CBS's smart bet

Starting Thursday, CBS will make available the NCAA tournaments live and for free on the Web. First of all, I have to say, "It's about time a major media network went for it!" As I wrote in my Net Sense column on MarketWatch, CBS's decision is aggressive - perhaps risky - but definitely clever, and akin to an uncontested layup. There are more rewards than risks, that I see. To this end, boldness is of greater value than preparedness. The only real cost is the outlay for technology to support at least 200,000 simultaneous users. So, how much is this costing CBS to air online? It depends on the quality of the streams (256kbits or 512kbits)  and average per meg cost of bandwidth. By using an estimate of 200,000 users and 256kbits, one very smart techie came up with a cost of $2 million.  He said it's an expensive bet, but a good test of the market. What's your best guess?

Read Net Sense on MarketWatch

Comments

[Mr Wave Theory]

Interesting Post about Google's hiring and firing

Google WHy are you so Racist and Sexist?

http://mrwavetheory.blogspot.com/2006/03/google-why-are-you-so-sexist-and.html

[Sam]

I loved the fact that I could keep in touch with the games during work. I even watched some of the games from home that weren't on our local CBS broadcast. This is what the interenet is supposed to be!

[Jon G.]

The technology is hardly new. In fact, it's hardly original, or for that matter, hardly their own. The free tournament feed was brought to users through the same technology that MLB.com has been using for years now, called MLB.tv - a yearly subscription service akin to paying for a sports package on DirecTV.

MLB's service costs upwards of $80 a pop, which makes it surprising that CBS is offering their broadcasts of the NCAA tournament for free. Kudos to CBS for making it free though, as I was able to enjoy watching Kansas ruin my bracket for the second year in a row.