Professional Bull Riders Ropes New Partnership

NeuLion and the Professional Bull Riders have reaffirmed their partnership to continue serving fans throughout 2009. Powered by NeuLion, the Professional Bull Riders’ PBR.TV launched last October for the PBR World Finals with a content mix that included event highlights from each round of competition, daily podcasts, live streaming coverage, original event content, and archives from the past season and previous finals.

The Professional Bull Riders unveiled this dedicated sports network to provide fans with an online destination featuring exclusive and original content. As end-to-end provider, NeuLion delivers PBR.TV as a completely managed turnkey service.

Since the launch, PBR.TV has extended its offering to broadcast The PBR.TV Show, an original hosted news program produced exclusively for broadband; exclusive podcasts featuring discussion forums; and insider interviews with riders and leading personalities of the sport. PBR.TV has aired archived full-length event footage to complement network coverage providing fans the opportunity to view the entire event, plus other “not seen on TV” event coverage. The PBR service is available free to fans visiting www.pbr.tv and is currently monetized through advertising delivered by NeuLion.

“We have seen a tremendous response from our fans with the launch of PBR.TV,” explains Andy Thwaite, PBR’s VP of digital media. “The combination of complementary content to our broadcast coverage, original programming, exclusive content, and archive footage has allowed us to bring fans closer to the sport. Creating a PBR-owned online network has provided the sport with a platform to showcase our assets and allow our fans to consume the sport in new and exciting ways.”

Says Chris Wagner, EVP and co-founder of NeuLion, “We are pleased to continue our partnership with the PBR. NeuLion’s technology and core capabilities deliver a state-of-the-art service that focuses on quality and enhance the viewer experience. This is vital to the success of PBR.TV and our other partner networks. Since we provide a fully managed service, we were able to launch PBR.TV very quickly and got the service up and running faster than an eight-second bull ride!”

Since the October debut of PBR.TV, fans consumed more than 1 million videos in less than four months. Additional content developments are planned this year. For more information, visit www.neulion.com.