New England Sports Network, the RSN home to the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins, will become the first regional sports network in America to offer its service outside the pay TV bundle as a direct-to-consumer streaming service. 

Starting Wednesday, NESN 360 will be available in the home market for $29.99 a month, with the first month promotionally priced at $1. An annual subscription is priced at $329.99 and includes eight tickets to see the Red Sox, currently a middling fourth place in the American League East and watching the Yankees run away with the division. 

Subscribers can stream NESN’s live feeds and VOD library directly to their computer, iOS and Android mobile devices, and Apple TV or Roku connected TV gadgets and enabled smart TVs. A page outlining the service can be found here. 

Those who already subscribe to NESN through a linear pay TV operator will be able to authenticate and view NESN 360 the ol’ TV Everywhere way. (The service appears based on the legacy NESN app and NESN TV platform, which has long provided pay TV subscribers TVE streaming rights to the channel.)

NESN is only available in the New England region, with Major League Baseball and its MLB TV product controlling national OTT rights. 

“We believe the direct subscription option will build on NESN’s reach in the region,” said Sean McGrail, NESN’s president and chief executive officer, in a statement.

NESN is majority-owned by Fenway Sports Group, which also owns the Red Sox. Its linear channel is currently available across New England, save for Fairfield County, Connecticut, via pay TV bundlers including Comcast, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, DirecTV, Verizon Communications and fuboTV. 

NESN 360 beat Sinclair Broadcast Group to market, with the station owner planning to launch its own DTC service later this summer for its Bally Sports Group RSNs. 

Sinclair has tied up local OTT rights for teams NBA and NHL teams covered by its 19 Bally Sports channels. Sinclair also has DTC rights to Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals, Detroit Tigers, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays. ■

NBC Sports Network skated to a ratings record with its  Feb. 20 NHL Outdoors telecast of the Boston Bruins-Philadelphia Flyers game.

The game, played outdoors at Lake Tahoe, averaged 1 million viewers, making it the most watched NHL regular-season game ever on NHL, surpassing the 978,000 viewers who tuned into the Jan. 13 Pittsburgh Penguins-Flyers game.

The Bruins-Flyers game was also the most watched NHL regular season game on cable since ESPN’s 2002 San Jose Sharks-Detroit Red Wings telecast.

NBCSN and NBC split coverage of the Feb. 21 Colorado Avalanche-Las Vegas Golden Knights NHL Outdoors contest after the game was delayed for hours due to sunlight making the ice unplayable. NBC’s 3 pm to 4:30 pm telecast averaged 1.3 million viewers, while NBCSN’s post midnight coverage drew 361,000 viewers, according to Nielsen.   

Read also: NBCU Plans to Shut Down NBCSN Cable Sports Net 

Fox Sports’ weekend coverage of the U.S. Open golf championship and the FIFA Women’s World Cup capped an impressive five-day run of strong viewership performances for marquee sports telecasts.

Fox broadcasting continued to set soccer telecast milestones with its Sunday afternoon coverage of the US women’s soccer team’s 3-0 win over Chile. The network drew 5.3 million viewers for the game, making it the most-watched English-language soccer telecast in the country since the 2018 FIFA Men's World Cup final in Russia, according to Nielsen.

The telecast was also most-watched, FIFA Women’s World Cup Group Stage match ever in the U.S., according to Fox Sports.

Later that evening, the network moved to the greens for its final round coverage of the US Open golf championship. The network’s primetime coverage of the championship from Pebble Beach, California -- in which Gary Woodland (pictured) took home the prized trophy -- delivered 7.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen. Overall, 31.7 million viewers watched all or part of the tournament, making it Fox Sports’ most watched U.S. Open ever.

Fox Sports kicked off its U.S. Open coverage this past Thursday (June 13) with FS1 focusing cameras on the play from two groups of golfers -- including Tiger Woods and Brooks Koepka -- while Fox Sports handled main coverage duties for the championship. The telecasts drew a combined 3.4 million viewers -- the best first round coverage on a broadcast network since 2002, according to Fox Sports.

RELATED: Fox Takes Swing At Alternative Feed During U.S. Open Golf Event

Also on June 13, ABC concluded its coverage of the Golden State Warriors-Toronto Raptors NBA Finals by drawing more than 18 million viewers to the sixth and final game of the series, won by the Raptors. While ABC’s ratings were hampered by having the Canadian-based Raptors -- the Toronto market is not rated by Nielsen -- in the finals, the network’s game telecasts on the nights aired were the most-watched shows on television, according to Nielsen.

The NBA Finals ended a day after the NHL Stanley Cup finals finished a thrilling Game 7 between the now champion St. Louis Blues and the Boston Bruins by averaging 8.7 million viewers on NBC -- the most watched Nielsen-rated NHL telecast, which dates back to 1994, according to Nielsen.

The high cost of sports programming and the value proposition of sports networks will always be a subject for debate within the industry, but what is indisputable is the ability of marquee sports events to still draw big audiences and, more often than not, score more viewers up against any other content on traditional television.

The National Hockey League and National Basketball Association finals are headed to exciting conclusions this week.

June 12 broadcast network NBC will air the seventh and final game of the NHL Stanley Cup championship between the St. Louis Blues and the Boston Bruins. The game is the first Stanley Cup Game seven to take place since the Bruins beat the Vancouver Canucks in 2011.

NBC is hoping to build on its audience for game six, which drew a Total Audience Delivery of 6.6 million—the most viewed game of the series thus far, according to NBC Sports.

Overall, this year’s NHL Stanley Cup finals are averaging 4.8 million viewers, slightly down from the 4.9 million viewers generated by last year’s five-game Washington Capitals-Las Vegas Golden Knights finals, according to Nielsen.

Broadcast network ABC on Thursday will continue its NBA Finals coverage with Game six between the two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors and the Toronto Raptors. The Raptors are up three games to two, but the Warriors are coming off an emotional win Monday night on the road and will look to even the series at home.

Game five, in which Warriors’ superstar Kevin Durant made his first on the court Finals appearance—only to suffer a serious Achilles injury in the first half—drew a 4.4 rating among adults 18-49, the highest rating for the series so far, according to Nielsen.

If the Warriors win Thursday, ABC will air game seven of the NBA Finals live on Sunday from Toronto.