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NBC sets online Olympic viewing record

February 18, 2014 by 1 Comment

NBC made a great deal of noise prior to the current Winter Olympics in Sochi talking about how easy it was going to be to watch events live via digital platforms as long as you subscribed to one of its broadcast partners cable or satellite package.

Then after the events started to occur a news blackout apparently went into effect, the network touted its broadcast viewership numbers, which initially were very impressive, but completely ignored the digital data.

I have yet to see a detailed breakdown but they are now providing some numbers that show that the effort to provide different types of viewer access to the Olympics, no real surprise.

So far there has been a total of 5.7 million hours of video viewed across all of the supported digital platforms. Of that total 80 percent has been viewers watching events live. The remaining 20 percent were for fans watching exclusive highlights.

It is kind of surprising as to what, well with maybe one exception, were the top highlights viewed. No medal winners really. They are: 1. Russian speed skater Olga Graf’s wardrobe near-malfunction: 2.6 million views; 2. Russian Police Choir performs Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” in Opening Ceremony: 1.7 million; 3. Luger Shiva Keshavan falls off sled, completes run: 1.5 million.

The Olympics started with record setting broadcast viewership and it is remaining strong for the most part, but has shown signs of weakening, possibly because of all of the news about warm weather and melting snow. However solid events like last weekend’s USA vs. Russia hockey matchup continue to be record setters.

Of course NBC has other concerns at the game as well. Talk has started as to who will replace Bob Costas as host in the future. As you probably know Costas missed some time behind the mike due to a very bad case of red eye. I may be in the minority here but I really do not care too much who is manning the booth for highlights and human interest stories — I just want to see competition.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NBC Sports, Olympics Tagged With: , , ,

MLB finishes first two ballpark iBeacon installations for LA Dodgers, San Diego Padres

February 14, 2014 by 3 Comments

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Major League Baseball Advanced Media has installed the micro-location technology called iBeacon that is found in Apple’s iOS operating system in the first two ballparks as part of project that expects to land the capabilities in a total of 20 sites this season.

The first two parks are Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and Petco Park in San Diego. The parks are filled with small iBeacon beacons that fans will be able to use via mobile devices that support the technology, which can be supported by Android devices as well as Apple’s. They will also need the upcoming version of the MLB.com At The Ballpark app when that is released sometime prior to Opening Day.

iBeacon is an indoor positioning system, operating much like the GPS that most users are familiar with but designed for a much more pinpoint location capability. With it a fan could conceivable find all of the different concessions, restrooms and other features of the park while sitting in their seat waiting for a break in play.

It also has the ability for the teams to tailor marketing to fans, from enabling social media check ins at specific locations in the park to showing them where items are on sale and since the technology includes point of sale capabilities a user could purchase items with their phone or tablet. Retailers and others are now starting to look at the technology as a way of engaging customers and keeping the in the stores.

Baseball demonstrated the capabilities of iBeacon with the New York Mets last season so that this move should not be a surprise. Baseball already includes the ability to upgrade seats and ordering food to At the Ballpark so the iBeacon capabilities are a natural extension.

MLBAM continues to keep baseball at the forefront of the digital world by constantly updating and enhancing the technologies and apps that fans use including apps that allow users to watch or listen to games on mobile devices and a number of contests and games over the course of the year to keep fans following the sport even in the offseason.

Football and basketball fall far behind baseball in terms of embracing next generation digital technology. The NFL is just now developing some digital capabilities and considering the resistance teams have put up in wiring their stadiums it might not see huge usage. Though most NBA stadiums have internal Wi-Fi for fans, few teams are actively promoting the service and there is no league-wide directive on wireless. Only Barclays Center in Brooklyn has expressed any interest in the iBeacon technology.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, iOS 7, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball Tagged With: , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: O Canada’s Olympic beer fridge

February 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Everybody has that one friend that always manages to drink most of the beer in your fridge and never seems to bring any to replace it. It looks like the Olympics have that problem but at least one nation has come up with an innovative way to keep the beer available only for those who have a right to it.

In the Team Canada athletes compound the only way you can get the beer fridges to open is to have your Canadian passport scanned in order to get a cold Molson. I wonder if they are marketing this technology to home owners?

Rick Reilly really likes Rick Reilly
It seems like a very dim memory now, but at one time Rick Reilly was one of the must reads in sports. And if you did read him religiously in the past there is probably no reason to read him now as it seems that he is increasingly plagiarizing himself in his latest work.

It has gotten so bad for the ESPN columnist that now when people report on his latest transgressions they have a large selection of past examples to bring up. Aside from this he has been embarrassed by Fox Sports 1 announcers, misquoted his father-in-law and complained that he did not get credit for a Twitter news item. What may be even worse is that satire on the subject looks real.

There is an (ESPN) app for that
ESPN touts itself as the worldwide leader in sports and one of the methods that the sports network is now reaching out to fans is via apps for mobile devices.

Most sports fans that I know have the general ESPN app on their phone but that is just the start. There are a range of apps that are locally targeted with the first five covering Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston, Chicago and New York.

No Cactus League games from ESPN
ESPN has released the lineup of games that it will be broadcasting for this years Spring Training slate and if you are not a fan of the Yankees and Red Sox you are very likely to be uninterested in this heavily slanted broadcast schedule.

There will only be seven games and two of them are featuring the Yankees-Red Sox, and the Cactus League, that serves teams from San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, apparently does not exist to the network as it has been shut out, again.

A look at climbing one of the tallest buildings in the world
BASE jumping is the sport of leaping off tall structures, so is there a name for climbing them? Well even if there is not it is quite an achievement and the video for the guys that climbed the Shanghai Towers shows how hard it is.

The tower is 650 meters, or 2,132 feet, and these two men did it with their bare hands. I wonder what the winds are like at that height on a building?

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Awful Announcing, Baseball, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, ESPN, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball, New York Yankees, Olympics, Outdoor Activities, San Francisco Giants Tagged With: , , , , ,

Broadcast and digital video combine for huge NBA All-Star weekend

February 13, 2014 by Leave a Comment

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Starting tonight there will be four days and nights filled with a variety of activities related to the NBA All-Star game that will be played on Monday night including features and broadcasts on live television, NBA.com and NBA Mobile.

While the actual game and some of the key events will only be available via broadcast television there are a number of features that will be available for the digital viewer as well as specials that will be made available on the NBA’s NBA TV channel. This will total an estimated 140 hours of all star coverage.

Social Media
Featured on the NBA.com home page, fans can follow tweets from NBA players and insiders, share user-generated video, check which topics and content are trending in real time and get behind-the-scenes video from players and celebrities.

Fans will be able to vote for both the BBVA Rising Stars Challenge MVP and Kia NBA All-Star MVP via online, mobile web, SMS text messaging, Twitter and via the NBA Game Time app. I wonder how many will vote like they are in Chicago?

The NBA Mobile app is being used as primarily a schedule and event tracker. There will be highlights from different events as well as some live coverage but no real streaming events to mobile users. All of the content that would fit nicely for a mobile user has mostly been designated for NBA TV. Still it provides users with the All-Star Dashboard that is basically a one stop site for that is happening with live press events, live video and social feeds.

It is more valuable if you are attending because the Events Section also includes including event information, ticket links, venue maps, directions, video, live scoring and social feeds from all of the individual events.

NBA TV
The league appears dedicated to highlighting its own channel and has a top lineup for NBA TV including a big block of original programming on Monday that will be highlighted by an interview with LeBron James, another with Oscar Robertson and an All-Star edition of Open Court: The Dunk In Depth and Defined.

However the festivities start tonight on the channel with a Slam Dunk-A-Thon that will show all of the Slam Dunk contests including the first held, during the days of the ABA in 1976. Among the events that will be broadcast on Friday there will be highlights and an inside look at the league’s rising stars. There will also be coverage of the media day as well as exclusive coverage of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Announcement.

The weekend sees a great deal more broadcasting on NBA TV and you can go here for the full schedule but some of the interesting items are the 2013 NBA D-League All-Star game and the new NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s press conference. There will also be pre- and post game coverage on Sunday.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Athlete to Follow, Facebook, Instagram, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NBA, TNT, Turner Sports, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , ,

WatchESPN app now supports Windows 8 devices

February 12, 2014 by Leave a Comment

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Mobile users that utilize devices that run on Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system no longer have to be second class citizens when it comes to viewing content generated by ESPN’s family of networks as there is now a WatchESPN app for their devices.

What this means in real terms is that if you have a subscription to a network that shows the network’s lineup they can have access to that includes ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3, ESPN Deportes and ESPNEWS through WatchESPN.

The free app also includes the ability for users pin the app with a Live Tile that provides an instant view from the start screen that displays the top live events as well as features such as Snap functionality, a channel guide, the ability to browse by sport, access to featured live and on-demand content. ESPN Goal Line and ESPN Buzzer Beater will also be accessible when those channels are in season.

In case you are unaware of which cable and satellite video providers that do or will soon feature ESPN and so enable you to access this feature here is a short list. AT&T U-verse TV, Bright House Networks, Cablevision’s Optimum TV, Charter, Comcast Xfinity TV, Cox, Google Fiber, Midcontinent Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon FiOS TV.

This is very good news for supporters of that operating system, which consistently comes in third when versions of sport apps are delivered. MLB almost always delivers a version of its numerous apps first for Apple’s iOS platform and then for Android. Others apps also tout the rival OS first and often there is no mention of Windows support.

Windows 8 had a strong fall growth spurt but has slowed while the older Windows 7 has seen strong growth in recent weeks. Hopefully this and increased support from other mobile apps will provide some much needed impetus for additional growth.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, ESPN, ESPN3, iOS, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, Microsoft, WatchESPN, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , ,

Looking for college baseball? ESPN has you covered

February 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment

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Does it seem that every year college baseball is basically invisible unless you live near a school that gets coverage in the local media until the College World Series is aired at the end of the summer? Well ESPN is seeking to change that, or rather build on what it has already established in the last few years.

The network will be using its breadth and depth as a broadcaster to show a record number of games during the 2014 college baseball season, with more than 200 regular season and conference games across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNU and ESPNNEWS.

This is in addition to the exclusive coverage that it will provide for the NCAA Division I College Baseball Championship that starts at the conclusion of the conference championship games. It will also cover the selection of the 64 team field for the championship. The previous high in terms of number of broadcasts by ESPN is 151 games.

Both over air and digital broadcast to be available
ESPN3 will be streaming the bulk of the games with 150 exclusive broadcasts over the course of the season with all available on WatchESPN so that users that want to view the games on tablets, smartphones, Xbox, Roku and other device will have the opportunity to see the games. There are some restrictions on mobile users.

The network plans to have at least one game available every Friday, Saturday and Sunday over 14 consecutive weeks and the regular-season broadcasts starts this Friday, Feb. 14, at 4 p.m. ET with No. 5 Florida State hosting Niagara.

Not all games have been scheduled but for a quick look at what is already planned head over here.

Among the regular features for the season will be ESPNU once again carrying Thursday Night SEC Baseball Game of the Week starting March 27 as well as carrying ACC Monday broadcasts starting March 24. The ACC will apparently dominate broadcasts over the season with 111 games on the agenda. The network said that it will broadcasts games that feature every Top 10 team and 21 of the Top 25 over the course of the season. ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3 and ESPNEWS will combine to carry 10 conference championships.

Filed Under: Apps, Baseball, ESPN, ESPN3, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA.com, Smartphone, Tablets, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , , , ,
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