Today the AFL announced that it will be teaming up with Ustream, the leader in live, interactive, and online streaming, for the 2012 and 2013 seasons. Every game, except for the NFL Network's "Arena Football Friday" Game of the Week will be available for free to view.
According to the official press release: "Fans will be able to access the broadcasts through ArenaFootball.com, Facebook, Ustream.tv, and on Ustream’s individual AFL team pages. In addition, viewers will also be able to visit Ustream’s AFL SuperChannel, a directory of the AFL and team channels, where viewers are able to navigate and select what coverage they want to watch of the 17 active channels in an interactive interface."
"Each AFL team will have its own channel on Ustream for both live broadcasts, as well as archived games on demand. All team channels will be complete with real-time chat windows allowing fans to interact before, during, and after the live broadcasted games. The video player and chat modules are fully embeddable and can be distributed by other online publishers."
"Fans will have the ability to download the Ustream for Mobile application, which will allow anyone with an iOS and Android device to watch the AFL season directly from the mobile app completely free of charge. The app enables fans to watch the team events in real-time and allow users to login through their Ustream, Facebook or Twitter accounts to participate in the chat room or Social Stream directly from their device. For up to the minute notifications of when teams go live, viewers are able to “Join Crowds” for any broadcasting team."
So what does this all mean? It means that AFL fans, during "The Year of the Fan" are getting one heck of a viewing experience. This partnership gives fans more than enough options and opportunities to watch their favorite team with the greatest of ease. Nothing can replace the live experience of attending a game, but when the Soul for instance are on the road, what better way to due your part as a fan than to watch the broadcast on Ustream?
It's just another step to bring the game of arena football to the masses and hopefully the two can partner up even further down the line. This should make for a fantastic partnership and bring Soul fans together with the ability to chat live during the games. I'll do my part and catch as many broadcasts as possible, giving myself the opportunity to provide some very detailed game reports to post after each game. So rejoice Soul fans because the season just got that much more exciting.
No comments:
Post a Comment