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Friday Grab Bag: ESPN pushing its World Cup coverage

January 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment

ESPN is expecting to see growing interest in the upcoming World Cup in terms of audience numbers, and is working to fan the flames with strong pre-tournament coverage prior to the 2014 games, the last it will be broadcasting for some time, having lost the rights to the 2018 and 2022 tourneys to Fox Sports and Telemundo.

But for now ESPN has been pushing to alert fans that it will have the games and has even spun off its very popular 30 for 30 series to now include Soccer Stories in advance of the games. A benefit for ESPN is that the World Cup time zone in Rio is only one hour ahead of the East Coast and so fans will not be forced to watch tape delayed games or watch matches starting at 3 a.m.. At least in the U.S.

One additional World Cup note from ESPN is that the network hired Gilberto Silva, the Brazilian who helped his team win the World Cup in 2002 and former Dutch star Rudd van Nistelrooy as studio analysts. They will work on pre-match, halftime and post game shows.

Time change for 2022 World Cup?
However the winner of the rights going forward, Fox Sports, may be a bit upset these days by a move coming from the World Cup. The event, which is held in the summer every four years is being moved to the winter for the 2022 games. That is prime NFL time for Fox and while the World Cup is increasingly popular in the U.S. it does not come close to rivaling football, at least not currently.

The reason is obvious — the heat. The games are to be held in Qatar, where temperatures an soar above 120 degrees during June and July when the games are traditionally held. The nation was supposed to build a series of climate controlled arenas to host the event, but there appear to be issues. Still no final decision is expected until next year.

More NFL games on Thursday
It looks like the NFL is shopping additional games to be broadcast on Thursday night, creating a new Thursday night package that would be part existing games and part additional games that the NFL plans to add, despite its recent denials that it was looking to do so.

According to Awful Announcing, the current slate of 13 games, at least the last 2 years, would be expanded to 16 games and then part of that would be offered out to bid. The NFL is looking for approximately $800 million in a 1-year deal. Currently the Thursday Night games are carried by the NFL’s own network.

MLB expands instant replay for 2014
MLB has been slowly expanding its instant replay over the last few years and now it looks like it is going in whole hog with a massive expansion of the program in a move that will also allow stadium scoreboards to show close plays, even when they are not reviewed. I am sure the umpires will love that.

While balls and strikes will continue to be excluded from the replays, which is about all that the new system will exclude as almost everything else will now be reviewable. Hopefully it will not lead to NFL style delays.

Filed Under: Baseball, ESPN, FIFA, Fox Sports, Major League Baseball, NFL, NFL Network, Soccer Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Do new deals show MLBAM set for IPO?

January 15, 2014 by 1 Comment

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When you think of the WWE do you think of baseball? No? How about Sony? How about Whistle Partners- even heard of them? What they all have in common is a connection to Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media arm, a partnership created by all MLB teams that handles its Internet, digital and interactive technology, everything from behind the scenes backroom technology to the latest in games.

If you wonder why this is important consider that MLBAM is estimated to have earned $620 million in 2012, and is rapidly extending its reach into both baseball and non baseball activities. Aside from running the MLB and Minor League Baseball websites it also runs websites for YES Networks, SportsNet NewYork and others. In backroom technology it delivers infrastructure to a variety of entities including Southwest Airlines, CBSSportsline and WatchESPN.

It has recently expanded with a flurry of new deals and announcements in the last few weeks. It now will provide back end infrastructure for Sony when that company delivers its planned cloud-based TV service. It will also be providing the technology that backs the World Wrestling Entertainment’s planned 24/7 streaming network that is expected to launch next month.

It has also entered into a deal with The Whistle, a new sports entertainment network that is targeted at young fans and athletes. MLBAM will be providing technology services and infrastructure support for the network.

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In the area of games it already has one of the most popular apps of all time at the Apple app store with MLB.Com At Bat, and that is just one of a host of games that it has available for fans during the season, and you can now add another to that list, or will be able to soon.

The MLBAM has announced that it will bring back from the dead RBI Baseball, to be called RBI Baseball 14, a game that has not been available for 20 years. Details are not available as yet as to what the latest generation of the game will look like but it is expected to be available for consoles as well as for smartphones and tablets.

We are not even mentioning the programs that MLBAM has set up for baseball that include Facebook, Instagram and other social media or its move to allow fans to upgrade tickets, order food and other activities with mobile devices. These are capabilities that it could also expand on and help other sports leagues deploy for their fans.

What do all of the activities mean? It could be a sign that it is getting all of its ducks in a row prior to making a run at an IPO, according to Forbes and other sources. It is estimated that MLBAM is worth as much as $6 to $8 billion and that with the current hot IPO market MLB could cash in on its media arm, even keeping half to retain control would result in a pretty penny in all of the teams’ owners pockets.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Baseball, CBS Sports, Facebook, Instagram, iOS, Major League Baseball, MinorLeagueBall.com, Smartphone, Sony, Tablets, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: ESPN adds more SEC programming for 2014

December 20, 2013 by 1 Comment

Not enough SEC Football? ESPN has you covered
ESPN’s top markets for its college football broadcasts are all in SEC football’s heartland and apparently the powers that be at the sports broadcasting giant believe that you can never have too much of a good thing. (Apparently they have never sat by an unwatched plate of fudge.)

So with the kickoff of next season’s NCAA football viewers can expect “SEC Nation” according to SI, a two-hour program that will run from 10 to noon EST as the main component in its SEC Network. It will cover other sports aside from football, which is news to the rest of us that SEC schools

Facebook buys SportsStream
A month ago we mentioned that Facebook was looking to increase its profile in the sports markets in part with a partnership with sports analytics company SportsStream. Well according to TechCrunch it likes SportsStream so much it purchased it.

The move I designed to help it fend off rival social media companies such as Twitter that are increasingly becoming to the go to sites for up to the second news and gossip. Terms of the deal were not revealed.

Are those Twitter numbers real?
Good news! If you have 61 followers on Twitter you are a median poster and if your number has reached 1,000 active users then you, my friend, are in the 96th percentile. Since it seems like there are millions on Twitter what exactly does this mean?

Well according to Oreilly.com it means that the huge percentage of activity is much smaller than it appears. One interesting outtake from the article is that fake posters and infrequent ones often have huge followings.

Will Android fragmentation continue?
Ever wonder how many types of Android operating systems and devices are out there? How about Apple iOS? Well A recent Forbes article points out that there are currently 4,700 different types of devices using the two operating systems.

Now you can probably list the Apple devices off the top of your head, but the dizzying array of Android has caused concern for developers for some time, and the article points out that as long as it stays heavily fragmented it will benefit Apple.

Worst Announcers in the NFL
Some poor soul at SportsonEarth charted announcers for a series of NFL games in order to find out which ones used the most, and the fewest, clichés, leaps of faiths and illogical statements during a broadcast.

I am assuming that author is not now committed and I think most will agree with the general results, although people always have their favorites to dislike-I know that I certainly do.

5 Bars Inside now inside Anaheim Stadium
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have announced that 5 Bars Inside is the official distributed Antennae system (DAS) and Wi-Fi provider for the team and that the stadium will get a makeover so that fans have solid connectivity.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, DAS, ESPN, Facebook, iOS, Los ANgeles Angeles of Anaheim, Monday Night Football, NCAA Football, NFL, SEC, Social Media Data, Sports Social Media, Sports Social Media Data, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium isn’t a fit for MNF

December 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The San Francisco 49ers will be playing in a brand new stadium next season but no matter how well the team performs on the field it looks unlikely that it will have any home games broadcast for Monday Night Football, at least for the first season.

The soon to be finished facility — in Santa Clara, Calif., well south of the team’s namesake city — does not have enough of its own parking spaces and is planning to use neighboring office lots for its weekend games but these spaces are in use when the fans start to arrive for the games on weekdays. According to a report in the San Jose Mercury News the team isn’t asking for any of the sought-after prime-time MNF games or the Thursday night games until it can figure out how to fit all the fans’ cars in lots jammed by the folks who work in Silicon Valley.

One option the team is now considering is asking its neighbors to change their work hours to accommodate the team. Wonder what Marissa Mayer thinks about that idea?

BlackBerry history
If you are one of the few, the proud, the remaining BlackBerry users this is a pretty interesting read from Bloomberg. It is an oral history of the rise and fall of the BlackBerry, a device that probably did more than any other to kill the pager and usher in the age of smartphones.

Bloomberg conducted dozens of interviews to get a good picture about the rise of the platform and then its sad decline. Interesting to see if any of the current tech behemoths will follow the same path.

Google Glass takes another hit
Google Glass may be banned in another state as Illinois is now considering banning drivers from using the wearable computing devices, joining Delaware, New Jersey, West Virginia and Great Britain as well as sundry businesses and bars.

Mobile Marketer makes a spirited defense of the technology but it seems to me that they missed the point in a few places: they are not the same as a security camera and does anybody honestly believe that having a second image in front of a driver’s eye will make them safer?

A Heisman tale
As the college football season winds down the talk about who deserves the Heisman always starts coming to the forefront. Should they look at more than just offensive players, did so and so’s stats really put him in the race.

Well the Washington Post has taken a different tack and did a very interesting piece on the history of the first 78 trophies, where they are now and how they got there. It’s a fun read.

NBA to embrace its inner geek
Baseball in the last decade or so has undergone a revolution in the way that stats are looked at, with the time honored numbers such as RBIs, Wins and HRs getting re-evaluated in terms of how they relate to the team and individuals performance.

Football is also undergoing that same revolution to a smaller extent and now the NBA has joined the fun with the launch of NBA.com/stats web page that will feature detailed box scores and video from all of its games.

Super Bowl will be no walk in the park
The rules for parking, tailgating and generally schmoozing at the upcoming Super Bowl in New Jersey are out and it looks like if you are attending you had better leave the house early if you don’t want to miss the game.

No walking through the parking lots, you must either drive or take mass transit, no tailgating or BBQs allowed and a host of other restrictions. Who says that NFL stands for No Fun League?

Filed Under: Baseball, Basketball, BCS, BlackBerry, Google, Major League Baseball, Monday Night Football, NBA, NCAA Football, NFL, Super Bowl Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

USA Today gets into sports-event ticket business

December 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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I think fans everywhere agree that there are a huge number of sporting events that they would be interested in attending, at least once in their life, but finding out how to apply for tickets much less working your way through the red tape will always be an impediment.

Now leaping to the (possible) rescue is USA Today Sports Media Group which has teamed with QuintEvents to launch a joint venture called USA Today Sports Events that promises access to the biggest sports events.

The effort seeks to establish USA Today Sports as the go-to site for fans looking for tickets and packages to events such as the NFL’s Pro Bowl and Super Bowl, Kentucky Derby and the NBA All-Star game, among others.

It does not just offer tickets but much more in some cases such as access to players and coaches, the ability to walk a field or arena prior to an event, hospitality tent and parties access, and other amenities. The packages it offers are not third-party ones that cobble together hotels, seats and transportation but ones from the official sponsors of the events.

A look at the website shows it is offering tickets for the upcoming Super Bowl next year, with a clock counting down the days, hours and minutes. It has a link to different ticket packages, then a second to extras that can be added to your package, then a seating chart and so on. Currently tickets max out at $11,799 each.

The Level White Package starts with seats at $5,899 and has seats in the corner of level 100 at MetLife Stadium. The amenities include a $100 In-Stadium Super Bowl XLVIII merchandise coupon, preferred on-location parking (for an addition fee for the actual parking) and access to the NFL On-Location venue.

It does seem that all but well-heeled fans are increasingly phased out of the modern sports picture and while I like the idea of this and if I had the cash might actually try and use the service but increasingly fans of teams are the last that get served by the leagues when the biggest events come around, forcing them to try all sorts of maneuvers to get tickets. Maybe USA Today can also start a business finding bargain seats for real fans who aren’t loaded with cash?

Filed Under: All Star Game, Baseball, Basketball, BCS, Daytona 500, FIFA, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, NFL, NHL, Rose Bowl, Stanley Cup, StubHub, Super Bowl, Tennis, The French Open, USA Today, Wimbledon, World Baseball Classic Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Bluefields app helps organize amateur sports leagues

December 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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Running a team sport can be a nightmare even in this age of instant communications as parents and players often call at the last second because they are at the wrong venue, have the incorrect day in their calendar or a host of other reasons that might cause issues.

Anybody that has run a youth soccer team or league, or a little league event understands the issues all too clearly-it is like trying to heard cats and even the parents appear to lose the ability to think and plan clearly.

However just as a number of apps have emerged to help with almost any aspect of your life from upgrading your seat at a sporting event to selecting the correct wine while out to dinner there are now emerging a number of apps for sports leagues.

One that just came to our attention is Bluefields, a simple app that is designed to serve as a team management platform, a one stop shop for players, parents and coaches. It provides a single place for all of the pertinent information that a team, league or player needs to know.

It allows a user to send emails and texts to an entire team to set up practices, has a shared calendar to check on future dates and when a game is added or deleted all players can be informed at once. Also the app can be used as a tool for an entire league.

It comes with a database to store all players contact information and can be used to follow team results. A key feature for the memory challenged is that it has automatic reminders for parents and players of events and any event that is updated or changed that information is automatically sent as well.

So if you are just now starting on planning for next season it might be very well worth your while, to say nothing of your peace of mind, to take a look at the app and see if it fits your needs. Then all you have to do is remind people to install it.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Little League World Series, Smartphone, Soccer, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Sports Social Media Data Tagged With: , ,
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