The Vertical’s inaugural NBA draft show was a substantial success, pulling in over 3.7 million views with an average of 34 minutes of watch time per user, and the company has now announced that they plan to reprise that approach for June 30’s free agency deadline. Adrian Wojnarowski told Awful Announcing last week he was hopeful Yahoo would do more streaming shows following the numbers they pulled in for the draft, specifically mentioning the free agency deadline as a target, and now they’re going to do it.
Here are the details, from a release VP of Yahoo Sports Media Bob Condor posted Tuesday:
As soon as NBA free agency begins on Friday, July 1 at 12:01 a.m. ET, Yahoo Sports’ The Vertical with Woj will be live with all of the breaking news.
Coming off the success of our recent live stream during which The Vertical redefined how to watch and follow the NBA Draft, Yahoo Sports’ first-ever The Vertical Free Agency Show will stream across all Yahoo platforms June 30, 11:30 p.m. to July 1, 1:00 a.m. The live stream will be hosted by Chris Mannix with Adrian Wojnarowski, Shams Charania, and Bobby Marks–all part of The Vertical team. The show will feature up-to-the-second news on all player movements as the NBA’s free agency period opens.
The 90-minute show begins at 11:30 p.m. ET, Thursday night from the NYC Yahoo Studios. Woj and The Vertical team will provide deep analysis and exclusive reporting into all movement during the early hours of the NBA free agency. The Vertical’s front-office insider Bobby Marks – a 20-year NBA executive – will analyze each decision, including salary cap ramifications as The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Shams Charania consistently break news throughout the evening. Plus, there will be timely interviews with top NBA players and executives.
Yahoo Sports and The Vertical are changing the way fans follow sports and the NBA. You can expect to see us continue to push the envelope and bring fans new, innovative experiences throughout the offseason and into the upcoming NBA regular season.
It would seem there’s a good chance this will attract a substantial audience, given both the popularity of the draft show and how free agency is perhaps even more about breaking news. Wojarowski has said breaking news is a key component for both the site and the show, and the amount of news they’ve been able to break is definitely a big part of what’s drawing people to The Vertical’s coverage. With superstars like Kevin Durant potentially changing teams, this could be a hotly-anticipated free agent period, and their track record would suggest Wojnarowski and Charania will be breaking much of that news. The draft stream also showed that this group can provide a high-level show similar to a television experience outside of a typical TV network. We’ll see how this goes and what kind of an audience it brings in, but this seems like a pretty smart bet for Yahoo and The Vertical given the success of the draft show and Wojnarowski’s expressed desire to keep doing these kinds of shows.
Disclosure: Andrew also writes for Yahoo Canada Sports. He is not affiliated with The Vertical.
[Yahoo]
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