BASS today announced that they will be offering live, streaming video of the Bassmaster Tournament Trail on ESPN360.com, ESPN's online destination for live sports events and home to over 3,000 live, global events annually. The debut of BASS coverage marks ESPN360.com's first foray into outdoors content and will put BASS events on the same vehicle as other top-tier sporting events.
The 24/7 broadband sports network will begin its coverage with the 2009 Bassmaster Classic, to be held Feb. 20-22 on the Red River out of Shreveport-Bossier City, La. Throughout 2009, ESPN360.com will also carry live weigh-ins of all BASS events, including the Bassmaster Elite Series, Bassmaster Opens, Women's Bassmaster Tour and the BASS Federation Nation.
Fishing fans will be able to access archived weigh-ins through ESPN360.com for 48 hours after the completion of competition. After that timeframe, the weigh-in footage will be permanently housed on BASS Insider at www.bassmaster.com.
Bassmaster.com will continue to be the online destination for real-time leaderboards, photo galleries, blogs, analysis and other forms of video content - including press conferences, behind the scenes footage, launch coverage - will also be housed on the site.
"We're committed to serving the outdoors enthusiast, and ESPN360.com is a great platform for distributing live coverage online." said Tom Ricks, general manager and vice president, BASS and ESPN Outdoors.
ESPN360.com is currently available in more than 25 million homes, and is available at no cost to fans who receive their high-speed Internet connection from one of approximately 45 Internet service providers nationwide, including RCN, Insight, Frontier, Cavalier, Charter, Mediacom, Conway, Grande Communications and many more. It is also available free to more than 18 million people in all U.S. military bases and students through college campuses.
Through a sleek, simple interface, ESPN360.com gives consumers control over their broadband sports viewing experience -providing reliable, television-quality video and the ability to pause, rewind and fast-forward live events - similar to digital video recorder functionality.