Sunday, November 16, 2008

Universal Sports

Well, I'm watching another live webcast of ice speed skating now.  I am really impressed with the live webcasts that Universal Sports offers...  

First, they archive almost all of their events.  They usually have an archive of the entire event as well as archives of various highlights from the event.  (Ouch!  One of the skaters just crashed!  I hope that he is ok!).  They also usually post the archived events pretty soon after the event has ended.  

Second, the webcasts have a very high production quality.  They provide great commentary and graphics with scores, and different camera angles - it is clear that they put a lot of effort into the broadcast.  True, they do also have a tv channel where they show a lot of the broadcasts, but still, a lot of sports events on other tv channels are not shown live online. Also, on the Universal Sports website, they are able to show more than one live event at a time, even though they can only show one at a time on their television channel.  

Third, the website is very easy to navigate.  They make it clear exactly what events are coming up, when the event will take place, and where to click to watch the webcast.  It is surprising how difficult it can be to find detailed information like that on other sites.  Sometimes a website lists that they will have a live event coming up soon, but it is unclear how to navigate to the actual webcast or sometimes even what time the webcast will begin! 

Well, I guess that I should go now since the event just ended!

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