NHL authorises match clip sharing via Sling

Stephen Withers
Friday, 08 June 2007 08:42

Your IT - Home IT

The National Hockey League and Sling Media have reached an agreement permitting the use of clips from NHL broadcasts with the Clip+Sling feature coming to the Slingbox.

Slingbox sends TV content via the Internet to SlingPlayer software running on PCs, Macs or mobile devices. Various models connect to cable outlets, set-top boxes and home theatre equipment. Clip+Sling, currently in beta, was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. It allows SlingPlayer users to record portions of content and then share those clips with the rest of the world.  This sounds rather like YouTube, but without having to manually digitise, encode and upload the clips.

At the time, Blake Krikorian, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Sling Media said "Clip+Sling makes it extremely easy for Slingbox customers to share that priceless moment, and at the same time helps networks and content owners build communities around their content. We look forward to delivering tremendous value for both groups."

Jason Hirschhorn, president of Sling Media's entertainment group has obviously been listening to his boss before announcing the NHL deal. "Clip+Sling makes it extremely easy for fans to share a priceless moment with others, dramatically changing the way consumers socialize around TV," he said. "In addition, it enables content creators to build new communities as well as new revenue and marketing opportunities around their content."

The NHL sounds gung-ho about the arrangement. "Having the most tech-savvy fans of all major professional sports, who also tend to be early adopters of new technology, makes offering NHL content through Clip+Sling a natural fit," said Keith Ritter, president of NHL Interactive CyberEnterprises. "This partnership expands the visibility of our NHL games online and we are excited and proud to be the first sports league to offer this service to our fans."

"[W]e are incredibly proud to have [the NHL] as our first sports league partner," added Hirschhorn.

NHL clips posted to Sling Media's forthcoming "video destination site" will be searchable, categorised as NHL and according to the clubs involved.

According to a recent Cnet report, Major League Baseball is taking a different tack, asserting that merely using a Slingbox to watch MLB matches is illegal. The report quotes Krikorian as saying it was "a ridiculous statement" to say the Slingbox is illegal and that Sling Media has "very strong" relationships with the professional sports leagues.