If you’re a sports fan, you’ve pretty much been relegated to the realm of cable programming in order to get quality coverage and commentary on the games you want to see.
For those of us without a cable plan, the options are pretty limited. Our teams don’t always make the network channels, and the internet coverage isn’t always what we want it to be. The growing rate of those opting out of cable and switching to streaming media is not matched by what’s available online; and has created a niche market for sites like 120 Sports to walk into and flourish without much competition.
As SportTechie covered in March, 120 Sports is the online alternative to cable sports coverage and it’s not pulling any punches so far. For the first online sports network of its kind, 120 Sports offers some awesome features that are setting the bar high for other online sports networks we know will soon follow. The project is sponsored by Time Inc.’s Sports Illustrated. Additionally, 120 Sports will also be featuring leading collegiate conferences powered by Campus Insiders, which is a collaboration of IMG College and Silver Chalice, the Chicago-based sports media company.
The new online channel launched June 26th along with a mobile app for iOS. An app for Android was also released in July. The broadcast model currently sits at eight hours of new content daily, going live between the hours of 6 PM and 2 AM, which is when the majority of sporting events take place. All of this is broken up into 2-minute clips, available for both live and on-demand consumption.
According to Alexa, since their launch, the amount of time spent on the site has increased by 12 percent. This indicates a solid user base that is spending an increasing amount of time on the site for their sports-related content. Their Alexa rank has also jumped an estimated 101,180 places in the past 3 months, up to around 125,000th place in the most-browsed sites worldwide. Their United States rank is also very high, at around 35,000th place – and an estimated 88.8 percent of their traffic comes from the United States.
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Playing off the standards built by social media giants Facebook and Twitter, 120 Sports now has sections and filters like the Timeline and Trending, which allow you to toggle between live or most recent coverage; sports news links that are popular online and more specialized news tailored toward the specific teams and players you follow and care about. On top of that, they also have Catch Up, which is the section for on-demand coverage, as well as data cards that are available on all the videos, and allow you to gain more information on the players and teams you’re currently watching. And then, of course, “search”, when you’re looking for something specific.
Bringing it all in to you is a team of 14 correspondents, such as ESPNews’ own Michael Kim, former MLB All-Star Danny Graves, and former NBA player Antoine Walker. They are very much still focused on the ‘less is more’ aesthetic, limiting the sites’ sections to just three; and still allowing for a great amount of relevance on your page by adding the Trending section to show what’s hot and new each day.
With 120 Sports providing current coverage as news is happening, with cable news quality for free, and the added benefit of being backed by all the major domestic sports franchises, there is a fighting chance for this to become a new trend with online media. 120 Sports is aiming to become the universal way that sports fans get what they have been craving.