A company belonging to Fenway Sports Group, owner of Premier League Champions Liverpool FC, and Delaware North, NESN was the first Regional Sports Network in the US. It reaches six million households via cable, telco, satellite and over-the-top (OTT) services, delivering multiple Designated Market Area (DMA) channels to homes throughout the six-state New England region and nationally, through NESN National.

The new network, replacing an existing satellite distribution platform, will deliver next-generation IP infrastructure and content delivery services for the pre-eminent regional sports network (RSN) which in addition to the aforementioned baseball and ice hockey teams two sports teams also hosts live college sports events, such as Hockey East, the Beanpot Classic, broadcast through its channels and affiliates.

The Switch’s terrestrial distribution platform is said to offer NESN a fully integrated, state-of-the-art solution inclusive of next generation video compression, encryption, receiver management and control and the redundant transmission network. During every game, The Switch provides live monitoring from its New York City Network Operations Centre (NOC) along with 24/7/365 network operations and engineering support.

The deal, which builds on a decades-long relationship between the two organisations, aims to allow NESN to ensure redundancy to its major affiliate distributors without risking the final viewing experience. Working with a trusted partner that had a deep understanding of the live sports broadcast market was critical for NESN said Fahad Haider, CTO and VP of engineering.

“Reliability is vital to these affiliates and our fans, so delivering a seamless transition from satellite to this next-generation platform was crucial. We are now in a position to utilise the best capabilities of fibre and internet to ensure the highest possible signal quality for live broadcasts and we have now laid the important groundwork to deliver our broadcasts in 4K HDR.”