Through Smart TVs and Connected Devices, March Madness Live Focuses Again on the Big Screen

With games available on 15 digital platforms, Apple TV, Xbox, Amazon Fire get special attention

One of the biggest weeks in live sports streaming is again upon us. The opening rounds of the 2017 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament hits Americans’ TVs, desktops, and mobile devices tomorr0w through the popular March Madness Live service.

MML has come a long way from its early day of the “Boss Button.” Now the service — which is a TV authentication product — is available on 15 unique platforms with the addition of Xbox and Amazon Alexa this year, and, although a strong segment of the viewing public consumes it via desktop and mobile, the Turner Sports digital team is putting significant UX (user-experience) resources into an area you might least expect: the television screen.

With platforms like Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, and now Xbox, some of the sharpest new features in this year’s iteration of March Madness Live are for those watching games on a television screen at home.

“It is kind of odd that we would spend a lot of time on UX for a TV when the model for accessing that content on TV is still that you have linear television,” says Matt Hong, newly minted COO at Turner Sports. “It’s still an authentication product. That said, with smart TVs and connected devices, you are just able to have a lot more interactivity. A lot of the UX and what’s done from a product-experience perspective is taking advantage of that fact. It’s stuff around the live stream that you cannot normally get around a linear experience.”

Apple TV continues to be one of the premier ways to experience March Madness Live. Last year, Turner introduced the ability to watch multiple games simultaneously — a feature that many users hailed — and now the interface allows users to access live action via the bracket, essentially turning the tournament bracket into the ultimate menu screen.

“These guys — Apple, Amazon, and Google — are figuring out that, on these bigger screens and more powerful connected devices, we can open up more product opportunities,” says Mark Johnson, SVP, digital, Turner Sports. “That’s what gets our team excited: what we are going in and doing with an Apple this year to make it unique.”

As for the bracket, in which users can hover over a matchup and instantly peek in at live action, Johnson and his team couldn’t be more excited for the possibilities there.

“We’ve wanted to attack the bracket for years,” he says. “It’s the iconic visual of the tournament: let’s get that on the TV. Previously, we  didn’t have that opportunity because those devices or platforms just didn’t support it. They had their templates that didn’t allow for super-custom apps to be built for those devices. As those become opened up and our team can get in there and experiment, that’s why you are seeing us spend more time and effort on it. They’ve opened the tool box for us.”

Another main reason that Turner is more than happy to turn attention back to the big screen is that engagement and viewing times on smart TVs and connected devices are notably longer than the types of peek-ins the numbers might show on mobile or even desktop.

“The idea is to be everywhere everybody is, but we see a lot of long consumption the larger the screen,” says Hania Poole, VP, business operations, NCAA Digital. “So we want to be on and improve those environments where there’s a lot of eyeballs watching for a long time.”

Ultimately, the interactivity makes for a much more enjoyable — and easier — experience on television than it normally might be. Instead of searching through the guide on the set-top box for the channels that certain games might be on, users can go right to the game of their choice and get much more engaging content around that live stream.

“I think that’s what’s unique about March Madness Live,” adds Poole. “You can navigate between the games so easily, you can check other scores, you can check the bracket, you can check schedules. We are seeing a lot of behavior around that on connected devices.”