NHL, Verizon partner for live mobile content distribution

By Chris Harnick

December 31, 2009

Cool shtick

The National Hockey League and Verizon Wireless are partnering to provide live and exclusive mobile content on the carrier's V Cast service.

Live NHL games, local radio broadcasts and play information will be available on V Cast. Consumers can watch live hockey games from their mobile devices on New Year’s Day.

“NHL fans are the most tech-savvy in professional sports, including having the most tech gadgets,” said Michael DiLorenzo, NHL director of business communications, New York. “Our strategy is to leverage Verizon to shorten the distance between our fans and our content.”

The NHL was founded in 1917 and is the second-oldest of the four major professional team sports leagues in North America. There are more than 30 member clubs with players from more than 20 countries.

Verizon Wireless is the leading carrier nationwide with 89 million subscribers.

Fancy footwear

Ice stream
For the second year, Verizon Wireless and the NHL are bringing NBC Sports coverage of the 2010 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic on New Year’s Day to V Cast for consumers to watch on their Verizon devices.

At 1 p.m. EST on Jan. 1 the Boston Bruins will host the Philadelphia Flyers in the NHL’s annual outdoor game. This year it will be played in Boston.

The game will be streamed in its entirety on the NBC Sports channel on V Cast.

Ice hijinks

Additional NBC Sports games will be streamed live during the remainder of the season.

Also beginning on Jan. 1, the NHL and Verizon Wireless are giving hockey fans across the country the chance to listen to teams’ local radio broadcasts live on V Cast.

The audio will feature hometown announcers and analysts from every game will be available throughout the season and the playoffs. 

Broadcasts from select games will also be available in French.

Skate mate
“Verizon Wireless has featured a lot of NHL content, and we're planning to bring even more innovative mobile content and options to our customers,” said Debra Lewis, spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless, Basking Ridge, NJ. “The NHL is very forward-thinking about its mobile strategy, and we're excited to continue to work together.”

Ms. Lewis said the NHL provides Verizon with content including video, audio and exclusive extra content on players and teams.

The NHL’s Mr. DiLorenzo said partnering with Verizon meets several challenges for the League.

The partenship lets the NHL serve fans who are not in front of a television or computer.

Working with Verizon also helps the NHL satisfy the demand from its passionate, tech-savvy audience and it lets the League be more pervasive in marketing the game.

“Going mobile lets us shorten the distance between league and fans,” Mr. Di Lorenzo said. “And we realize the marketing and business benefit of an increasingly pervasive content and commerce platform.”

Comments on "NHL, Verizon partner for live mobile content distribution"

1. Jim Washok says:

   January 4, 2010 at 7:12am

   I'm really getting tired of these exclusive content deals. As ubiquitous as mobile devices and network capabilities are now, I think consumers expect and should be able to get to any web based content on any network, any device now.
   
   Can you imagine web sites being exclusive in this day to certain ISPs like some content was to networks like AOL, CompuServe and Prodigy over 10 yrs ago?
   
   Greed and control, I believe, are the drivers for these deals still sticking around; and, I think the carriers are out of their mind if they think that having this temporary exclusive content is enough to cause consumers to switch to their service. Mobile's not a game anymore and us consumers are not just pawns to try to move on a game board. We expect an internet-on-a-computer like experience now in accessibility, pricing, capability, quality and speed. If mobile is to mature further now in a new decade, the carriers must wake up to this, and especially Verizon Wireless, who has shown the most resistance to subscriber access to any content and generally charges higher prices for data services than the other carriers.