Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 8:40 AM PT

Where to Watch Wimbledon Online

This is a big week for NBCSports.com. After a rain-delayed U.S. Open Golf Championship spilled over into a live-streamed Monday finale, the sporting world now turns its eyes to Wimbledon, where the grand-pappy of tennis tournaments kicks off this week (watch it here).

And for the first time in the U.S. this year, coverage of Wimbledon will be available via free, live online streaming, including the men’s and women’s finals (hat tip to MediaPost).

From the NBC press release:

NBC Sports will present more than 38 broadcast hours of coverage over nine days from Wimbledon beginning this Saturday at 3 p.m. ET, and includes live coverage of the Gentleman’s and Ladies’ Finals. All matches televised by NBC Sports are available online at Live at Wimbledon via NBCSports.com and Wimbledon.org.

This marks a shift for Wimbledon, which last year only offered live-streamed coverage via a $25 subscription (and only to Windows users). Despite that fee, the tournament generated 1 million live and 4 million on-demand streams last year. From the Wimbledon.org site, it looks like there is still a subscription for U.K. residents. (Since we’re in the U.S., it blocked us from getting too far into the subscription process.)

Also of note is the breadth of coverage. For the recently concluded U.S. Open, NBC only offered live coverage of “marquee” players in the early rounds during the week, and of just two holes over the weekend. Offering the finals online for free is a nice bonus and change of pace for the network, which is usually so protective of its televised sporting events.

The NBC Sports stream is powered by Microsoft Silverlight, which was the technology NBC used for last year’s Olympics. IStreamPlanet.com is coordinating and managing the content acquisition and encoding of the live-streamed video. But NBC isn’t locking itself into one streaming solution. Earlier this year, the network signed a deal with Conviva to power some of NBC’s streaming.

Sphere Tweet This (17)

Topic: Distribution, Networks & Studios

Comments (9)

time you guys in the USA were blocked a bit, your poor cousins here in Blighty are used it so you need to feel our pain

tim — 9:14 AM on June 23, 2009 Reply
Can you post a link to where the live stream is. For the rest of the world you can get bootlegged live coverage elsewhere. See my post here:

http://www.daleisphere.com/wimbledon-2009-live-streaming-bootleg-version/

…Dale

dajad — 3:14 PM on June 24, 2009 Reply
Dale, the link is here: http://wimbledonlive.nbcsports.com

Your welcome, NewTeeVee. ;)

Dave Zatz — 4:50 PM on June 24, 2009 Reply
- Thanks Zatz.
  
  Liz Gannes, NewTeeVee — 5:36 PM on June 24, 2009 Reply
watch wimbledon live

http://watchlivestreamshow.blogspot.com/2009/06/wimbledon.html

chong — 4:15 AM on June 25, 2009 Reply
Thanks Dave, I have now tried that link from Canada using Hotspot shield and it is blocked.

I have updated my post above to include even more bootleg sources for those that don’t otherwise have access.

…Dale

Dale Dietrich — 9:06 AM on June 25, 2009 Reply
nice link Liz Gannes…

try here also

http://watchliveonlie.tk

chong — 5:14 AM on June 29, 2009 Reply
“”See my post here:
http://www.daleisphere.com/wimbledon-2009-live-streaming-bootleg-version/
…Dale”"”

thanks for the link man! you’re right, that sight had it for free and easy to use… gotta love the internet for bottleg stuff!!

-Joe G. Jr

Joe G. Jr — 8:18 AM on July 3, 2009 Reply
Liz Gannes thanks for the site! After surfing for 30 min I saw the blog and was able to watch the match. Thanks a buunch!

Karen — 9:31 AM on July 4, 2009 Reply

Linkbacks (6)

[...] Staff | Tuesday, June 23, 2009 | 9:18 AM PT | 0 comments Where to watch Wimbledon online (NewTeeVee) Tesla wins $465M in DOE loans, Nissan gets $1.6B for electric cars (Earth2Tech) Review: [...]

What to read on the GigaOM network — 9:18 AM on June 23, 2009
[...] Where to watch Wimbledon online (NewTeeVee) Tesla wins $465M in DOE loans, Nissan gets $1.6B for electric cars (Earth2Tech) Review: Amazon MP3 and Palm Pre media sync — not quite perfect (jkOnTheRun) Report: Open source booming in China, Germany, other regions (OStatic) Steve Jobs is back on the job (TheAppleBlog) 4 signs potential clients aren’t interested — and what to do about it (WebWorkerDaily) [...]

What to read on the GigaOM network | Design… — 6:12 PM on June 23, 2009
[...] but these go back to February of 2009. Hopefully with Microsoft using the technology to broadcast Wimbledon and the 2010 Olympics that figure will go higher, but until it approaches ubiquity I’d rather [...]

Student projects in SeaDragon « Fabricated… — 8:21 AM on June 26, 2009
[...] by extension, the Wimbledon semi-finals. Evidently, NBC forgot the “live” part of its online live-streaming and is delaying the televised and online coverage, a tactic NBC CEO Jeff Zucker is fond of [...]

Wimbledon? More Like Wimble-Done Already… — 11:11 AM on July 3, 2009
[...] will try to win the record breaking 15th Grand Slam title against the American Andy Roddick. Where to Watch Wimbledon Online Watch Wimbledon Live Streaming Online.. Nadal VS Federer 2008 Wimbledon Final Last Game HD – [...]

watch wimbledon final online | Most Popular… — 10:11 AM on July 5, 2009
[...] hasn’t figured out which other streaming partners it likes best. For Wimbledon the site used iStreamPlanet, but NBC has also worked with or announced plans to work with Move Networks, Conviva and [...]

Video: NBC Sports Loves Silverlight After… — 10:31 PM on July 12, 2009