TuneIn to Carry Top College Basketball Teams via Partnership with Learfield Sports, IMG
PALO ALTO, Calif. – TuneIn, the world’s largest audio network, today announced a grand expansion of its college basketball coverage through partnerships with IMG and Learfield Sports. Beginning this season, TuneIn will carry the broadcasts for 85 men’s college basketball teams, including 8 of the top 10 ranked programs in the nation – Kentucky, Arizona, Wisconsin, Duke, Kansas, Florida, Louisville, and Texas. TuneIn will also carry the broadcasts of 55 women’s college basketball teams, again with 8 of the top 10 ranked programs, including perennial powerhouse UConn, and South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Stanford, Duke, Baylor, and Texas.
This extended partnership with TuneIn bolsters the reach and distribution of IMG and Learfield Sports radio content, allowing fans to hear live play by play coverage outside of their local markets and even internationally. TuneIn will be adding over 3,000 basketball games from 70 teams to its programming this year. TuneIn’s coverage will include 16 of the 25 top ranked teams in the men’s basketball division, with marquee programs including Villanova, UConn, UCLA, Stanford, Iowa, and Kansas State, and 19 of the top 25 ranked teams in the women’s basketball division, including Cal, Nebraska, West Virginia, and Iowa. Other coverage through IMG and Learfield this year will include TuneIn’s growing hockey coverage, with a total of 8 teams, including the number one program in the nation, Minnesota.
“Sports listening on TuneIn continues to grow exponentially, and we are constantly working to add more key content for sports fans to follow on the go and fit their active mobile lifestyle,” said Kevin Straley, VP of Programming at TuneIn. “We are thrilled to be announcing an even more robust list of IMG and Learfield teams this year, and plan to continue to grow that list as we move forward.”
TuneIn’s 50 million monthly active users have shown great interest in college sports, with college football listening numbers hitting an all time high this season. As of week 11 of the 2014 season, TuneIn has seen 4.2M unique listeners and a total of 2.4M listening hours – from college football programming alone. TuneIn has also seen quick growth of its follower model, with team channels for fan favorites like Oregon, with 14.1K followers, Washington, with 9.8K followers, and Alabama with 7.3K followers on TuneIn.
Each college basketball team will have their own, personalized 24/7 station on TuneIn, giving fans international access to team specific live play-by-play, pre-game and post-game shows, live and archived weekly coaches shows, archived games, and in-season game replays. To listen, fans can search team names on TuneIn or simply visit TuneIn.com/collegesports.
About TuneIn
TuneIn is the most popular way to listen to real radio from around the world. With over 50 million monthly active users, TuneIn lets people listen to the world’s sports, news, talk, and music from wherever they are. TuneIn has over 100,000 radio stations and more than four million on-demand programs streaming from every continent, and is available across 200+ connected devices. TuneIn has venture funding from IVP, Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, and Jafco Ventures, and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.