With ESPN tipping off coverage of the WNBA playoff semifinals on Sunday (September 24), the programmer is optimistic about continuing its solid regular-season ratings run into the final rounds of the postseason. 

The league’s top two teams, the defending champion Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty, are on a collision course to meet in the finals if they can get through tough matchups with the Dallas Wings and Connecticut Sun, respectively. The first round of the WNBA playoffs averaged 379,000 viewers during the playoffs’ nine-game quarterfinal round. That’s down 3% from to last season, when those games aired in August without competition from NFL regular-season and college football games. 

ESPN VP of production Sara Gaiero said the semifinal matchups offer similar compelling storylines to those that drove an 18% year-to-year increase in regular-season WNBA ratings for ESPN, ABC and ESPN2.

Aided by an increase in 2023 regular season games to 40 from 36, WNBA teams and players set several league records during the campaign, including the most wins by a team (the Aces won a record 34 games) and the most points in a season by an individual player, broken by the Seattle Storm’s Jewell Loyd, the New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart and the Aces’ A’Ja Wilson.

“We had the most-viewed season in years, and I think that speaks to the momentum behind women’s sports in general and the WNBA in particular,” Gaiero said. “What we’ve seen is the desire for the consumption of the sport continue to elevate, and we’ve ridden that all the way into the playoffs. As the playoffs continue, we will lean into the storylines presented to us.” 

YES Network said that it launched a YES Rewards loyalty program for users of its streaming app.

The program, created with LiveLike, lets users who sign up to earn gift cards for watching live New York Yankees baseball games (and Brooklyn Nets or New York Liberty basketball games in the future), watching other YES programming or playing games on the app.

“The YES App was designed to connect fans to their favorite teams while offering an innovative and engaging feature set,” Jonathan Zarrilli, manager of strategy and business development at YES Network, said. “YES Rewards, powered by LiveLike, will tie all of these features together into one ecosystem intended to reward our most engaged fans. We look forward to exploring all the ways that ‘YES Rewards’ can be used to build community and expose users to everything that the YES App has to offer.”

The YES app is available to viewers of the New York-area regional sports network who are traditional pay TV subscribers and as a direct-to-consumer product.

“As the sports streaming landscape changes, it is more important than ever to be bringing value to fans and subscribers year-round, and the YES App has invested a lot of resources into developing innovative features that put fans first and lean into the power of community,” Miheer Valavalker, co-founder and CEO of LiveLike, said. “We are delighted to be working closely with the YES team to now incentivize fans to use these features and reward them for showing their passion for their New York sports teams.”

YES Network is celebrating the first anniversary of its streaming app by continuing to develop technological innovations to enhance sports fans’ viewing experience. 

The YES app, which launched last April and streams live New York Yankees baseball, Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty basketball and New York City FC soccer action, is providing fans with unique, in-game interactive experiences with features such as in-game statistical overlays, watch party offerings, favorite player highlights and other information.

In March, YES added a free Pick-N-Play Live experience to Nets telecasts that allows users to predict in-game situations such as which players will score the most points in the game or which team will commit the next turnover. Users can keep track of their points through a live, onscreen leaderboard that’s updated during the live game telecast and compete for prizes like gift cards or team merchandise.

YES VP of strategy and business development Matt Duarte spoke to Multichannel News about the network’s continuing app development strategy. Here’s an edited transcript of that conversation.  

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MCN: How is YES Network positioning its app to increase usage and time spent on the offering?

Matt Duarte: We see the app as a new way to connect with our existing audience in a more engaging way that has multiple touch points throughout the day. We have a finite inventory on our linear channel, but with the app there are multiple ways for us to engage with and create a unique viewing experience tailored to individual fans through the introduction of the things that we've done with respect to stats, overlays, watch party features and free-to-play games. Our latest Pick-N-Play Live game that we recently introduced allows the user to really customize how they would like to watch the game. Some people are really stats-heavy and want to watch that way, while some people want to talk to their buddies down the road — this allows them a way to make that happen. It’s really become a digital destination for all of our fans across our teams. We’re able to really push the envelope from a technological perspective to create the best possible experience throughout our game and our other content.

MCN: The Pick-N-Play Live offering is not quite gambling, but do you foresee an opportunity where the app could be used for legal gambling at some point?

MD: I think it's a really good question, but for now we're really in the first steps in terms of what we're trying to do with this product, which is really engagement and lengthening the amount of time that we can get our fans to interact physically with our product and our content. I think the name of the game for [Pick-N-Play] specifically is to increase that engagement and watch time, and also to provide motivation for a larger group of fans who like to gamify the experience to really come in and watch a few games. I think down the line it could be more of a conversation of how exactly strategically we want to play in that field, but right now it's all about engagement, playing to those competitive juices and trying to play some games and win some prizes. 

MCN: Is there one particular feature users are gravitating to on a nightly basis? 

MD: I think there's been growth across all of the different features, but specifically it’s the live stats, given its longevity in terms of how long we've had it and the ways that we've improved upon it from a design perspective. We’ve added a live pitch cast from last year’s Yankees season that allows users to actually see the location of the balls and strikes on the screen and see the different matchups between hitters and pitchers over the last few years. It almost looks like it's part of the actual linear broadcast which is cool.

In addition, you will see factoids and trivia questions about our game that our digital team curates throughout the course of the game, which is really cool as well. For big games and big moments, the watch party feature has been really popular. If there's a close game with five minutes in the fourth quarter, viewers can go in and then invite a friend to watch Kevin Duran hit a game-winning jump shot. It's a really cool experience to be able to do that. 

MCN: Is there a specific metric you can provide to quantify the app’s usage on a game-by-game basis?

MD: We introduced a favorite player feature where we actually allowed fans to go into the app and select their favorite players. At that point, we’re able to curate and send highlights and different content around those different players to the actual fan. Between that and the rollout of the watch party feature, we’ve seen a 53% increase in viewership for the app since the [February] NBA All-Star break in terms of unique viewers per game for the Nets. I’m not going to say that the team’s performance didn’t also help increase viewership during that time, but you can see that the fan base is obviously interested in using the features when they tune in. We’re hoping to capitalize on that momentum and that wave heading into the Yankee season.

MCN: Is there any concern that the app becomes so popular with fans that it actually siphons viewers away from the linear YES Network? 

MD: It's really a companion where you can watch not only the game, but also interact with it as a second-screen experience. We think those play really well, especially the free Pick-N-Play game. I think it's all about optionality and offering our fans access no matter where they are and on whatever platform they have to really expand that usage and make sure they can watch their favorite teams whenever they can. ■ 

Madison Square Garden Co. said it has completed the planned split of its sports and entertainment properties into two separate publicly traded companies – Madison Square Garden and MSG Networks.

MSG announced plans for the split last October. As part of the deal, Madison Square Garden now includes entertainment venues like the Madison Square Garden arena, Beacon Theater, Radio City Music Hall, The Forum in Los Angeles, the Chicago Theater and others and professional sports teams the New York Knicks, the New York Rangers and the New York Liberty and trades on the New York stock exchange under the symbol “MSG”. MSG Networks, which trades on the NYSE under the symbol “MSGN” includes regional sports networks MSG and MSG Plus.

Officially, Madison Square Garden was spun out of the former Madison Square Garden, with the remaining entity renamed MSG Networks.

The split was made as a tax-free distribution, with shareholders of the former Madison Square Garden Co. receiving one share of MSG for every three shares of Madison Square Garden Co, they hold. That distribution was completed on Sept. 30.  

MSG Networks debuted on the NYSE on Oct. 1, opening at $20.15 per share. The stock was down about 11% ($2.15 each) in early trading, priced at $17.85 per share. MSG stock was priced at $159.63 each in early trading Thursday, up 5.7% ($8.63 per share).