The American Hockey League has been the fore-runner for many positive aspects we now benefit from in the NHL.
Ideas like 3-on-3 overtime and the current icing rules were first tested in the AHL with great success.
However when it comes to their own house, the American League hasn’t always been it’s best advocate and that includes providing coverage.
AHL Live, the former online broadcast service, was prohibitively expensive and provided an extremely poor quality of stream which was beset by audio and visual issues through it‘s history.
It was with a great deal of excitement but trepidation when the American League announced it was overhauling AHL Live and replacing it with AHL TV.
Pricing:
(all prices in USD)
ALL-ACCESS PACKAGES
$79.99 – Full Season All-Access
$19.99 – Monthly All-Access
$6.99 – Daily All-Access
TEAM PACKAGES
$59.99 – Full Season Single Team Pass
$39.99 – Home OR Away Single Team Pass
The most noticeable aspect of the release was the huge decrease in the pricing of all packages of watching AHL TV (Full season package used to cost from $300-350).
It should be noted that these are regular season prices only (no numbers have been released for the playoffs) but it’s so much more affordable for those of all budgets and encourages fans to watch more than just their own team with the All-Access package set at 80 dollars.
New Features:
Improved Quality of Feeds
Watch on OTT Devices
Watch Live or On Demand
Live Stats Integration
ViPr Panorama Feed
“My AHLTV” Highlight Portal
Choose Home or Away Audio Feeds
Early in the season there were countless issues with audio feeds cutting out and streams going down completely.
However I was promised via email that issues were being ironed out and during the last two weeks I’ve encountered no problems and judging by social media it seems I’m not alone.
Supported Devices:
PC/Mac
iOS/Android
Apple TV
Roku
Android TV
Amazon Fire TV
Other Items of Note:
There are no blackouts on AHL TV.
AHLTV is available worldwide.
Internet Explorer is NOT a supported browser.
The Providence Bruins do not provide an audio broadcast. All Providence games will be broadcast using only their opponent’s audio feed.
The Laval Rocket only provide French-language audio broadcasts. Laval games can be heard in English using their opponent’s audio feed.
The Ontario Reign do not provide an audio broadcast for their road games. All Ontario road games will be broadcast using only their opponent’s audio feed.
The Ontario Reign currently use the ViPR camera as their primary video feed for home games. Because of this, all Ontario home games are only available with their opponent’s audio feed.
The Rochester Americans currently use the ViPR camera as their primary video feed for home games. Because of this, all Rochester home games are only available with their opponent’s audio feed.
Summary:
Would I recommend AHL TV? Yes.
After years of disillusionment with AHL Live and having to put people off spending money on that service, it’s refreshing that the league has listened to it’s customers and huge advances have been made.
It’s far better value than it’s ever been and earlier viewing issues appear to have been resolved.
It’ll be interesting to see what price points and packages the AHL put together for the post-season but I’m hoping it’s in similar vein to what’s been adopted for the regular season.
UK Hockey Blog 