NWHL signs a three-year deal with Twitch to broadcast all games for free

[LeHab]

One month before the official opening of its fifth season, the NWHL has announced a landmark partnership with Twitch that will see the platform become the exclusive live-streaming home of the women’s professional league.
The three-year deal, which was made official Thursday, is historic in that it will provide the league incredible visibility – Twitch has more than 15 million users – but is also groundbreaking as it’s the first broadcasting deal the league has struck that will see the NWHL receive a broadcasting rights fee. As part of the league agreement with the NWHL Players’ Association, the revenue generated from the partnership will be split down the middle and shared with the players. Financial terms were not disclosed.

....
In addition to the games, the league stated that Twitch will also be used to engage with fans. Broadcasts on the platform generally feature live chats, and the NWHL suggested players, broadcasters and “other NWHL influencers” will participate at times alongside fans watching on their devices.

NWHL signs three-year streaming deal with Twitch, receives broadcasting rights fee - TheHockeyNews

Target a younger audience, experiment with a new fan engagement approach and get broadcasting fees. Good news for the league.

Q&A with league commissionaire -> Q&A with NWHL Commissioner Dani Rylan

Found also NWHL official statement -> Twitch Named Exclusive Live Streaming Partner of the NWHL

Click to read more...

 

[mouser]

I think that’s a great move by the NWHL, the question i didn’t see a answer to is which parties are covering production costs for the games?

 

[LeHab]

I think that’s a great move by the NWHL, the question i didn’t see a answer to is which parties are covering production costs for the games?

Financial details were not released so anything would be pure speculation. Would be interesting to know how much these broadcasting rights were. I would expect some contingencies based on lack of proven track record so it may not be a flat fee. Maybe with time we will learn more.

I hope there wont be blackouts so that locals can discover the sport/teams and ultimately attend. Even if there is somehow of a risk current fans may chose comfort of their couch instead of attending.

 

[mouser]

Financial details were not released so anything would be pure speculation. Would be interesting to know how much these broadcasting rights were. I would expect some contingencies based on lack of proven track record so it may not be a flat fee. Maybe with time we will learn more.

I hope there wont be blackouts so that locals can discover the sport/teams and ultimately attend. Even if there is somehow of a risk current fans may chose comfort of their couch instead of attending.

I don't know if you're familiar with how Twitch's business model works? Twitch.tv Business Model | How Does Twitch Make Money? | Feedough

Twitch makes money a few ways, from an individual channel/partnership that money usually comes in the form of a % of advertisement revenue and subscription. Twitch encourages viewers to subscribe to a channel for $5/month, of which Twitch usually takes $2-$2.50, and the broadcast partner gets $2.50-$3. A Twitch partnership for the NWHL could be as simple as Twitch providing favorable % cuts of adverts & subscriptions to the NWHL, but minimal or no broadcast rights fees or production costs.

 

[LeHab]

I don't know if you're familiar with how Twitch's business model works? Twitch.tv Business Model | How Does Twitch Make Money? | Feedough

Twitch makes money a few ways, from an individual channel/partnership that money usually comes in the form of a % of advertisement revenue and subscription. Twitch encourages viewers to subscribe to a channel for $5/month, of which Twitch usually takes $2-$2.50, and the broadcast partner gets $2.50-$3. A Twitch partnership for the NWHL could be as simple as Twitch providing favorable % cuts of adverts & subscriptions to the NWHL, but minimal or no broadcast rights fees or production costs.

Yeah I know they have various revenue streams. Amazon is speculated to be paying a flat $130M over two years to stream via Twitch a few NFL TNF games per season. How NWHL deal is structured would be anyone guess.

 

[GindyDraws]

Now we can watch the Whale lose on a more national platform.

 

[tony d]

Interesting, free too which could attract some people to the game. I wish them well.

 

[MBH]

What are the demos for this league?
For Twitch?
Does Twitch think this will attract a new demo to their platform?
Is this a trial run for something bigger?

 

[LeHab]

What are the demos for this league?
For Twitch?
Does Twitch think this will attract a new demo to their platform?
Is this a trial run for something bigger?

Here is another interview with the commissionaire on this deal.

NWHL commissioner Dani Rylan on the Twitch deal, interactivity and making fun 'contagious' - TheHockeyNews

As for demographics Twitch is mostly male (+80%) and young. Have no clue what NWHL demographic is.

 

[Seedtype]

Hmm, I do think there's a decent hockey community on twitch. I actually would love to see some NHL games on there. Watching a game with chat can be quite entertaining.

I'm concerned there will be a lot of trolling because this will be woman's hockey though.

 

[MBH]

Won't it be like 8chan commentary during women's hockey?
No thanks

 

[USAUSA1]

This deal is more about availability than money. I still dont understand why the nhl network didn't help them out since you will find the target audience watching the network. Who really going to log into twitch to watch the games?

 

[LeHab]

Hmm, I do think there's a decent hockey community on twitch. I actually would love to see some NHL games on there. Watching a game with chat can be quite entertaining.

I'm concerned there will be a lot of trolling because this will be woman's hockey though.

Don't know how Twitch handles NFL games but YT for MLB games restricts posting to a few preaproved participants. Opening floodgates for female hockey might not be the best approach indeed.

 

[JerseyMike34]

This is just the start, IMO, Twitch will be what Satellite Radio wanted to be. It has the potential to change the way we view everything.

I can think of so many opportunities that Twitch or Mixer or anyone else that wants to get into the scene, can make a lot of money.

This is the bigger picture, that is until all the dinosaurs running the national TV networks realize this, and then buy up these smaller streaming communities and turn them on their side. The thing Twitch has that no one seems to understand is the user base.

Although I don't know about hockey content on the site, I don't think they can limit chat like Youtube does, they can have a few Mods in there and ban/block the idiots, but the appeal will be to chat with the handful of people that are watching at first.

I don't know if it would be too production heavy, but this is a great chance for people in the industry that aren't getting a fair look, to get themselves on a platform and hopefully excel.

 

[GindyDraws]

Won't it be like 8chan commentary during women's hockey?
No thanks

I'd probably disable the chat function. They are going to get plenty of people making "woman, dey belong in the kitchen!" nonsense. The WNBA announcement for NBA 2K20 got plenty of those.

 

[XX]

Won't it be like 8chan commentary during women's hockey?
No thanks

That's what moderators are for.

 

[LeHab]

First month viewership data:

NWHL on Twitch Viewed by 949,065 Fans in October

NWHL releases Twitch viewership data

 

[Rigafan]

First month viewership data:

NWHL on Twitch Viewed by 949,065 Fans in October

NWHL releases Twitch viewership data

Much higher than I'd though it would be.

Buffalo game with the highest at just over 145k viewers seems pretty impressive even compared to some NHL games on network TV

 

[epo]

Why do none of the videos have more than 1k views? I can't even find the Buffalo Boston game.

 

[Chubbinz]

Why do none of the videos have more than 1k views? I can't even find the Buffalo Boston game.

Because Twitch doesn't show the amount of live views on the replay. The views that you see on the past broadcasts are the people that clicked on it after the fact. Another thing to keep in mind with the live view numbers. That can be someone who clicked on it for 5 seconds it doesn't necessarily mean people watching all at one time.


I watched a past broadcast of the Beaut and Whale. For my first exposure to the league it wasn't half bad. I thought the production was alright for what must be a shoestring budget. The interaction between the broadcasters and chat was good and I liked how they took a question or two from chat to ask the player being interviewed between periods. I was fearing trolling in the chat but it seemed positive and supportive for both teams. Although there is a caveat with that as I am about 95% sure twitch omits <message deleted> on the replays which you would see live and indicate either anti-spam or a moderator action. So it is possible chat was worse than what I saw on the replay. My only real gripe was there was too much dead air during intermission, the lady that did the player interviews should have picked up on the chat interaction while the broadcasters were taking a break. All in all I liked it and I will watch more games in the future.