Sponsors, not subscriptions, will fund free streaming across all 7 Smyrna Baseball League fields

Most youth leagues that add live streaming end up asking families to pay for it. Smyrna Baseball League (SBL) in Smyrna, Tennessee, is taking the other route: every game on all seven of its fields will stream free to fans, with the cost covered by sponsors instead of subscriptions. The league and Hometown Live (HTL) announced the long-term partnership on August 20, 2026, from Edwardsville, Illinois, with the full build-out at SBL's complex targeted for fall 2026.

The hardware side is specific. Each of the seven fields gets a Nevco One scoring controller, a Scorebird NeST device, and auto-switching streaming cameras. Fans will find all SBL content on the league's own dedicated platform. Live broadcasts integrate with Scorebird, so real-time scores and statistics ride alongside the video rather than in a separate tab.

Who is paying for it

Nevco Media Group (NMG) is funding the project, which it describes as a six-figure initiative launched through a founding partner. NMG operates as a media and sponsorship development company, matching local leagues with national, regional, and local businesses that buy streaming and digital advertising. That sponsor revenue pays for the technology upgrades, which is how the league avoids putting a paywall in front of parents and grandparents.

The league's board framed the decision around access. "Smyrna Baseball League families deserve the opportunity to watch their athletes from anywhere in the world on a high-quality, reliable platform, without the burden of subscription fees," the Smyrna Baseball Board of Directors said. "HTL not only delivers that experience, but their team has gone above and beyond to help make this vision a reality."

Built to expand as the complex does

The partnership is structured to follow SBL's construction plans rather than freeze at the current footprint. "Smyrna Baseball League is exactly the kind of long-term partner Hometown Live was built for," said Kat Mills, HTL Sales Consultant. "We're not just installing cameras and calling it done. As Smyrna breaks ground on new fields, we'll keep adding product lines right alongside them, so the technology grows with the league instead of falling behind it."

On the scoring side, SBL's existing Nevco scoreboards will be upgraded with Nevco ONE mobile controllers, which run as an app on iOS and Android devices. The controllers offer configurable access and sport profiles, so volunteers can run a game from a phone without a dedicated console. That matters at a seven-field complex where the people keeping score change from game to game.

Hometown Live, Nevco Media Group, and Scorebird are all divisions of Nevco Sports, which is what lets scoring, game data, streaming, and sponsorship sit in one stack. HTL provides white-label channels for K-12 schools, colleges, community leagues, and independent broadcasters, with no required paywalls, subscriptions, or blackout restrictions. NMG's sponsorship programs are designed to cover new equipment with little to no upfront cost to the organization, and Scorebird automates the live scoring feed to websites and streams. For a league weighing whether to stream at all, the Smyrna deal shows one way to do it without sending families a bill.