Pro Softball franchise broadcasting Season Online

Network
Foundation Technologies (NFT), is helping the Chicago Bandits become be the
first women’s pro softball team to broadcast their 2008 home season online. The
Chicago Bandits will be the first team in the National Pro Fastpitch (NPF)
league to break away from the League’s Pay-Per-View model.
NFT’s
unique video broadcasting solution incorporates a customizable, downloadable player
that broadcasts content directly to the viewer’s computer desktop. Fans can go
to www.chicagobandits.com
and download the team’s official TV player to gain access to the “Bandits TV”
network, which will play all home games and content for the 2008 season.
“The
Chicago Bandits are on the cutting edge of women’s sports. We pride ourselves
on being the leader in setting trends for women’s pro softball. Our attendance
numbers are the largest in the league, and our games have received the most
televised coverage. We recognize that streaming media is the new frontier that
will offer significant exposure for our team and sponsors,” said Bill Conroy,
owner and general manager of the Chicago Bandits. “We are excited for the
opportunity to work with Network Foundation Technologies and
TheSoftballChannel.com to make this happen.”
“NFT is
proud to further activate the Chicago Bandits’ brand and bring women’s pro
softball to fans worldwide. The Chicago Bandits are the first NPF team to step
away from Pay-Per-View and embrace our innovative technology. The sport’s fan
base has steadily increased, and we are excited to be able to offer this
content to fans all over the world and participate in the booming growth and
recognition of women’s sports,” said Marcus Morton, President of NFT.
NFT’s
distributed broadcast model avoids the pitfalls inherent in peer-to-peer file
sharing systems by enabling the distribution of live content, eliminating the
need to store data on each viewer’s hard drive, and limiting use of Internet
connections to only those time periods when the viewer is actively tuned to a
program. This patented technology builds and maintains a highly stable
broadcast network by using the turnover inherent in distributed networks to
drive the most reliable active connections to the most critical regions of the
network, ensuring that quality of service remains high. By never requiring any
computer in the network to retransmit more than two copies of the broadcast
stream, the network can continue expanding while keeping bandwidth costs low
and controlled.
NFT’s
emerging presence in the world of sports and events is strong. The company has
ongoing partnerships with top sports leagues such as arenafootball2, USA
Weightlifting, USA Judo and the Central Hockey League.