sunday from its studio in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. B/R betting expert Kelly Stewart will also give live analysis of point spreads and other propositions on Sunday before the game and during halftime.

For this year’s Final Four, Turner Sports is branding its team streams with the Bleacher Report banner.

As was the case last year, TBS, TNT and truTV will combine to televise the national semifinals of the 2015 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship, offering viewers three distinctive feeds. This time, though, Turner is brandishing a marketing assist for one of its key digital properties.

While TBS, tipping at 6 p.m. on April 4 from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, will feature the main telecast of the Final Four matchups with commentary by Jim Nantz, analysts Grant Hill and Bill Raftery and reporter Tracy Wolfson, TNT and truTV will feature team-specific telecasts under the “Team Stream Presented by Bleacher Report.”

Last year, the teamcasts help Turner dunk the two largest college basketball audiences in cable history.

The “Team Stream Presented by Bleacher Report” coverage will reflect four independently produced telecasts – two apiece airing on TNT and truTV – with all aspects of the presentation trained on the schools participating in the semifinals.  

This year’s coverage will also include an increased amount of integrated elements between the on-air presentation and Bleacher Report to further enhance the fan experience across all platforms.

Among the components: 

*Comprehensive team and player storylines;

*Custom graphics, music and show packaging;

* Additional cameras capturing team content and school-specific replays; and

* Halftime shows focused on each team with feature stories on each individual school.

“Associating our team-specific coverage of the NCAA Final Four on TNT and truTV with Bleacher Report is a natural evolution given the popularity of Bleacher Report and its industry-leading ability to connect with fans at the teams and topics level,” said Lenny Daniels, president of Turner Sports. “We believe combining our on-air treatment with our leading digital assets will offer fans an even better experience across all platforms.”

Fans can also access live streaming coverage of the three distinct presentations for each Final Four game via NCAA March Madness Live. 

Authenticated users can access the action streaming through the Watch TNT, Watch TBS and Watch truTV apps and via www.tntdrama.com/watchtnt, www.tbs.com/watchtbs and www.trutv.com/live by logging in with the user name and password provided by their TV service provider.

During its first year presenting the Final Four matchups, Turner scored a 6.9 rating (8.2 cable) and 11.7 million watchers for the UConn-Florida opener, while the Kentucky-Wisconsin nightcap drew a 9.2 rating (11.0 cable) and 16.3 million watchers for the Wildcats last-second win.

A breakdown showed that Wisconsin-Kentucky tallied 10.4 million viewers on TBS, with 4.3 million for the UK teamcast on TNT and 1.56 million espying the Badgers' vantage on truTV.

As for the first game, the count was 7.09 million on TBS, 3.7 million on TNT for Gators fans and 851,000 for Huskies’ supporters on truTV.

At this year's NCAA Media Day in Manhattan, Turner Broadcasting System president David Levy said there would be marketing around the flanking telecasts.  Along those lines, Turner plans to run general message ads about the availability of the team streams during the upcoming Sweet 16 and Elite Eight coverage that will ultimately determine the Final Four combatants.

Once the matchups have been set, the programmer's on-air and digital platform messaging will become more specific. It will also flank those efforts by targeting fans of the respective teams via digital and social platforms, as well as in-maket through MSO and other distributors.

Bleacher Report has rearranged responsibilities in its executive suite.

Founder and general manager Dave Finocchio and Sam Parnell, chief technology officer, will assume new strategic advisory roles with the division beginning in 2015.

As part of the changes, Dorth Raphaelyhas been elevated to general manager of Bleacher Report,the digital Turner Sports unit that provides comprehensive team and real-time coverage, while Rory Brown has been named chief content officer. Raphaely and Brown will now report directly to Matt Hong, executive vice president and general manager of Turner Sports.

In his new position as general manager, Raphaely will add responsibility for business operations, product management and design, engineering and oversight of international expansion to his current leadership of the programming, analytics and quality control teams. Raphaely, based in San Francisco, joined Bleacher Report in April 2011 as senior director of programming and most recently was vice president of programming, analytics and quality control.

Based in New York, Brown will oversee all forms of content for Bleacher Report under a unified content creation team.  He will spearhead both editorial and video content creation for the site and its top-rated Team Stream app.  Brown joined Bleacher Report in 2008 as an assignment desk editor and has risen through the ranks. Since July 2013, he was vice president of content operations and previously served as senior director of content operations from 2011-13 and director of programming from 2009-11.

Finocchio is one of the original founders of Bleacher Report. Under his guidance, most recently as general manager, Bleacher Report has surpassed several key milestones over the last year.  The site ranked as the second largest standalone sports website for the first time ever from April-August and has registered a 40% annual increase in cross-platform monthly uniques, based on the latest comScore metrics.  Bleacher Report’s popular Team Stream was also the No. 1 sports app with 682 million minutes spent in August and tallied 749 million minutes spent in September.

Parnell has been instrumental in leading Bleacher Report’s mobile-first strategy and the development of its leading product offerings across all digital platforms. 

Finocchio and Parnell will work closely with Hong, Raphaely, Brown and the Bleacher Report executive team in driving the continued evolution of the brand and its unprecedented audience growth.

In addition, Turner Sports and Bleacher Report will create a new strategic advisory board for Bleacher Report, the function of which will be to help set the long-term strategy for the division, on which Finocchio and Parnell will sit.