CBS to Stream SEC Football Live Online
CBS Sports announced today that all of the SEC football games the network broadcasts will also be streamed live for free on CBSSports.com. CBS’ coverage of the SEC starts this Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET with Tennessee vs. top-ranked Florida.
CBSSports will live stream 15 SEC contests concluding with the SEC Championship Game on Saturday, Dec. 5. The network will also live-stream the Army-Navy game, the Konica Minolta Gator Bowl and the Brut Sun Bowl.
Video will be shown in 16 x 9, and will feature in-game stats, live chat using multiple social networks, and on-demand highlights. CBSSports.com is choosing to show the games in Adobe Flash using dynamic streaming, even though March Madness on Demand had a fancy-pants player using Microsoft’s Silverlight. Jason Kint, senior vice president at CBS Interactive and general manager at CBSSports.com, told us by phone today, “We tested a bunch platforms [and] made the decision to use Flash for Fantasy football today and SEC Live,” citing the player’s broad penetration as a key reason.
CBS has been pretty progressive with its live-streamed sports (unlike other networks that rhyme with “BenBeeCee”). Kint reiterated the belief he conveyed to us last year that live-streaming broadcast sports is additive and not cannibalistic to its TV business.
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[...] those of us not able to see the game on TV-check this out: CBS to Stream SEC Football Live Online May just be the answer to all our [...]
WILL TN vs OLE MISS BE ON ESPN 360 OR NOT…
— 7:55 PM on November 13, 2009
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This is no big deal, except that it may be a missed opportunity. CBS is playing it safe and not adopting Silverlight. But fortune favours the brave.
We’ve using NFL’s new Silverlight player and it’s noticeably better than Flash, as the editor of Macworld magazine said:-
http://www.timacheson.com/Blog/2009/sep/macworld_editor_says_silverlight_is_better_than_flash_for_video
No wonder they saw such a big increase in traffic:
http://www.contentinople.com/author.asp?section_id=603&doc_id=181846
Unfortunately, often those arguing the business case have more clout than those arguing the technical case. Surely CBS is missing an opportunity to take advantage of technological advancement, for the sake of a trivial impact on user experience? At worst, all the user needs to do is click on an “install Silverlight” button on the page.
I think it’s right to place user experience at the very top of the agenda, but wrong to obsess over it to such an extent that trivial UED arguments override significant arguments about technology, innovation and features.