NBC Sports Regional Networks are scoring significant gains during their first season of NBA live in-market streaming.
Six of the branded Comcast SportsNet services have seen their collective total of live-streamed minutes leap 122% since tipping their authenticated, TV Everywhere services with the start of the 2014-15 NBA season.
According to Adobe Analytics, the six RSNs – CSN Bay Area (Golden State Warriors), CSN Mid-Atlantic (Washington Wizards), CSN Philadelphia (Sixers), CSN California (Sacramento Kings), CSN Chicago (Bulls) and CSN New England (Boston Celtics) – collectively streamed 3.1 million cumulative minutes watched in their attendant local markets in November. That total grew to 4.6 million in December and 6.9 million in January.
NBC Sports Regional Networks have TVE deals with 11 distributors, including parent Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and AT&T U-verse. The NBA telecasts are available at no extra cost to authenticated video customer who can stream their teams both inside and outside the home on smart phones, computers and tablets. Monetizing the TVE platform, the company is dynamically inserting a different set of ads into the stream, rather than those appearing on the linear telecasts.
The RSNs also have experienced growth trends with other key streaming metrics since the beginning of the campaign.. The number of live starts in November, when the application was initially introduced, totaled 133,000, before increasing 32% to 175,000 in December and another 42% rise to 247,000 last month.
Relative to total visits, the rookie streaming service has seen its monthly total nearly double since launch -- 81,000 in November to more than 158,000 in January.
No doubt reflective in part to the clubs’ performance on the court,, Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, Comcast SportsNet Chicago and Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic have seen their total visits, minutes watched and live start figures more than double in January from those netted in November, according to NBC Sports officials.
“We are pleased with these early adoption figures and encouraged by the positive trends surrounding this significant value add for our viewers and distribution partners,” said Jon Litner, group president of NBC Sports Group. “Live sports is among the most compelling content available, and our implementation of TV Everywhere provides subscribers with our award winning coverage—live and in HD—no matter where they are and on whichever device they choose. We’d like to commend the NBA for working with us to bring this product to basketball fans and advancing this important movement.”
All told, the six Comcast RSNs will make more than 440 NBA games available for in-market streaming throughout the 2014-15 season.
Although Time Warner Cable SportsNet has been live-streaming Los Angeles Lakers telecssts since it lauched with the start of the 2012-13 NBA campaign, this season marks the first major push for RSN TVE action. All 17 of the Fox Sports Net regional holding NBA rights are now live-streaming the contests in market, while MSG Networks has always debuted a product to simulcast New York Knicks telecasts..
