Before looking at why pro sports should embrace athletes taking up Twitter, it’s worth recalling some of the downsides. Last night’s NFL game provided a good example. As critics grow louder about the league’s decision not to settle a strike by its referees, the NFL’s own players just provided those critics with further ammunition. Here’s what New England Patriots linebacker Brandon Spikes had to say about the replacement refs:

Can someone please tell these fucking zebras foot locker called and they’re needed Back at work !!!! #BreakingPoint

— brandon spikes (@BrandonSpikes55) September 24, 2012

Spikes is hardly the first athlete, of course, to make colorful use of Twitter. In London this summer, competitors from Greece and Switzerland were sent home from the Olympic for sending out racist tweets. And then there was this infamous tweet (since deleted) issued by Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashad Mendenhall after the killing on Bin Laden:

Given these obvious headaches, why actively encourage players to tweet? According to Mike DiLorenzo, former social media director for the NHL, the marketing boost from Twitter is worth it — even if some general managers and league PR people regard Twitter as a nuisance.

“It shortens the distance between the fan and the game,” said DiLorenzo in a phone interview. “20 NHL players [on Twitter] equals 20 of the highest profile brand advocates you can have.” To address misconduct, he notes that player behavior is already covered by public decorum clauses in contracts and that agents have an incentive to keep an eye on players’ social media activity.

A former NBA executive, who did not want to be named, likewise believes that teams should encourage players to use Twitter.

“It creates an amazing opportunity for the athlete to build a fan base, making them exponentially more marketable, and has a tremendous rub-off effect for their respect teams and leagues,” he said in an email statement.

The NBA executive added that more players on Twitter will mean more gaffes but that a younger generation is already showing more sophistication with their Twitter accounts.

“Unlike the athletes who took to these platforms two or three years ago, they are growing up with these technologies and they understand that their tweets could end up on SportsCenter faster than a post-game comment. Like any young person entering the workforce today, they are keenly aware of the impact their digital footprint can have on their ability to market themselves.”

Acceptance of Twitter is also likely to grow as more general managers come to use the micro-blog themselves. DiLorenzo said executives like Brian Burke of the Toronto Maple Leafs have come to recognize Twitter as a way to take a message directly to the fans without a media filter.

And for the fans, Twitter feeds can provide a welcome respite from tedious on-air interviews that make the players seem like dull, one-dimensional dimwits.

(Image by Julien Tromeur via Shutterstock)

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But in the context of a live event airing during prime time, it’s not shabby. And with broadcast records being set during the Miami Heat-Oklahoma City Thunder finals, fueled by the LeBron James storyline and last year’s Heat stroke, the additional online accessibility didn’t hurt the NBA or ABC/ESPN. (Starting Monday, we’ll see what it does for ESPN’s wall-to-wall coverage of Wimbledon.)

ESPN released some internal Adobe and Omniture data about how digital worked across its platforms during the five games and on game days. A few highlights:

WatchESPN/ESPN3/Xbox: The finals aired on ad-supported ABC but also were streamed live by ESPN through its broadband network ESPN3, the WatchESPN app and Xbox Live Gold. ESPN estimates an average 122,251 viewers watched per minute, while the five games averaged 330,000 unique viewers and 17 million minutes. Unlike college basketball’s March Madness, where online viewership starts high on weekdays and shifts down as fans can watch from home, the prime-time NBA finals started with nearly 299,000 unique viewers for Game 1 and escalated. The highest number released by ESPN was 347,000 for Game 4. Finals viewing also increased substantially over the earlier play-off games; according to ESPN, Game 1 uniques and minutes streamed were up 40 percent and 49 percent respectively over the 2012 post-season average until then.

ESPN PR wouldn’t provide more detail, including which kinds of devices were used the most

ESPN3 and WatchESPN, which includes access to the broadband network plus linear streaming of ESPN and ESPN2, are available only to those subscribers whose pay TV providers and/or ISPs have authentication deals with ESPN. (For instance, I get ESPN3 as a Charter high-speed-data subscriber so can watch on PCs but do not have access to WatchESPN via my video providers Charter or DirecTV so can’t watch on mobile devices.) Yes, it’s Byzantine. The decision to include ESPN3 in the branding for WatchESPN — sending users to WatchESPN.com — only makes it more confusing.

Any comparisons to last year’s live viewing would be meaningless, skewed by Comcast, the largest U.S. cable provider, adding WatchESPN in the interim. Xfinity doubled the potential WatchESPN viewership to 40 million households when it added the service last month.

Mobile: Excluding live video, ESPN is gauging mobile usage (at least externally) by how people used mobile browsers and the ESPN ScoreCenter app. The network says the NBA mobile browser page averaged 1.5 million daily uniques on game days, up 24 percent over 2011. The NBA “card” in ScoreCenter averaged 984,000 daily users, nearly tripling from 336,000 last year.

The web: This is where you can really see the growth opportunities for ESPN are in mobile and video. Again excluding live video, ESPN.com’s NBA section averaged more than 1.7 million daily uniques, up 9 percent over last year. It’s an increase and nothing to sneer at but single-digit upticks almost seem flat these days. The average amount of overall game-day time spent in that section, 15 million total minutes, went up 12 percent.

At least ESPN provides some data

ESPN doesn’t want to release a more detailed account but they get credit for offering some specifics. Too often, the leagues or associations and the networks try to fake us out by offering only percentages of growth with no foundation. Take the USGA, which really, really wanted to brag about last weekend’s U.S. Open Championship tech gains but only offered percentages like “fan viewership of live streaming video increased 210 percent over 2011″ and “the USGA recorded a 44 percent increase in iPhone app downloads.”

When I asked USGA PR for more detail, I included an example from ESPN. I’m still waiting for a reply — but I’m not holding my breath.

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Led by the innovation of MLB.tv, which gave fans of out-of-market teams access to all their games for the first time ever, leagues like the NBA and NHL have launched their own streaming websites and applications. For the big sports leagues, those apps drive incremental subscription revenues to go along with their usual ticket sales and TV rights.

But for a league like the WNBA, which doesn’t have the same type of exposure, making its games available for free is one way to reach existing fans who might not be able to watch their favorite teams and players on TV. It’s also a great promotional tool for potentially reaching new fans. The latest effort on this front is the WNBA Center Court app for Apple’s iPad. The app, which was released last month, provides news, statistics, game highlights, photos — and, most importantly, streaming video from the league’s games.

The app was enabled through NeuLion, which handles streaming services for the WNBA, NBA D-League (development league), NBA International and the NHL. Marc Sokol, EVP of NeuLion, told us in a phone interview that the WNBA was looking at things like the iPad app and social media accounts as easy ways to promote the brand and get people excited about the sport. According to Sokol, the WNBA will stream more than 200 regular season games and 23 playoff games through the app.

While the WNBA’s iPad app has the full backing and support of the NBA, it could still be an example for other smaller sports leagues. Building live streaming sites and applications could be one way for lower-profile sports to reach huge audiences, even without major TV contracts.

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According to Turner Broadcasting, which manages NBA.com and all other digital distribution points for the league, the postseason visitors to NBA sites grew to 401 million, which is an increase of 11 percent over last year. But the number of videos watched increased even more, with viewers tuning into 141 million streams over the course of the NBA playoffs, up 89 percent.

That capped off a record year for visitors and online video views for the league in general. Over the season and postseason, NBA.com had more than 8 billion page views, which was an increase of more than 33 percent. Meanwhile, the league reported more than 2.7 billion video streams during the year, which was an increase of more than 133 percent.

In addition to NBA.com, the league has made its videos available through applications on a number of mobile and connected TV platforms. The NBA GameTime app is available on the iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, and Android mobile devices, as well as connected devices such as Apple TV, Google TV, Roku, Vizio, LG, Panasonic and Samsung. The league reported that it saw a 90-percent increase in the number of app downloads across all platforms versus last year.

Despite the growth in video streams and availability of online content, the number of viewers who tuned in to watch the games doesn’t appear to have been affected. In fact, the 2011 playoffs on TNT were the highest-rated in cable history. Meanwhile, the 15.0 overnight Nielsen rating that game six of the finals got was 22 percent higher than the deciding game in last year’s Lakers-Celtics matchup.

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Rumors of a live subscription service that could compete with traditional pay TV offerings have been swirling since even before the latest iteration of the Apple TV became available last fall. Apple was reportedly pitching TV programmers on launching a broadband-only video subscription service that would include live feeds from broadcast TV networks for a price of about $30 a month. At that price, Apple would be able to undercut most existing cable packages and offer a true cord-cutting alternative to the major cable and IPTV operators.

Those talks apparently went nowhere, with the big broadcasters and cable networks sticking to their traditional distribution partners instead. And when the new Apple TV launched, it only had access to on-demand video services, including Netflix, YouTube and Apple’s own iTunes movie and TV rental service. But all of that has changed now, as the latest Apple TV software update includes code that will allow content partners to stream live videos direct to the device.

There’s certainly an opportunity for content providers to tap into Apple TV’s live capabilities. For instance, independent cable network Wealth TV recently launched an app for Roku that will let its users subscribe to the networks without cable. And Al-Jazeera English, which lacks distribution through U.S. cable networks, has gotten a big boost from streaming live online and through Roku’s set-top box.

Granted, Apple TV isn’t an open ecosystem in the same way that the iPhone and iPad are — at least not yet. Not just any third-party developer can build apps for the device. At the same time, live video opens up interesting possibilities for Apple TV, whether it be through the creation of a bundle of TV channels or by enabling TV networks to partner with Apple and create their own live streaming services.

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We took a first look at the new sports apps available on the Apple TV for this special episode of Cord Cutters:

I’m a Phillies fan and subscriber to MLB.tv, so I was curious to see how the service looks on the Apple TV. Unfortunately, it’s still spring training, so the number of games that are available for streaming are relatively limited. Also, the games aren’t being streamed in HD yet, but MLB says that should be corrected once the MLB season officially starts. While the MLB app is a nice feature right now, after Opening Day it could be a must-have for cord-cutting baseball fans, or even those that live outside the home area of their favorite team.

I also have access to NBA League Pass Broadband — provided to us free by Turner so we could test out the service — so we took a look at that as well. The verdict? Games streamed on Apple TV look really good. While the quality isn’t quite “true” HD, on a big screen TV, the NBA streams will look nearly as good as those displayed through your local sports network’s standard definition stream.

Altogether, the new apps available through Apple TV are great news for sports fans who don’t pay for cable, and great news for people who don’t live in the home market of their favorite baseball or basketball team. Unfortunately for those who live in their favorite team’s home market, games won’t be available due to local blackout restrictions. But for the rest of us, MLB.tv and NBA League Pass are great ways to watch all the games, now on TV.

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MLB.tv will allow subscribers to watch live spring training and regular season games on your Apple TV in HD (720p, which is the max the Apple TV supports) for $99.99 per year. You can also watch archived games, and check out home and away broadcasts if you’re a premium level subscriber ($119.99/year). You can quickly jump to run-scoring plays or specific players’ at-bats.

With NBA League Pass, you’ll get every regular season game live and archived (but only up to 24 hours afterwards for standard subscribers). You’ll also get access to scores and stats. Video access starts at $64.95 for limited access (seven teams’ games) or $99.95 for access to all NBA games.

This is terrific news for those looking to cut the cord but afraid they’ll miss out on live sports broadcasts in the process. Now they can watch all the baseball and basketball they can take from their Apple TV, either live or on a schedule of their choosing. The only downside is that, for MLB games at least, local blackouts still take effect, so you’ll likely be limited to out-of-market games for the most part.

The absence of live sports broadcasts from many cord cutting options definitely goes a long way toward keeping demand for cable subscriptions strong. I think this latest play from Apple could definitely help turn the tide in its favor.

For non-sports fans, the update also brings Dolby 5.1 surround sound support for Netflix streaming content (much appreciated by this user), and other minor UI changes and feature additions including a new on-screen keyboard.

Check out the video for our first look at the new MLB and NBA apps on Apple TV:

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For many, live sports is one piece of programming that viewers are least likely to want to do without. Luckily for them, almost all the major sports leagues have been pretty aggressive in rolling out online access to their games. The MLB, NBA and NHL all have broadband services for viewing live and on-demand games, and all have moved to make those matches available across a wide range of connected devices.

Spring training games are right around the corner, and MLB is the poster child for making its games viewable online, with all matchups available on PCs, as well as Internet-connected TVs from Samsung and LG, Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles, Roku and Boxee Box set-top boxes, and the iPhone, iPad and Android mobile devices. Meanwhile, the NBA and NHL have initiated price cuts for their services now that they are halfway through their seasons.

Are you a big sports fan? If so, check out the video below, and let us know in the comments how you get your sports fix without cable.

Previous episodes of Cord Cutters:

Ep. 01: Cord Cutters: NewTeeVee’s First Web Series!

Ep. 02: Is the Xbox 360 a Good Cord-Cutting Device?

Ep. 03: Logitech Revue: Not Cutting It For Cord Cutters

Ep. 04: Wanna Try Cord Cutting? Buy A $12 Antenna

Ep. 05: Cord Cutters: NewTeeVee Live Edition, Cord-Cutting Activism

Ep. 06: Cord Cutters: Is The Boxee Box the Solution for You?

Ep. 07: Cord Cutters: The Gift Guide for Cable-Free Holidays

Ep. 08: Cord Cutters: Is Hulu Plus Enough to Replace Cable?

Ep. 09: Cord Cutters: Turn Your PC Into a Media Center

Ep. 10: Cord Cutters: Can You Entertain Your Kids Sans Cable?

Ep. 11: Cord Cutters Confessions: Why We Canceled Cable

Ep. 12: Cord Cutters: The WD TV Live Plus

Ep. 13: Cord Cutters: How to Optimize Your Netflix Streaming

Ep. 14: Cord Cutters: 3 Boxee Box Tips and Tricks

Ep. 15: Cord Cutters: The iFanboy Edition

Ep. 16: Cord Cutters: 3 Roku Tips & Tricks

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Unfortunately for many avid sports fans, there is no ESPN for online video, no single answer for where you can watch all of the major sports leagues in one place. However, there are ways that you can catch most live sporting events online, if you put a little bit of effort into it. Below we’ve put together a list of all the sites and services you can use for watching MLB, NBA, NHL and even NFL games without having a cable connection.

Just one caveat: with the exception of the NFL, which has national video rights, most sports teams and leagues depend on local cable rights, which supersede online video distribution. Since sports teams get a good portion of their revenues from selling rights to local cable and broadcast stations, most have clauses that say nationally broadcast games will be blacked out in that local market — and the same goes for online distribution. So if you’re a Yankees fan trying to stream their games from home in the Bronx, you’re generally out of luck with online services.

Using a Digital Antenna

Before getting into the online avenues for sports content, however, it’s probably worth noting that the easiest way to get a lot of live games, particularly around playoff time, is by purchasing a digital antenna. That will give most users access to live over-the-air programming from ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, giving them the ability to watch the majority of live NFL games, for instance, without having to pay for an online service.

Major League Baseball

Over the last several years, MLB has worked hard to create one of the premier live sports destinations online. MLB.tv has led the way for live streaming online, giving baseball fans the ability to watch all out-of-market games for $20 a month or $100 for the full season. But not only has MLB enabled viewers to tune in to live games on their PCs, it has extended viewing to mobile apps on the iPhone and iPad, and even onto TVs with apps on Roku broadband set-top boxes and PlayStation 3 game consoles. For the playoffs, MLB even makes live video feeds of all the games available on Postseason.tv, priced at just $9.99 for all games from the Division Series to the World Series.

National Football League

If live sports is the killer app for TV, the one thing that many viewers decide they can’t live without, and a reason not to cut the cord, then watching the NFL games online is the most frustrating task to accomplish. This is due to some very lucrative national broadcast rights, which give exclusivity to a few distributors and keep games from being streamed online. That means that while MLB, the NBA and the NHL are courting their fans online, the NFL is trying to keep its fans from being able to watch games online.

But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel: NBC acquired multiplatform rights through its Sunday Night Football deal, and over the past few years has streamed those games live online. (Surprisingly enough, those streams haven’t hurt NBC’s viewership, as Sunday Night Football has led in the Sunday ratings all season long.) And DirecTV, which has exclusive rights from the NFL to show all the games through its NFL Sunday Ticket offering, is now making live streams of all those games available online, so long as users are willing to pony up $350 for the season to watch games on their PCs, iPhone, iPad or Palm Pre, as well as select Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices.

National Basketball League

The NBA has a streaming product of its own, called NBA League Pass Broadband, which lets users watch games from around the league online or on select mobile and connected devices. League Pass Broadband has two flavors: one that costs $120 for the season and allows users to pick up to seven NBA teams they want to follow, and another plan for $190 that gives them access to all games from all 30 teams. The NBA, like Major League Baseball, also makes its video accessible over a wide range of mobile devices, and is working to get apps on connected devices like TVs and Blu-ray players. While NBA Digital has in previous years rolled out hundreds of mobile apps for iOS, Android and Blackberry mobile phones, it’s simplified things this year with a single, free app for each platform that lets fans buy additional features once it has been downloaded.

National Hockey League

The NHL has been working hard to rebuild its fan base after a lockout during the 2004/2005 season left fans without any hockey for a whole year. It also hurt viewership, since the league ended up striking a deal with cable network Versus, which isn’t as widely distributed (or as loved by sports fans) as ESPN, which previously had the NHL deal. Nevertheless, lack of widespread hockey coverage is no longer a problem, since the league has now launched its own streaming service, called NHL GameCenter Live. The service, which lets hockey fans watch up to 40 out-of-market games a week, costs $170 for the season, and also gives users access to streaming video on devices like the iPad, the PS3, Roku set-top boxes and the Boxee Box by D-Link.

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Perez is leveraging some of what NBA learned during the last playoffs, which were distributed on Roku and Vizio. Now, after launching with Google TV, the NBA plans to add support for Samsung’s TV platform in the coming weeks. It’s part of a larger plan to meet NBA fans wherever they are, said Perez. “If we’re going to address our fan base and continue to grow it, we need to follow them as they adopt these new technologies. It’s incumbent on us to develop simultaneously for multiple platforms,” he said.
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That’s not to say that the NBA won’t be looking for help with its plan, which Perez said presents, “a tremendous development challenge.” The NBA is trying to leverage previous work on mobile apps as it did with the Google TV app. And it’s hoping for more support from manufacturers instead of just walking away with an SDK. Ultimately, Perez said he hopes manufacturers agree on more open standards and common development platforms.

The NBA recognizes that it needs to be on multiple screens to satisfy its users. This year, it added Three-Point Play, which provides League Pass users on certain cable and satellite networks to receive games on TV, online and now mobile devices.