If you needed any more confirmation that online streaming is the future of live sporting events, we've got some pretty impressive stats to show you from March Madness.
Through the NCAA Tournament's first two weekends, streaming stats through the official March Madness Live service in 2013 have obliterated last year's numbers.
The tournament has totaled 45 million video streams so far this year, according to Turner Sports, which carries March Madness and sponsors the app. That's a 158% increase over last year's numbers at this point in the 2012 tournament. A record 12.6 million hours of live-streaming video have been watched so far this year, for a 201% increase over this point last year.
So far, 3.2 million unique visitors have watched live tourney action this season -- a 93% increase over last year's entire tournament. Meanwhile, people have watched via mobile device at an increasing rate over the course of this March Madness, rising from a 43% share of the overall audience on March 21 to a 68% share on March 31.
Not bad, right? Well, here's the twist: March Madness Live has achieved all that growth this year despite restricting access to only cable subscribers (aside from a five-hour free preview). Last year, conversely, users without cable login credentials could watch all the games via streaming if they paid $3.99.
So, while it's clear streaming is here to stay, you may not want to cancel your cable just yet -- or at least be sure to line up someone whose password you can mooch off of.