SNY’s New Authenticated Live-Streaming App Aims To Find Home With Busy New York Sports Fans

The app is the destination for in-market live streaming of Mets games

Taking seven of their first 10 games, the New York Mets have had a nice start to the season. That’s music to the ears of local-rights holder SportsNet New York (SNY). With the start of this new season of Mets baseball, the RSN has taken the opportunity to launch a new app to serve as the home of everything SNY.

In March, SNY debuted an app that live-streams the New York-based regional sports network 24/7. (Image: SNY)

The SNY App offers a continuous 24/7 live stream of the network for users to access once they authenticate through their in-market cable-television provider. That most notably establishes it as the exclusive digital destination for in-market authenticated live streaming of New York Mets games, a more logical destination for Mets fans to access live game streams than in the past. Previously, Mets games were streamed in-market via the NBC Sports App.

The SNY app’s video player also provides studio coverage of the Mets, New York Jets, and University of Connecticut women’s basketball, while also offering a live stream and a complete library of the network’s studio programming, such as Carton & Roberts, Baseball Night in New York, and GEICO SportsNite. It also features a news section where viewers can read the latest on New York sports and set notifications for breaking news on their favorite teams in the market.

The SNY App is the exclusive destination for in-market live streaming of New York Mets games. (Image: SNY)

“I think providing a superior streaming experience with high quality and low latency was one of our big focuses when we were developing,” says Kristin Lindsey Cook, director, digital strategy and platforms, SNY. “The second thing is, you don’t see many apps out there with the ability to go with breaking news live separate from your 24/7 stream. That’s something that we find important on the digital side. It’s a way to connect to our consumers who, during the day, may not have access to the big TV but still have the availability to get that news within the same environment that they’re currently watching SNY in.”

SNY partnered with Wunderman Thompson on the development of the app. In addition, JW Player supports all three of the live streams presented within the app. Conviva supports the interpretation of first-party data, while FreeWheel is the app’s ad-management and monetization mechanism.

“[We] truly believe, from an app-development perspective, that partnerships are the most important thing as you get ready to launch any product,” says Cook, who joined SNY in 2019 following a nearly two-decades-long run at Fuse TV. “We set out to make sure that we were partnered with not only best-in-class companies but also ones who were really invested in the success for the SNY App.”

Cook expressed that one of the key goals of the new app was to build a more direct relationship with its viewers. How can it build customized experiences by easily offering content that viewers want through the use of first-party data and mobile notifications? Those are all big factors in play for Cook, who promises that there’s much more to come from the app now that it’s officially out in the market.

“This is really the foundation for building that direct consumer relationship,” she says. “We are very big on first-party data and using that data to optimize the experiences. You’ll see more to come, more-personalized experiences, more community features, more ways to engage our fans across all New York sports.”

The SNY App is available for download on iOS, Android, tvIOS, Android TV, Apple TV, and Fire TV.