Hoop League Goes Streaming

(CableWorld) Thirty years ago, the American Basketball Association brought hoop fans a red, white and blue ball and such innovative players as Julius "Dr. J" Erving and George "The Ice Man" Gervin.

The current version of the ABA has the same tri-colored ball, Ice as a coach, and innovations of its own — especially in terms of distribution.

Feb. 2, the fledgling eight-team league, which tipped off its inaugural season in December, claims it will become the first professional sports circuit to stream a live game in its entirety over the Internet.

Working with C2B Ventures, a San Francisco-based video service provider, the ABA will stream the Feb. 2 contest between the Los Angeles Stars and Memphis Houn’Dawgs.

Users clicking onto www.ABA.2000 .com will be able to view a pregame show at 7:20 p.m. (PT) and game action 10 minutes later.

NFL, MLB and NBA, among other pro circuits, offer streamed video highlights. However, broader streaming initiatives by major sports leagues and the Olympics have been constrained by the large rights fees paid by television networks, whose ratings could be hampered by Webcasts.

That’s not something the nascent ABA2000 has to worry about, as the Webcast will mark its first televised action.

"From the inception of the ABA, we wanted to make the Internet a fundamental component," says Steve Chase, GM of the Los Angeles Stars. "For now, our plans call for Webcasting the remaining Stars home schedule. With the Stars’ success in this promotional push, we expect this to result in league-wide Internet broadcasting."

The ABA2000 season extends into May. Franchises are also located in Chicago, Kansas City, Indiana, San Diego, Tampa Bay and Detroit.

C2B Ventures chairman/ CEO Tom Spengler says viewers with DSL, cable modem, broadband and other ISPN connections with speeds of 100K or 300K will be able to view the games, while those with lower-speed dial-up modems will only be able to hear audio play-by-play coverage.

The broadcast, paid for by the Stars, will be produced at The Great Western Forum, with the images encoded on-site. In turn, the video will be delivered to C2B Ventures headquarters to facilitate downloading capacity.

"Otherwise, only about three people would be able to see the game at the same time," jokes Spengler, noting that the Stars are paying his company for bandwidth usage and storage.

The ABA hopes the Web casts will promote its more uptempo, higher scoring brand of ball than the NBA.