TuneIn has been adding a lot of live sports programming to its online radio listening platform lately, capitalizing on the popularity of play by play programming and loyalty of fans.
Thanks to a partnership with WestwoodOne, TuneIn is offering a full compliment of NCAA tournament Basketball to its listeners this year. It’s proving to be a winning strategy, with numbers of listeners increasing by about half a million over last year through the Elite Eight weekend.
Live sports make great lean-forward listening, and once engaged, a listener is likely to return for more. Since many of the tournament games take place during weekdays when lots of fans are at work, streaming audio is a popular option.
According to Tunein, the biggest day so far this year was opening day with 330,153 streams. The most popular games stacked up like this:
Michigan vs Tennessee Live From Indianapolis – 86,767 streams
Iowa St. vs UConn Live From New York – 86,066 streams
Arizona vs Wisconsin Live From Anaheim – 85,528 streams
Michigan vs Kentucky Live From Indianapolis – 83,448 streams
Stanford vs Dayton Live From Memphis – 81,699 streams
Michigan St. vs UConn Live From New York – 80,031 streams
TuneIn has created an expansive sports offering. From the World Series and college football and basketball to NASCAR and Premier League soccer, TuneIn’s dedicated effort has created what they call the most comprehensive selection of sports coverage from around the world. That seems like a winning plan to grow audience.