Stream Line: CBS To Provide Live Online Broadcast Of Final Four

CBS To Offer Final Four Games Online Via MMOD

CBSSports.com, in partnership with CBS Sports, CBS College Sports Net and the NCAA, will provide the first live online broadcast of the NCAA men's Final Four and National Championship game through their NCAA March Madness On Demand video player. This will mark the first time a major U.S. sporting event has been shown live and in its entirety online. There have been more than 4.3 million unique visitors to the MMOD video player during this year's men's basketball tournament, a 147% increase over '07. Total minutes of live streaming video and audio consumed in the first eight days of the tournament accumulated to more than 4.5 million total hours, surpassing the entire '07 total of more than 2.7 million hours, a 69% increase (CBS).

ONE CLICK AWAY: In L.A., Greg Johnson notes CBS this year allowed over 200 Web sites to add a link to its live online tournament coverage. The concept of the project is to "capture, share and recapture college basketball fans -- a strategy that could benefit all the participating media companies, not just CBS.'' CBSSports.com Senior VP & GM Jason Kint said of the decision, "You're bringing (fans) diverse points of view and giving your audience the broadest perspective possible." SI.com Managing Editor Paul Fichtenbaum: "The Web is a democracy. And if we don't bring the best stuff to our users -- no matter where it happens to land -- then we're not going to get those users." UCLA grad student Mike De Land: "Facebook is sort of becoming everyone's home page. So for them to make it as convenient as possible for people to start at Facebook, where people have their brackets and pools, makes sense." Johnson notes CBS expects online revenue to top $23M, with "most of it falling to the bottom line." When CBS first streamed live NCAA tournament games in '05, it generated $250,000 in subscription fees. The net switched to a free ad-supported model in '06, and generated $10M in revenue last year (L.A. TIMES, 4/4).