If you have a high-speed satellite Internet connection, now is a great time to be a sports fan. It doesn’t matter if they crave football, hockey, baseball, basketball, or even soccer, sports fans are no longer limited to watching what’s airing on their local TV stations, they can choose among dozens of live games on your computer. Even more amazing, many websites offer multiple games for free. What fan wouldn’t be happy with that?
One of the first websites to offer live streaming of sporting events on its website was ESPN.com. Already the leader in live sports on cable television (they recently secured the rights to the BCS College Football Championship Series, becoming the first cable network to carry a major championship game), ESPN recently introduced ESPN360.com , a website that broadcasts live and complete sporting events over the internet. ESPN uses this technology primarily for college football and basketball games, allowing viewers to choose from multiple games to watch throughout the day. Depending on your internet speed, the streaming is average to good, but you can’t beat the access to multiple soccer games that the website gives you.
A couple of years ago, CBS made waves in the sports world by offering every NCAA basketball playoff game for free live streaming on its CBS Sports website. This service was offered for two reasons: 1) because the early rounds featured multiple games being played at the same time, people could only watch the regional games and therefore missed about 75% of the other action; and 2) because many games started during work hours, the average fan could now watch the games from his office computer. The website even offered an emergency “boss” button that would open a spreadsheet if someone entered a workspace during a game.
NFL Sunday Ticket has been a popular television package for Direct TV offering customers the opportunity to watch every football game, in-market or out-of-market, from home. Last year, Sunday Ticket ventured into cyberspace and now offers subscribers the chance to watch matches live on their computer or mobile phone. This type of mobile technology has also been adopted by other satellite companies that offer live football, hockey, and other sporting events.
Not to be outdone, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League recently launched a service that allows subscribers the opportunity to watch games from their computer. While both leagues charge for this service, with the current trend, both leagues will start offering live games for free in the coming seasons.
