For millennial sports fans, Bleacher Report is a hub for everything sports. Soon enough, that will include catching a game live. Turner Broadcasting System is launching a stand-alone live sports streaming service, Bleacher Report Live, in April.
B/R Live’s sports slate will include NBA League Pass games, 65 NCAA Championship games, the PGA Championship, National Lacrosse League, World Arm Wrestling League, UEFA Championship League, and UEFA Europa League matches, and more. B/R Live will sell live events on a per-event basis at prices not yet announced. A preview video shown at the launch event in New York City displayed the option to also purchase monthly and annual passes to these live events.
The user interface of B/R Live resembles the sleek and minimalistic design of the Bleacher Report site. Users will be able to scroll through live events the same way they do an Instagram feed, with preview videos appearing for each event. There will also be personalization options, by which users can input their favorite teams and have the games for those teams appear at the top of the feed whenever they log on. You could log onto B/R Live one day and find yourself in the middle of a Golden State Warriors game, with the option to pay for as much of the game as you want to watch.
At the B/R Live launch event, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver mentioned full NBA games from the 2018-2019 season could each be sold at $7 on B/R Live, but pricing for individual game purchases are still being discussed. Silver did explain how the NBA’s newest model of selling NBA games will resemble video games’ microtransactions. “Under this notion of microtransactions, let’s sell the fans what it is they want,” Silver said. “We’re experimenting with pricing where the notion is, let’s say for 99 cents you get five minutes. You can buy another five minutes. You can come back in the game at a later point in the fourth quarter.”
No pricing for B/R Live was announced at the launch event, but there be will a free preview offered from its launch in April until June. The service will officially launch on April 7, coinciding with former Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel’s debut in the developmental Spring League.
Turner first announced plans for to launch an OTT sports streaming service in August 2017. B/R Live will be the latest entrant in an ever-growing industry of sports streaming services. In February, CBS launched CBS Sports HQ, a free, ad-supported, 24-hour streaming sports news network. ESPN also has plans to launch its own stand-alone subscription streaming service, ESPN Plus, also launching sometime around early April.
