NBA Digital Tests TV Apps

Posted by Jonathan in TELEVISION on 05-03-10    No Comments

It looks like the leagues are catching on to this notion of porting their digital content directly to TVs, without the need for PCs, set-top boxes or browsers. NBA Entertainment announced today that it will be tossing in NBA Game Time into the list of apps that run on Web enabled TVs like those from Vizio and Roku.

The move is important on many levels. Here are the top 2

1) Others will follow the NBA’s lead. The move is important if only because a major sports league is testing the direct to TV digital content waters. Where the NBA goes, so shall MLB, NFL, the NHL and others. It’s a real step.

2) TV Apps Aren’t a Pain to Make. The move also shows how dead simple it is for sports leagues to make meaningful content for Web App enabled TVs. In other words, leagues can get to customers faster with apps and not spend time kowtowing to pain in the ass Apple when it comes to getting their software on the networks, like say dealing with the Apps Store.

And keep in mind, that no matter what TV Web Apps will be a big, BIG market.  There are 500 million some odd TVs working in the United States; and slowly but surely probably about 20 percent will have internet capability over say a half decade. That is roughly 100 million TVs, about 5 times the number of iPads users there will ever be.

Sports Apps are gold.

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