Verizon has a streaming media app. It’s true! It’s called Go90, for marketing-related ~reasons~, and they spent a lot of time and money making it happen. And since the conventional wisdom still says live sports is the key to getting people to sign up for your TV thing, Verizon’s gonna try that. Because goodness knows, nothing else has done it.
Go90 launched more than a year ago — in Sept. 2015 — but so far has not exactly proven to be the huge success or Netflix-killer Verizon was aiming for. Terms business partners have used to describe it this year include “huge dud,” and “far, far worse” than expected.
That is the background against which Verizon announced its new Stream Pass (h/t DSL Reports).
And what is Stream Pass, you may ask? It is free, zero-rated access to the NBA League Pass and other sports content via Go90. Content from it won’t count against your data cap… as long as you’re still paying for a big enough data plan, that is.
Customers who purchase a new size “L” Verizon data plan — 8 GB per month, shared across all lines on the account — get access to NBA League Pass for free, instead of $200. Subscribers who already have a data plan can buy the NBA League Pass for half-price, at $100.
The League Pass promises access to games from all NBA teams… unless of course you’re subject to a blackout on your hometown heroes. Viewing plan information from Consumerist’s Washington, D.C. outpost, for example, includes the warning, “Based on your current location, you are unable to view live nationally broadcast games or live locally broadcast Washington Wizards games.”
So, in conclusion: if you have a big Verizon data plan, and want to watch all of the NBA games except the ones local to you on your phone and aren’t doing it already, Verizon’s got an app for you.
by Kate Cox via Consumerist
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