Yes Network App's new functionality raises bar for sports viewing

Recently published by Sportico on 11th of July 2022, the article below describes an incredible successful journey for the YES Network and the Yankees. The RSN reports daily user registrations up 45% year-over-year in the season so far, total number of hours viewed in the app is up 83%, unique viewership per game has climbed 33%, and the time spent per unique viewer has increased by 10%.

The YES Network case study is also available here on our site, which takes you more in depth into the key features of the project.

Sportico writes:

YES Network has introduced several new features and content elements to the YES app over the past year as well, working to make the mobile application into an everyday digital destination for New York sports fans.

And this new in-game, single-screen, watch-and-play experience—including overlays of live stats and watch-party functionality—is delivering the results desired. RSN reports daily user registrations are up 45% year-over-year in the season so far; The total number of hours viewed on the app is up 83%; Unique viewership per game has climbed 33%; And the time spent per unique viewer has increased by 10%.

The media executive was unwilling to call Yes’s approach to streaming the blueprint all sports broadcast networks should follow, as it is constantly changing. But Duarte said there are core principles of the Yes app experience that are likely to be repeated in the coming years.

Take JWS: The Yankees have the best record in baseball this season, so it’s fair to assume that the team’s success has been a factor in growth metrics. But Duarte firmly believes that increased adoption and engagement is a byproduct of the different ways you can watch games with the Yes app. (FWIW, I recently caught a game with Duarte on the Yes Network app and wondered how I ever watched a game without the live stats overlay and watch-party functionality.)

YES reached a streaming crossroads in 2020, when RSN’s deal with Fox Sports Go ended. This required deciding between using Bally’s certified streaming platform (remember, this was before Bally Sports+) or building your own white-label mobile application. Yes eventually chose the latter.

“We just realized that our brands, our markets, particularly the Yankees fan base, deserve their own entity,” Duarte said. ,[One] Which had the ability to create best-in-class features and introduce new elements.”

By building its own app, Yes will also be able to ensure that it has ownership of the relationships and data associated with the mobile audience. “We thought it was important [have] More data and deeper data to inform our personal decisions [regarding the product and experience],” Duarte said. It has no plans to package and sell any of the data it collects.

The YES app remains certified, which means it does not generate a standalone subscription fee. The RSN converts the additional time the audience spends on the platform through advertising units into revenue. “If someone is watching more time with us, more minutes per game, we’re giving them more advertising with regards to pre-rolls and even more during the game,” Duarte said. “We also have ad units throughout the app.” Increased viewership and engagement lead to higher unit prices.

The newly introduced broadcast elements also form the new sponsorship list for RSN. The YES advertising sales team has sold sponsorships of the Live State Overlay package to T-Mobile for the first third of the season and to Molson-Coors for the second half of the season.

YES has systematically introduced a trio of elements over the past year. First was the Live Stats package (powered by Easy Live).

The number of Live Stats impressions per game (ie, how often users launch the Live Stats overlay) has increased by 62% since the feature was added last June.

In October, Yes launched the watch-party feature (powered by Scenic), which enables fans to participate in a live video chat with up to three friends as an overlay of a live broadcast. Three-user watch parties maintain an average session duration of over 30 minutes. “People want to be seen together,” Duarte said. “It’s always been an aspect of the game, and it provides [fans with] A digital way of doing it.

Stats overlays and watch parties have been done before (granted, most traditional sports broadcasters only focus on streaming linear networks). The same cannot be said of the Yes Pick-n-Play Live functionality. Back in May, RSN became the first broadcast network – on a regional or national level – to allow viewers to make live predictions around in-game events. Powers the SimpleBet offering. “There is no other entity [providing a] Single screen experience where you can watch and [simultaneously] Play a free-to-play game,” Duarte said.

It should be noted that Tapp made single-screen, real-money sports betting a reality for the first time in the US during the final weekend of Major League Rugby’s 2022 season in late June.

Fan response to the interactive game has been remarkable.

“Since launch, the average pick-n-play live average users per game has increased by 13% month-on-month and their retention rate was 40% after 14 days (ie, 40% of users averaged again after 14 days). The time spent per unique Yankees game streamer has also increased by 7.3% month-on-month since the launch of PnP Live. Additionally, per user per Yankees game The number of works done is over 40, which translates to between 4 and 5 per innings, which we think is a very meaningful engagement,” Duarte said.

Yes plans to introduce more markets and more opportunities to move forward on different parts of the game. ,[The game presents YES with] new sponsorship opportunities, but the ability to generate and analyze incremental data on user engagement habits that will be very valuable in any future revenue generating opportunities that we choose to pursue with our sports betting partners, Duarte said.

SimpleBet was fueled by the power of a single screen experience. “We didn’t know how thin the market was, [which is necessary due to latency issues], will translate,” said Chris Bevilacqua, co-founder and CEO of SimpleBet. “But even with the limitations, we made an average of over 40 predictions per user per game. If you had that kind of volume in real money betting, it would be astronomical, it would be off the charts.

Of course, not every fan who watches the game on the Yes Network app wants to participate in the free micro-wiring game. The customizable nature of the app allows fans to personalize the viewing experience to their liking. All of the features and functionality included are designed to be part of a linear transmission of RSN.

Source: Sportico

Also see our YES Network case study