Nearly five months after completing a mad dash to build and launch their direct-to-consumer streaming platform, Jazz+, the NBA's Utah Jazz and team owner, Smith Entertainment Group (SEG), took time out for a little home run trot … or, perhaps more appropriately, a little impromptu three-point celebration while trotting back downcourt in transition.
Caroline Klein, chief communications officer or the Jazz and SEG, said team management is quite proud of the digital platform that was, with the help of technology partner Kiswe, built in just 47 days and completed just before the Jazz started the 2023-24 season back on October 25.
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Jazz+ signed up 10,000 subscribers in its first month, she said, and has registered more than 20,000 subscriptions to date, with customers choosing to pay either $15.50 for by-the-month plans or $125.50 for a full-season package.
Engagement is high — as of February, 50% of Jazz+ subscribers had streamed something within the past day, and 75% had watched something within the past 10 days.
Another 1,700 users have signed up or $5-a-pop single-game subscriptions, Klein added.
The new DTC reach comes as the Jazz transition from defunct regional sports network AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain to Sinclair-owned KJZZ -- Klein said the team's total TV audience has been up an average of 53% this season.
“We take a lot of pride in it,” said Klein, speaking to Next TV last week over Zoom, describing a DTC platform that not only include live game streams and replays, but also exclusive original programming. The most popular of these shows: Shoot the Shot with Will Hardy, which features the team's head coach playing horse with select members of his roster, interviewing them with quirky personal questions as they go.
Building Mode
Warner Bros. Discovery, which reluctantly inherited SportsNet Rocky Mountain, made it clear a year ago of its intentions to exit the regional sports networks business, but Klein said the team read the tea leaves months earlier and had already started exploring alternative local TV arrangements.
“When we entered the open negotiation process, we knew we were not going to renew with SportsNet,” Klein said. “Our contract was going to end with [at the end of the 2022-23 season] … It took us 11 months to figure it out, but we couldn't get what we wanted with current RSN market,” Klein said.
One of only six NBA teams to produce its own games, the Jazz approached its hybrid broadcast/DTC local TV model with clear eyes, understanding, Klein added, that initial revenue would not match that from RSN distribution, at least not immediately.
“We definitely took a hit with revenue,“ she said, “But we’re betting on ourselves. We own all of our ad inventory, after all … We knew this was not a quick fix. It's not apples to apples.”
The Jazz's 11-month search for its local TV path forward led to an eleventh-hour decision to go with Kiswe, which has already handled similar DTC projects for very similar moves recently made by the NBA's Phoenix Suns and NHL's Arizona Coyotes.
"We will not forget those 47 days," quipped Kiswe co-founder and CMO Wim Sweldens, speaking to us via Zoom alongside Klein, and describing the frenzied process between contract signing and the Jazz+ launch.
The Jazz, Sweldens said, pushed Kiswe pretty hard to get things right at launch. But the product went out of the gate with few, if any, significant bugs.
"Live streaming is not so easy," he added. "It takes quite a bit of expertise make sure that it goes off without a hitch."
