NBC Sports Live Extra app is now available on both Roku and Apple TV, with the caveat that only authenticated pay-TV viewers will be able to access the app's 3,000 annual live sports streams. The move bolsters TV Everywhere, the pay-TV industry's initiative to enable access to content when, where and how viewers want it.

Last week, I shared new research showing that heavy TV Everywhere users rate pay-TV a much stronger value than lighter users. This is a core TV Everywhere goal - to get viewers watching more TV and feeling better about their expensive monthly subscriptions so they're not tempted to switch to cheaper OTT options. Live sports in particular have been a hugely successful genre in TV Everywhere, as measured by FreeWheel.

NBC Sports Live Extra is a particularly important TV Everywhere app because it has tons of marquee professional sports like the NHL, NFL Sunday night football, Summer and Winter Olympics, Triple Crown, Golf Channel, Premier League and more. Enabling the app on Roku and Apple TV means that subscribers no longer have to pay for an extra pay-TV set-top box in order to access all of this live sports on their big-screen TVs.

I haven't tested the app on my Roku or Apple TV yet, but I did use it during the Sochi Winter Olympics on my Comcast X1 and it was just as responsive and easy to navigate as on my iPad. I expect it will be similar on both Roku and Apple TV.