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IIHF has announced that the 2013 World Championships will be streamed live online via YouTube. The service, which was launched last year was welcomed by hockey fans across Europe, but things soon turned sour after media partner pressure. The IIHF had imposed a blackout of the YouTube streams for countries that had exclusive TV broadcast deals in place, but then had to take further measures as tech savvy consumers found ways around the geo-blocking.
To many fans’ displeasure, the IIHF then had to move its broadcasts to start half an hour after face off to make sure that no-one would be circumventing the geo-blocking. However, this year the free – and more importantly – live broadcasts will be back. The service will be available across many countries, but IIHF has already ruled out some countries on its promotional YouTube video. Countries where YouTube broadcasts are not available include: Sweden, Finland (the host countries), Denmark, Norway, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Swizerland, Germany, Canada, USA, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and France.
Where last year’s streaming ended with a sour note, I do think that it is the right thing to do to bring hockey to a wider fan base. Even though the IIHF broadcast the games with 30min delay last year, my point will be that any sports event should be broadcast live. The word travels quickly these days and it is important that if you are broadcasting on a social platform such as YouTube, you provide a live stream instead of a deferred one.
So there, another year of hockey on the web by the looks. The 2013 World Championships will be played in Stockholm, Sweden and Helsinki, Finland between 3rd and 19th of May 2013.
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