March Madness a Huge Hit with Online and Mobile Users

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To the surprise of probably no one the first round of the annual NCAA Division 1 Basketball tournament has see resounding television viewership numbers (best in 18 years), but what might pass unnoticed is how strong its mobile and online viewership is as well.

Strong actually may be understating it, in the first week viewership via PCs, smartphones and tablets accounted for 10 million hours of video stream consumed by fans accessing all of the different online digital properties showing the tournament.

The results coupled with the strong online viewership the recent London Summer Olympics enjoyed should put to rest the arguments that making live sports action available for mobile and online users will hurt television viewership that some sports leagues still adhere to.

There were 4.2 million unique visitors watching games, and what is telling about how fast this has become an alternative method to watch the event, that number represents a 161% increase from just a year ago.

Broadband users were the top consumers of video averaging 105 minutes of viewing time while the mobile segment, the smartphone and tablet users, consumed 61 minutes per user.

The mobile aspect of this is increasingly important. Mobile viewers represented for 43% of live video streams on Thursday, 48% on Friday, 59% on Saturday and 60% on Sunday. These numbers both show how important reaching mobile users and that by addressing them how an event can expand its viewership by reaching fans that might be at work and prohibited from using work PCs to view or people that are out and about but still want to catch a game. Hopefully others, such as the NFL, will take this to heart and make more games available online.

Fascinating Read: Fast Company Explores MLB.com’s Winning Strategy

If you want a primer on why we started Mobile Sports Report, the best explanation I’ve seen yet is embodied within a great story from Fast Company about how Major League Baseball’s advanced media team (BAM for short) got out ahead of the digital pack. Just about every part of this story shows why we think sports is headed online, and to mobile platforms, going forward. An incredible read.

In addition to explaining how BAM made its online offering MLB.com one of the breakout successes of online sports — according to the article it generates $620 million in revenue a year — the story exposes something Major League Baseball is trying to get in all its stadiums: Wi-Fi networks so that fans can watch video in their seats. And finally we are getting a good grasp on how much it costs to put in a network — according to the story, it’s about $3 million per stadium. Here’s a bit of the story that has the meat:

For instance, BAM is trying to assemble corporate partners to cover the costs, more than $3 million per team, to wire each ballpark for high-speed web access, so fans can check and download BAM’s apps to see video and make purchases.

There’s more great stuff in this well written synopsis of how MLB.com became an online success — it is required reading if you are in sports or sports marketing. And of course if you want continuing coverage of the news of stadium networking, well you are already in the right place if you are reading this story.

Hat tip to our pal Joe Favorito for tweeting about the story this morning.

Sunday Sermon: Thanks to Tiger’s Win, We’ll All Watch the Masters

I only got to see highlights of his victory Sunday so the thing that stuck me the most was how Tiger Woods was staring down his approach shots. Holding a pose, like a hitter who was looking for a fastball and got one. With two weeks to go to the Masters, Tiger is dialed in — and that’s why we’ll all be watching, on TV, or online, when the Masters happens.

In the long run another win at the Arnold Palmer Bay Hill Invitational presented by MasterCard won’t mean much in Woods’ long string of victories. But No. 72 was more important than most given the long stretch of time between it and No. 71. November of 2009 was the last time Woods was victorious in a regular Tour event, and we all know what else happened in between. Nothing short of one of the more epic personal meltdowns and letdowns of all time. For some of that he will never be forgiven, and rightfully so. But when it comes to golf it appears Tiger is ready for some major redemption.

And whether he makes it all the way back or not — whether he resumes his chase of Jack Nicklaus and the Golden Bear’s 18 major titles — we will all be compelled to watch what is probably the best and most pure event broadcast in sports today, the Masters. If you’re watching on TV it’s nothing short of heaven, since there are so few commercials, maybe just a few an hour. It’s nonstop golf in one of the world’s premier settings.

And online, the Masters has long set the standard of what Internet coverage should be. The tournament was the first to really show different views online, including a steady diet of “Amen Corner,” which is a great way to watch — instead of the television bounce-around with a focus on the leaders the Amen Corner cams watch holes 11, 12 and 13 and you get to see every group go through there. There’s also separate “channels” for holes 15 and 16, which are interesting in their own right. There may be many things you can call the Masters “stodgy” for but online coverage isn’t one of them. Here’s Chairman Billy Payne from last year, talking about how the Masters thinks about online coverage:

We continue to work hard on our Internet presence. Our website offers the many options that its visitors have come to expect: Live, high-definition quality video, realtime scores and comprehensive coverage. But this year we have added groundbreaking enhancements with up to nine live video feeds and some truly amazing beauty sequences showcasing Augusta National at its best.

As I’ve said before over the last several years, to the extent that emerging technology is
allowed, the development of digital media will continue to be a part of our larger communications efforts and will hopefully present the Masters and the great game of golf in a unique and exciting manner.

Every year, the Masters is great viewing, either on TV or online. And now with Tiger in form, it will be even more compelling.

The Big Ten Network expands to Mobile Devices with BTN2Go

Fans of Big Ten sports who are on the road can now take a piece of the conference with them, a sporting piece as the conference has expanded its Big Ten Network (BTN) presence to cover both mobile users as well as expanding its footprint on the Internet.

The BTN2Go features the live sports feed of the programming that fills BTN, it is simply made available to users of smartphones, tablets or access the site via the Internet. The BTN has done a staged rollout of the program, it debuted with the start of the football season last year as an Internet-only feature and then expanded to the iPad and iPhone quickly afterwards. A version for Android-based phones is expected within the next month or so.

The goal of the effort to provide fans of Big Ten sports access to games anywhere, at any time on any device, said Michael Calderon, BTN’s vice president of digital and interactive media. The network is currently looking at other platforms such as Windows Phone and connected devices including game consoles and expects to launch a new platform with the start of next year’s football season, Calderon said.

Users have to be subscribers of the participating cable or broadband providers, a list that includes Bright House Networks, Charter, Cox Communications, DIRECTV, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.

If you fall into that category then BTN2Go is free with no addition subscription needed and this gives you access to a huge amount of both current and past programming. First and foremost for many fans is the ability to watch live games. However games that are broadcast by BTN’s partners such as ABC and ESPN will be available the following day on-demand.

Calderon noted that a real benefit the program brings is for fans that do not live in the Big Ten area, where a game that are interested might not be broadcast, it will still be available on BTN2Go. Also when an event runs long, say the first of a basketball doubleheader, a user can still go to BTN2Go to watch the opening of the second game if that is the one they are interested in viewing.

The BTN has benefited from its founders foresight. When it was founded five years ago in ensured that it had control of all its digital rights so that the licensing issues that have the potential to stymie a program such as this do not exist.

Then there is also access to archival footage from earlier this season broadcast by both BTN and its partners. Of course there is highlight reels and coaches shows on a regular basis. The BTN also creates home grown series such as Original series such as The Journey, Big Ten Icons, Big Ten’s Best and The Big Ten’s Greatest Games that are also available for viewing.

Going forward the network is looking to add additional features to BNT2Go including possibly a social media module for Facebook and Twitter users, but for the first generation of the platform it focused on delivering a top video experience, Caldera said.

The PGA’s Strange Baby Steps Toward Social Media

Since golf in general has a reputation for being stuck up, it’s perhaps no surprise that when it comes to social media the PGA is still taking baby steps when compared to other sports. I mean — in an era where the NBA has fans selecting the dunk contest winners via text message and Twitter, the PGA has a place where fans can leave messages online… for the PGA to somehow bring them to golfers.

Don’t understand what I am talking about? Look at this page, which I found by following the PGA on Twitter… and see if you think it’s about three years behind the interactivity of the times. As far as I can tell, the PGA thinks that fans may want to “congratulate” Hunter Mahan by leaving a message on some random web page — or as the PGA site says, “Leave a note below and we’ll deliver it to him.”

Umm… OK? As far as I can tell this is about as non-social as social media gets. I mean — why not have the winner do a quick Twitter chat, where he can respond to fans in real time? And they can get recognition for themselves via their Twitter handles, which after all is part of the social media game — to be recognized?

This sort of idea — you put a message here, somewhere safe, and we’ll carry it past the ropes to our winner — pretty much reflects golf’s baby steps toward real fan interaction. The online video for the World Golf match play was a perfect example of that tenor — it was a straight network-broadcast type feed, no place for fan tweets or any outside commentary. You get the feeling sometimes that golf wants to keep its game bottled up as much as it can. But I don’t think that method is going to win in the long run. Golf will need to either open up, or it will become less appealing to a fan base that is rapidly growing accustomed to having closer, more intimate access to its heroes.

Bleacher Report Joins YouTube Parade, Adds 4 New Shows

We’ve been asking the question about whether or not YouTube is becoming the next big de facto sports network, and Bleacher Report seems to agree with the idea — at least the news today about B/R launching four new YouTube shows points in that general direction.

Here’s the quick take: The old impression of YouTube is bad cell phone videos and crazy cat stunts. The new impression is professional quality content, from the rights owners themselves, available 24/7 to an audience that might just be mobile. For Bleacher Report, which is already reporting that 40 percent of its traffic comes from a mobile viewing platform, more YouTube shows makes perfect sense. Distribution costs are low, it’s easy to find and connect, and younger Internet users are familiar with the format.

It’s also interesting to note that for its video shows and for its site in general, Bleacher Report is adding more professional writers and producers to augment the fan-contributed material that made B/R a different animal than existing sports sites.

UPDATE: YouTube’s own blog spells out some more sports programming on the video giant. (Thanks to @xpangler for the HT)

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