Skip to main content

Sony successfully streams first live North American soccer game in 4K

A soccer stadium with a view from the crowd.
natursports/123RF
In recent years, live sports have lagged conspicuously behind the rest of streaming entertainment. Lack of availability and reliability has plagued the over-the-top sports market, but today brought news of another step forward. Sony Electronics has announced its participation in successful streaming trials of live 4K sporting events, including the first live North American soccer broadcast in 4K by Univision Deportes.

The events were streamed live and in 4K via the NeuLion Digital Platform and were delivered over-the-top exclusively to Sony 4K HDR Ultra HD TVs with integrated NeuLion 4K Streaming SDK. Availability was limited to select audiences in New York, Florida, and California. Trials began in early 2016 and are expected to continue through the summer.

Recommended Videos

Univision Deportes Network (UDN) is the number one Spanish-language sports network in the world, and participated in this round of trials by producing the groundbreaking soccer event referenced above. The match took place at Marlins Park in Miami, Florida on February 10 and pitted Mexico against Senegal in an international friendly.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

“Sony 4K HDR Ultra HD TVs are the logical choice for these 4K events because with our experience in 4K HDR shooting, editing, recording, storage, playback, and transmission, we understand 4K display technology like no other company,” said Sunil Nayyar, Sony’s Director of Product Marketing, TV, and Projectors for North America. “These 4K live streaming tests reveal that the streaming and broadcast of live 4K sports is on its way to consumers in the near future. And Sony’s line-up of 4K HDR Ultra HD TVs is ready today.”

Recent months have brought quite a bit of news on the 4K sports front, as the NBA aired its first game in the format back in January — though it wasn’t streamed and was available only in the U.K. and Canada.

Hopefully, the momentum will continue and Mr. Nayyar’s “near future” timetable will hold true — there are a whole lot of rabid sports fans out there that are champing at the bit to watch their teams tilt with rival squads in glorious 4K.

Adam Poltrack
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Adam is an A/V News Writer for Digital Trends, and is responsible for bringing you the latest advances in A/V…
Walmart says Onn 4K Pro will eventually only ship with a backlit remote
The remote control that came with our Onn 4K Pro Streaming Device.

The remote control that came with our Onn 4K Pro Streaming Device is not backlit. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

The great mystery of the Walmart remote control has been solved. Mostly. As you'll recall from our Onn 4K Pro Streaming Device review, ours came with a remote control that doesn't have backlit buttons and also lacks an unsightly "Free TV" button. But some folks who also got in early on the $50 Google TV device had a different remote control — one whose buttons do light up, and with a big blue "Free TV" button in the middle.

Read more
TCL prices its insanely bright, 115-inch QM89 4K TV at $27,000
2024 TCL QM89 4K mini-LED TV.

The 115-inch TCL QM89 television. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

TCL already wowed us at CES 2024 with its astonishingly bright and immense QM89 115-inch mini-LED TV, so all that was really left for the company to do was tell us how much it would cost to own one of these monsters. Today, we have that information, along with details on the rest of TCL's 2024 TV lineup.

Read more
What we want to see from the next Apple TV 4K
An Apple TV 4K sitting on a wood entertainment center with a HomePod Mini behind it.

One thing not on this list: A dust-resistant Apple TV 4K. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

Now that we’ve gotten the whole “Apple TV 4K with a camera” thing out of our system, it’s time to take a more serious look at what we still consider to be the best streaming hardware you can buy. More specifically, this article is about what we’d like to see added to the diminutive box.

Read more