March 2, 2009
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – With the 2009 BIG EAST Women’s and Men’s Basketball Championships including more games and more teams than in any previous year, the conference is announcing unprecedented online coverage of the tournaments on www.BIGEAST.org, powered by JumpTV (TSX:JTV).
The BIG EAST, in conjunction with its Digital Media partner, JumpTV, will offer exclusive free live video streams of the four first-round games of both the women’s championship on Friday, March 6 and the men’s championship on Tuesday, March 10 through the conference’s official streaming video platform, BIGEAST.tv.
This year will be the first in which BIG EAST Men’s Basketball Championship games can be seen exclusively on the BIG EAST Web site. Exclusive online coverage of the BIG EAST Women’s and Men’s Basketball Championships is sponsored by New York Life Insurance Company.
“New York Life is proud to sponsor the online coverage of the upcoming BIG EAST basketball tournaments,” said William Werfelman, a spokesperson for New York Life. “Our national advertising campaign about the selfless gift of life insurance is a great message for the loyal fans, alumni and students of the BIG EAST schools, who know that selfless play usually results in championships.”
The second round of the Women’s Championship will be televised on selected regional stations and can also be seen live on BIGEAST.tv on March 7. The quarterfinals and semifinals will be carried on ESPNU, with the championship game airing live on ESPN March 10.
The Men’s Championship’s second-round, quarterfinal, semifinal and final rounds will be televised live on ESPN and can be seen online at ESPN360.com.
First-round games will not be televised for either tournament.
All 16 conference teams will play in the 2009 BIG EAST Championships. The Women’s Championship takes place March 6-10 at XL Center in Hartford, Conn. The Men’s Championship is March 10-14 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. First-round games will feature the No. 9 seed against the No. 16 seed, the No. 12 seed against the No. 13 seed, the No. 10 seed against the No. 15 seed, and the No. 11 seed against the No. 14 seed.
Tuesday’s winners will face the Nos. 5-8 seeds in the second round of the respective tournaments. Those winners, in turn, will face the top four seeds in the quarterfinals.
In addition to the eight live women’s games and four men’s games, BIGEAST.tv will feature the most complete and comprehensive video coverage of both the Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships. This year’s coverage will include exclusive behind-the-scenes feature videos, highlights and press conferences from all 30 games of the men’s and women’s tournaments. Users should visit the Women’s and Men’s Basketball Championship Central pages on www.BIGEAST.org for complete coverage of both tournaments.
Online viewers also will be able to click to links on New York Life’s Web site to contact an agent about their life insurance needs or learn about a career as New York Life agent. New York Life agents will also be available on site at the BIG EAST Men’s tournament on March 10 to provide product and career information in person.
The BIG EAST Conference
The BIG EAST is the largest and most diverse Division I conference in the country. It was formed in 1979 and represents the athletic interests of 16 member institutions including the University of Cincinnati, University of Connecticut, DePaul University, Georgetown University, University of Louisville, Marquette University, University of Notre Dame, University of Pittsburgh, Providence College, Rutgers University, St. John’s University, Seton Hall University, University of South Florida, Syracuse University, Villanova University and West Virginia University. The BIG EAST Conference has captured 25 national championships in six different sports and is a founding member of the Bowl Championship Series. For more information on the Conference and its membership, please visit www.bigeast.org.
NeuLion and JumpTV
Based in Plainview, N.Y., Sanford, Fla., and Toronto, Ontario, NeuLion and JumpTV (TSX:JTV) work with content partners to develop end-to-end solutions for multimedia IPTV services. The NeuLion iPTV Platform encodes, delivers, stores and manages an unlimited range of multimedia content and the Operational Support System maintains all billing and customer support services. Content partners are responsible for content aggregation and the sales and marketing for the individual IPTV service. The Company ranks as a world leader in customer/partner relationships with sports and international television content partners including, in sports, the NHL, the NFL, NCAA Division I schools and conferences and, in respect to international television aggregators and networks, KyLinTV (Chinese), ABS-CBN (Filipino), Talfazat (Arabic), TV-Desi (South Asian) and Sky Angel (Christian). Customer/partner content can be viewed by way of Internet on PCs and on the television through the Company’s proprietary IPTV set top box. Through the Company’s consumer websites: JumpTV.com, Cycling.TV and SportsYa.com, as well as its collegiate and sports partner websites, the Company streamed over 15,000 live sporting events in the past 12 months and ranks consistently as one of the top ten ranked US sports web sites as measured by minutes viewed.
New York Life
New York Life Insurance Company, a Fortune 100 company, is the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States and one of the largest life insurers in the world. New York Life has the highest possible financial strength ratings from all four of the major credit rating agencies. Founded in 1845 and headquartered in New York City, New York Life and its affiliates offer life insurance, retirement income, investments and long-term care insurance. New York Life Investment Management, LLC provides institutional asset management, retirement plan and trust services. Other New York Life affiliates provide an array of securities products and services, as well as institutional and retail mutual funds. Visit New York Life’s Web site at www.newyorklife.com for more information.
– BIGEAST.org –