The Utah Jazz aired games locally on the same regional cable channel for more than 30 years, until AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain—as it was known in its final iteration—announced last October it was laying off its employees and shutting down. In search of a new broadcast partner, the NBA’s 23rd most valuable team became one of the earliest adopters of a trend that’s sweeping the sports media world: “stream and beam.”
Any over-the-air broadcast television station, like Sinclair’s channel 14 KJZZ, could produce and “beam” the team’s games to anyone in the Salt Lake City market with a pair of rabbit ears antennae. But streaming was a trickier proposition. Like many NBA teams whose cable deals crumbled, the Jazz suddenly controlled its own digital rights and had to figure out how to launch a direct-to-consumer streaming service in a matter of weeks.
“We needed experts in the business,” says Jazz president Jim Olson. “And as fast as we needed to move, we weren't prepared to try to do the whole thing all on our own.”
Enter Kiswe, one of several streaming tech providers positioning itself as a key player in the evolution of the multibillion-dollar local sports media landscape. The New Jersey-based company helped design and launch Jazz before the start of last season, fully customized with alternative language broadcasts, data tracking and compatibility across two dozen connected devices.
Similar opportunities exist with dozens of teams across the NBA, NHL and MLB. By NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s own admission in September, 18 of his league’s regional sports networks are either defunct or in bankruptcy. And while tech giants like Apple and Amazon could fill that void, they have so far chosen to remain on the sidelines. That leaves several smaller tech companies, including Viewlift, Deltatre, Endeavor Streaming and APMC, all racing to sign up as many teams as possible in a red-hot, competitive marketplace.
“What we're really sort of obsessed by is growing,” says cofounder Wim Sweldens, the “swe” in Kiswe. (The “Ki” is named for his partner, former Bell Labs president Jeong Kim.) “We see so much opportunity in different teams, different leagues, different countries, different verticals.”
That’s not to say these streaming products are an instant gold mine. In its first year, Jazz has had 21,159 subscribers, according to the team. Accounting for some who subscribe annually (for $125.50),........