NESN launches app that features live streams of Red Sox and Bruins games - The Boston Globe
“NESN 360″ offers the same live feed NESN and NESN+ carry, as well as a library of other NESN offerings and original content.
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Cord-cutting Red Sox and Bruins fans have a new way to watch games, thanks to a streaming app launched by NESN on Wednesday.
“NESN 360″ offers the same live feed NESN and NESN+ carry, as well as a library of other NESN offerings and original content produced for the site.
The app, the first of its kind from a regional sports network for an MLB or NHL team, is available at no additional cost for those who already subscribe to NESN via their cable provider.
For those without traditional NESN, there are two plans available at $29.99 a month. There’s a month-to-month option with a $1 promotional offer for the first month, while the pre-paid, $329.99 annual plan comes, for a limited time, with eight Red Sox tickets.
Sean McGrail, president and CEO of NESN, described the streaming app as “a companion product” to what the network currently offers, and a product that will evolve in the years to come.
“This is another opportunity for us to make sure fans have the ability to watch the teams they love,” said McGrail. “There are changes in the media landscape, there’s no question about it and this is a way of responding to make sure we have unilateral access for all of New England, and all of the people who are fans of our teams to get access to those products.”
Eighty percent of NESN is owned by Fenway Sports Group, parent company of the Red Sox, with the Bruins owning the rest.
Like its fiber-optic, satellite-dish, or cable-based cousins, a NESN 360 user will only be able to stream content if their phone, computer, smart TV, Apple TV, or Roku device is located within the six New England states, minus Fairfield County in Connecticut.
After being downloaded, a NESN-less customer would pick the monthly or annual plan, while a NESN subscriber would link their app to their existing provider account.
Open the app, and a home page appears, with the top two clickable options being whatever is on NESN or NESN+ at that moment. Scroll down, and there will be a library of assorted video-on-demand features, such as recently produced David Ortiz, Jerry Remy or Bruins specials, plus full re-broadcasts of past Red Sox games, including nationally televised games.
There will also be unique content for the streaming app that won’t be airing on old-school NESN.
Devout Red Sox’ fan Jared Carrabis will have his own “Beyond Fenway with Jared Carrabis” show featuring social visits with Red Sox players.
The “Pitching Ninja,” otherwise known as Rob Friedman, will offer inside looks at Red Sox pitching. The video airing today, for example, features the Ninja breaking down what’s been working and what’s not been working for the club’s staff in the first two months of the season.
Collaborations with other content providers, including the Globe, are in the works.
Later this summer, NESN plans to introduce an ultra high-def broadcast to the app, make the streaming content available on Fire TV and Google TV apps, and perhaps carry a live home Red Sox batting practice feed.
That variety pack of choices is one of three components that went into the network’s thinking when it settled on the $30 a month price point, said Ahmed Darwish, chief marketing officer at NESN..
