MLB.com and the National Hockey League (NHL) today announced a partnership that will make available each league's live online streaming product, MLB.TV Premium and NHL GameCenter LIVE(TM), respectively, through a bundled subscription. This special bundle for United States residents will be available for a one-time fee of
$139.95 beginning Monday, February 16 at MLB.com and NHL.com.
Earlier this month, MLB.TV went on-sale with its full-season package (March-October 2009) for $109.95, a $10 discount off the 2008 yearly pricing, and the NHL will launch its standalone Race for the Cup(TM) streaming product on February 16 for $79.95.
This first-of-its-kind content partnership will allow subscribers to watch every regular season game, more than 100 Spring Training games and the first two rounds of the World Baseball Classic in
2009, via MLB.com, and up to 40 out-of-market NHL games per week for the remainder of the current regular season as well as select Stanley Cup(TM) Playoffs games, via NHL.com (blackout and other restrictions apply).
"We believe this partnership with the NHL is an important initial step in the future of online subscription programming for valuable content providers," said Bob Bowman, MLB.com President and Chief Executive Officer.
"We couldn't be more excited about this tremendous opportunity to introduce our groundbreaking NHL Game Center LIVE experience to an even bigger audience," said NHL Chief Operating Officer John Collins. "MLB.com has built a great business by engaging their audience with a best-in-breed product. This partnership is all about our mutual commitment to deliver world class digital sports experiences to sports fans everywhere."
MLB.TV, now in its seventh season with over a million total subscribers since its inception and 500,000 in 2008 alone, will introduce significant upgrades to its Premium product in 2009. The new MLB.TV Premium will feature proprietary speed detection allowing a hi-definition quality picture on any screen size; live game DVR functionality; live game picture-in-picture capabilities; multi-game viewing options; home and away feeds for every available game; live game radio option; and real-time player tracker alerts for live at-bat look-ins.
NHL GameCenter LIVE streams up to 40 games per week (blackout and other restrictions apply), and is specifically designed for those avid fans looking for the most complete, in-game NHL viewing experience, as well as for the nearly 50 percent of NHL fans that live away from their favorite team's local television market and crave more live game coverage. NHL GameCenter LIVE surrounds these avid hockey fans with TV-quality streaming video, multiple and exclusive camera angles, multi-games views, real-time stats, chat and much more.
11 comments:
The NHL gamecenter live is such a scam. They automatically set your accunt up for a automatic annual renewal for the full service, 159.00USD. I bought a single playoff game and last year I had a mystery deduction of 159.00 and couldnt get it resolved. The cancellation phone number they give you gets redirected around. Its such a rip off, this year I going to my bank and trying to block the charge before it happens. I had my account number changed after the incident last year but these guys have a way of finding new accounts numbers. I love ice hockey but after all of this it left a bitter taste in my mouth for the NHL. I just got an email this morning from them saying there about to charge my account again for a full year of viewing which I never signed up for. No one from the company is helping me at all. BEWARE
I was scammed too. I was charged $159.00. I made several attempts to call and cancel prior to the subscription cycle, even waited up to a full hour listening to audio clips of stanley cup play by play once. UNACCEPTABLE.
Fortunately, my credit card company had the charges removed. I know now, not to ever conduct my business with the NHL INTERACTIVE CYBERNET company. Downright FRAUD!
If that wasn't bad enough with NHL GameCenter is that most often, you sign up, only to find that most of the games you want to watch are blacked out. There's no way to know if they are blacked out before you sign up! What a scam!
That's why you can't watch individual games. Because then you'd know you can't watch most of the games!
Same experience, Total scam, never again. I fought for 2 weeks to get charges removed from my account, after they "automatically" resubscribed me for $160. They then tried to tell me they couldn't give me a refund. Also hated the service the year I used it EVERY good game is blacked out. NEVER EVER EVER AGAIN.
Same thing happened to us. Just saw the credit card statement and made me jump!!!!!!
It could be much better if they allowed monthly subscriptions, but they only offer monthly BILLING (you still have to pay the entire season price).
It's only useful at all if you want out-of-market games, so if you want this as a workaround to cable, you're out of luck.
It's even worse of a deal for Canadians, as we have far more national games. Even if you're a fan of a non-Toronto Canadian team and living in Toronto, chances are the game will be blocked out since so many Canadian-based teams have games broadcast nationally or in southern Ontario.
Additionally, ALL playoff games are broadcast nationally in Canada, meaning Gamecenter becomes entirely useless at the end of the regular season.
While they may not be able to get around broadcasting rights to eliminate blocked games, they should at least allow a monthly subscription (at no more than $22/month).
Otherwise it's a better deal to get CentreIce as at least it's monthly (and if in Canada, you can get it with NFL Sunday Ticket, NBA, MLB, Nascar and NCAA for only $30 total per month).
Regrettably, I too was suckered into this deal. As a lifelong hockey fan, I'm disappointed in the NHL for offering this shameful service. Every game on the east coast is blacked out and there's no way out of their annual subscription.
I got scammed too! A gift for a friend.
Gamecenter, you business practices are fraudulent.
You've been exposed!
Warn others about your experience.
And Netflix and AppleTV work with these guys.
I hope they realize that it smears their good names with bozo's like this.
Come on Apple - get rid of these scammers! (Steve would not approve)
interesting and very useful and informative article. This really is this kind of intriguing and insightful article to see other people. Thanks a lot for the share... Keep it up.
I agree that NHL Game Center on Apple TV is a scam! I solely purchased the service to watch the Philadelphia Flyers and most of the games are blacked out! I was never informed of this when I purchased it but I tried to get my money back and they wouldn't give me a refund. Do not purchase this service it is a scam!!!!
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