After a month of a soft launch, USA Wrestling has officially announced the release of TheMat.TV, an online video portal aimed at showcasing USA Wrestling events nationwide.

In addition to event videos and interviews, TheMat.TV will showcase senior and junior-level athletes and coaches. It will serve as the online archive for all major USA Wrestling national and regional events. 

TheMat.TV will also be the landing page for USA Wrestling event webcasts with fans able to watch live wrestling streamed at over 25 events, and growing, annually. 

“We are proud and excited to launch this awesome new platform which provides the wrestling community with another opportunity to enjoy USA wrestling events and features,” said USA Wrestling Executive Director Rich Bender.

“One of our most problematic issues with our video has been visibility and the ease of finding matches from old events,” said Jason Bryant, Coordinator of Grassroots & Social Media for USA Wrestling. “We’ve provided thousands of matches, interviews and features to the wrestling community, but now we have a much easier way of showcasing our coverage and giving fans quick access to past events and current ones as well.”

Also featured on TheMat.TV will be the USA Wrestling Weekly show, which is released on the internet and on television stations nationwide. The popular MatChat podcast series also finds a home on TheMat.TV. 

“One of the coolest things about it is obviously the ability to tap into the social networks,” said Bryant. “Fans can easily let their friends know about events and live webcasts via Facebook and Twitter.”

During the past month, TheMat.TV has been soft launched, but during that time, the site has provided fans with live webcasts from the Southern Plains Regionals in Hays, Kansas, U.S. World Team Trials in Oklahoma City, Okla., and the Cadet and Junior National Duals. 

It’s also provided stand-alone features and interviews from the Olympic Training Center. 

“One thing I’m really pleased about with the new video portal is being able to have a longer hold on people’s attention,” said Bryant. “We have so much news available on TheMat.com side of things, sometimes our video gets lost in the shuffle. The new site’s primary goal is to showcase USA Wrestling events and coverage of non-USAW events our communications staff covers year round.

“We saw great viewership of the webcasts anchored on TheMat.TV in the last month, which is a positive,” said Bryant. “Fans will now know if there’s video from USA Wrestling, they no longer have difficulty in finding it.”

TheMat.TV’s Live Events section will be a landing page for USA Wrestling live events as well as events streamed from state associations and partner websites from around the country. At the recent Junior Duals, six different states streamed their matches live and all those streams were available on TheMat.TV’s Junior Duals Live Events page. 

Fans can also watch TheMat.TV via their mobile devices. A mobile site is available for devices like the iPhone, iPad and android and blackberry-based smartphones.