When the NBA recently opened its new basketball season, it got more than a big reception for the winning teams. The league itself was a major winner, scoring a triple-digit increase in its video streams.
NBA.com delivered 12.1 million video streams for opening night, which was a 207 percent increase over last year's numbers. This continues the upward trend of online sports viewing, which has proven the power of broadband during major events such as the Olympics and the World Cup.
Online sports viewing is so powerful that last April, the state of Massachusetts watched the second-largest amount of Web video nationwide. The reason was the Boston Celtics' strong postseason showing, which led to them winning the NBA Eastern Conference.
The NBA is leveraging its online success with NBA League Pass, a new multiplatform program offering fans access to more than 40 live games each week across television, broadband and mobile devices. NBA Digital is offering a variety of options for how fans might consume their basketball viewing by offering the TV, broadband and mobile options a la carte.
Most notable was the two-tiered approach to the broadband packages: One package gives fans access to all games in the regular season, and the second allows viewers to track up to seven teams during the season.
Each plan allows fans to watch up to three games at once in a "mosaic view" and to catch games that were missed with a full season archive that includes DVR functionality. The service also features live game and player stats and the ability to track favorite players.
