STREAMING THE TORONTO MAPLE Leafs online seems like a no-brainer. The team seems to have an insatiable, unlimited fan base.
But, there is much to consider when turning a sports team to the web, especially one that is limited to its own region. Just like LeafsTV is limited to Ontario (except Ottawa), so must any games carried on line be limited to viewing in the same geographic area.
Plus, the web experience can’t be just a rebroadcast of the televised game, otherwise, what’s the point, asks Chris Hebb, Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment’s senior vice-president of broadcast.
Hebb oversees the company’s broadcast and media assets including Leafs TV and Raptors NBA TV, broadcast rights, distribution and live game production. Hebb came to Toronto last summer after an 11 year career with Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment in Vancouver where he led the company’s broadcast and new media division for the Vancouver Canucks and the Vancouver Grizzlies. He has also worked for CanWest and BCTV.
While we’re certain Hebb would rather see the Leafs in the playoffs, he’s now getting ready for next broadcast season and the new bells and whistles to be available online for “Canada’s Team.” Look for more broadband and mobile features for the company’s basketball team, The Toronto Raptors, too. 
Hebb (pictured) chatted with Cartt.ca editor and publisher just prior to the season’s end. What follows is an edited transcript.
Greg O’Brien: Let’s talk about the streaming portion of the Leafs TV and what you’ve been doing so far this year. Unfortunately, the times that I knew you were streaming, I was away and I couldn’t watch, so I didn’t see how it came off.
Chris Hebb: Good, that means the gating works and the NHL would be happy with us.
GOB: How many games did you do?
CH: We just did two. We did another one that was kind of a soft launch that was for internals – just to make sure that the technology was working. And then we did a March 6 game, home to Washington and a March 16 game on the road in Washington.
Those were the last two Leafs’ TV games.
GOB: And what was the reaction to it?
CH: Well, we didn’t have a tremendous amount of promotion around it because for the first game we wanted to make sure it worked. So, we sent an e-mail out to our insiders and for that game we had something like 400 people come in and buy the service.
GOB: For how much?
CH: It was a $3.95 price point. And then we promoted it more heavily for the second game and we had 900 people come on. It’s really a trial where the first objective was (a) to see if we could gate it, because the NHL had all of their security people trying to get into the site from both side of our territory.
The second was to get a few people in to take a survey and help determine what, exactly, a streaming product would look like for the Leafs in the future. So, we asked a lot of questions around the companion applications because it was not just a straight stream — we had a chat room for people, we had downloads that they could do, we had trivia, we had blogs.
GOB: How did it feel for people who came online? The primary game was obviously a rebroadcast of what you saw on TV, but with other stuff around it?
CH: Yes, and that’s the whole point. We don’t think that the answer is to just take a television game and put it on the computer.
We think it’s an inferior experience. What we’re trying to do is say “okay, if there’s a demographic that wants to consume their media on the computer, how are they doing it and how do we fill that void?”
Really it’s more about the younger demographic that’s got the game streaming in a window, but there are also a lot of other interactive activities that take place. So, what we wanted to do was test whether or not we could create an experience that wasn’t television. And I think that we concluded that we were able to do that. We have a lot more work to do, but it was to create a computer product, not to take television online.
GOB: Did it work well? Did the security work?
CH: Yes. The NHL folks found one error where people coming in could come through a proxy server and they discovered that there was one proxy server that would allow somebody to get into the service, but not outside of our territory, only inside of our territory. So, it was more of a business issue than a gating issue.
Once we closed that whole for the next game they gave us a totally clean bill of health on gating and our business rules. So, we considered the experiment a success because the number one objective was to test the gate and once you’re able to do that and they print the report and you know we deliver that to the NHL, we think it puts us in a position to argue that this is a product that people want. Then once its proven that we can gate it, we should be able to go into that business.
GOB: What did you find out about the people who were streaming it? Where were they watching it? What else were they doing besides watching the game?
CH: The things that were definitely the most attractive to them is that we actually streamed to them three alternate views from the television broadcast itself. One was kind of a behind the scenes look: Camera in the dressing room; camera outside the dressing room; camera up in the broadcast gondola.
Then there was another view that was more existing broadcast cameras, but not the ones that you see most on television. The one that was really resonating with people was the end zone cameras, the robotic cameras behind the net… On the Internet those images are really clear because it’s so tight… you could really see the players. And then as the puck goes up the ice, we would just cut to the other end, and then the puck’s coming at you, right?
People really found that to be added value.
GOB: Would you do anything in the future like a Darcy Tucker camera or anything like that?
CH: In the second game, we did an iso camera so that if somebody wanted they could click on the iso feed and whoever the truck was iso-ing at that particular moment, that’s who you got to see.
So, this is an evolving product. We wanted to find out what people thought. They liked that. They really liked the chat – to be able to talk hockey while you’re watching it.
GOB: Bitch about the referees while its going on.
CH: Absolutely… It’s just the hockey experience through an electronic means.
GOB: How many games do you envision doing this way next year? You’ve got 12 games to broadcast on Leafs TV next year?
CH: Well we haven’t got the number set yet – and we still don’t have approval from the league. At the end of the day the league was in favor of us doing this experiment; has taken receipt of the document that was offering evidence that we were able to gate it, but it still clearly their call.
GOB: Have any other teams been doing this?
CH: When I was in Vancouver, that’s where I came from, we did an experiment four or five years ago like this. But, I don’t think the market was ready for it. There wasn’t the broadband penetration there is now,
It may not have been the right city. But all of the teams are looking at it. If you look at the Islanders web site, they’ve got something called Islanders TV. They’re not streaming live, but they’re taking archive scenes and offering them without commercials in a kind of a game in an hour format.
There’s a lot of push from the teams to start leveraging the Internet.
GOB: That’s where I could really see a product on Leafstv.com take off. The game in an hour, your talk shows or things like that where you could really, take your own content and do whatever you like with it and push it to everyone everywhere, except the games.
CH: And that’s definitely in the plans. And when you’re not using NHL footage, you can do whatever you want.
So, we could take their morning practices live, we could take our coaches scrums and stream them live or archive, however you want it. So, it’s just a question of (a) can the league give you the right to stream you live games as long as you’ve got it gated; and then secondly what are you able to do in getting other content into a form that’s accessible through a computer or a wireless device.
GOB: Are you able to do your game in an hour online or does that fall under the NHL content rules?
CH: No, I think we’re okay. The Islanders are doing it now. We were quite surprised that the Islanders were able to do it, because it was our understanding in Vancouver and when I got to Toronto that that was something the league was not allowing. But it looks like they’re loosening the reins and allowing teams to experiment and we think that’s a good thing.
GOB: What about taking it to other devices, wireless or iPods or anything like that?
CH: That’s definitely in our future. And the challenge right now is that the penetration of those devices is so low that there’s probably not a revenue model to speak of. But, there’s no question we’ve got to be in that space.
We have a relationship with Rogers as a sponsor. We’re talking to them and seeing whether or not there’s a way that we can provide content to the wireless device. It’s a ways off, though. The league is also very hesitant to award you those rights because they want to exploit them.
GOB: But they just gave a whole bunch to CBC in their latest contract.
CH: Yeah. CBC will now be able to exploit those technologies with the games that they have been awarded. That’s something the league is capable of doing because they’re the league. For us to be able to exploit our wireless rights regionally is more difficult because there’s always the issue of gating and now we’re in Buffalo’s territory…
GOB: Well, if I’ve got my Rogers phone in St. Catherine’s I may want to watch the Leafs’ game on it, but I’m in Buffalo’s territory aren’t I?
CH: That’s right. So, how do you deal with that? Can you gate wireless devices? These are all the questions that we’re wading through.
GOB: Well, it’s just one more branch of the copyright stuff that everyone’s wading through right now.
CH: That’s exactly it. And you know we understand it, we support the league in the way they’re doing things. The league’s moving as quickly as they can and we’re hoping by next season we’ll be able to offer something that the Leaf fans will be able to access through their computers and through their wireless devices.
GOB: Where do you envision taking this? Do you envision doing Raptors content with this as well?
CH: Well at this point the Raptors rights are not ours because the NBA owns all wireless Internet rights in our territory, which is Canada. We are hopeful that because we have done our arrangement with the NBA for Raptors NBA TV and all of the NBA television deals in Canada… that perhaps one day we would be given the rights to exploit that in Canada as well. But that’s the NBA.
GOB: Is it too soon to discuss a business plan for this, is it subscription and advertising?
CH: Well, we’re not really sure — I think it could be a combination of both. I mean if you look at cable and that’s probably the closest resembling business, you know cable is driven by subscription fees, but it also allows for advertising revenue.
We would like to think that there’s room for both. Maybe what has to happen is that there is content that is widely available that’s advertising supported. And then there is content that is narrowly available that may command a subscription fee. We don’t know.
Experiments like these are supposed to determine the season. It’s really hard to go and have the crystal ball. You can look at major league baseball and it obviously has made a business of delivering games at a price. You can look at what the NHL is doing with Center Ice online where they’re asking for a subscription fee there. It’s an expensive enterprise. Bandwidth isn’t cheap. The people required to build the product are specialists. And even transmission becomes an issue when you’re trying to delve into this.
GOB: Well, sure. When you’re doing it for 900 people it’s a whole different ball of wax if you’re doing it for 100,000 people.
CH: That’s exactly it and the fact is the way that the technology works now is you build it for 10,000 just in case they come. But if you only get 900, you’re still paying for 10,000.
So, the economics of it have not been proven out, but again that was not our number one objective. Before we even start talking about the economics, can we technologically gate it?.
And the answer back is we’re pretty sure we can.
GOB: Will you be putting any more coaches interviews or practices or anything like that on line during the playoffs this year?
CH: We’re looking more to September. We want to have a real integrated approach and make sure, you know, what we’re doing is the right thing and not a scatter gun approach. I think that’s happened in the past where it’s been “let’s try this, let’s try that.” We’re being a lot more strategic about it and having a lot of conversations with the carrier specifically about what they know works.
We’re not experts in this field. We do have valuable content. We do have great fans and at the end of the day our objective is to serve those fans, to allow them to receive our content in whatever format they want on whatever device they want whenever they want it.
And that’s going to take a lot of work to have the right strategy so that you’re not delivering something that has very limited appeal.
