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The Euro 2012 Tournament Starts this Weekend-ESPN Will be there for all of the Matches

June 7, 2012 by 1 Comment

The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship aka the Euro 2012 starts today to see which national soccer team will emerge victorious in the 14th European Championship which sees 16 nations vying for the title. In the next championship, in 2016, the field will expand to 24 teams.

Aside from bragging rights the winner gets something much more substantial, an automatic entry into the 2013 FIFA Confederation Cup that will be held next year in Brazil. The event, which will carry on for the next month will see matches held in eight cities sprawled across two nations-Poland and the Ukraine.

While I enjoy a good match I am really in no position to predict who is a favorite or which teams are the top ones to follow. I would suggest heading over to The Big Lead and look at Ty Duffy’s body of work on the subject.

The tournament has had a touch of scandal currently, with the continued growth of the match fixing scandal in Italy, something that initially helped kill that nation’s bid for the tournament and now sounds like it might have killed the national team’s chance of participating.

A few days ago the Italian team captain, Cesare Prandelli said it would not bother him if the team was withdraws from the event due to the scandal, which has been ongoing since 2006 in one form or another. There were 14 arrests last month and a player was dropped from the squad. As of this writing it has not happened.

In addition the BBC has reported that racism and neo-Nazis could be a problem and that former England team captain Sol Campbell is advising English fans to watch the matches from the safety of their home. And last but not least there are reports from Fox Sports that the jerseys sold at the matches contain toxic chemicals.

The Finalists
Group A
Poland
Greece
Russia
Czech Republic

Group B
Netherlands
Denmark
Portugul
Germany

Group C
Spain
Italy
Ireland
Croatia

Group D
Ukraine
Sweden
France
England

The official site for the tournament is well laid out and carries a lot of current and past information, including how the teams did in the recent batch of friendlies, videos, photos, past history of the event, updates from team camps and general news.

There is the usual data on teams and when the event starts statistics will start to fill in on each game. What I like is that there is a number of games in the fan section where you can make prediction on who wins their group, who will win the Golden Boot, and other events

ESPN has taken the soccer broadcasting bull by the horns and will be broadcasting all of the matches, spread out across the ever growing network of channels and outlets that it owns. It has been working to make itself a much stronger player in the soccer broadcast world and so far it seems to be paying off.

This will be a real test to its commitment and I am looking forward to watching as many of the matches as possible. I will also be interested if I hear anything about this event from a number of friends who suddenly became soccer fans when the US Women advanced in the World Cup but had never mentioned the sport prior or after to me.

Filed Under: BBC, Contests, ESPN, ESPN FC, ESPN3, Euro 2012, FIFA, Fox Sports, Soccer Tagged With: , ,

AP: Phil Texted Commissioner About… Too Many Cell Phones on the Course

June 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The Associated Press is reporting today that Phil Mickelson sent PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem a text during last Thursday’s opening round of the Memorial, complaining about the fans’ unruly use of digital devices. From the AP story:

According to four people with direct knowledge, Mickelson sent a text message to PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem from the sixth fairway at Muirfield Village suggesting that a lack of policing fans with cellphones was getting out of hand.

The story raises a bunch of questions — hey, are golfers going to be like NASCAR drivers, tweeting from the course? — and also (as GigaOM’s Stacey H says) ignores the obvious irony, that Mickelson is using a cell phone to complain about people using cell phones.

We expect to hear more about this bubbling issue at the press conferences for the U.S. Open next week. Should be interesting to see how big tour sponsor AT&T feels about all this, too. But from the last part of Doug Ferguson’s report it may be that only a little bit better policing is how to solve the problem:

Banning the policy isn’t an option. The tour is moving forward in the digital age with programs to enhance the gallery’s experience. Plus, the increase in attendance has been tangible this year. Nowadays, if fans can’t bring their phones, they’re more likely not to come at all.

The solution is to add security or volunteers to the two or three marquee pairings, and to take away phones from fans caught taking pictures (giving them a claim check to retrieve the phone at the end of the day). That’s what happened on Friday, and there were no big incidents the rest of the way.

UPDATE: It appears the commish is saying cell phones will stay, for now. Read this story over at Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which tracked Finchem down at a Pro-Am and asked him about the controversy.

Filed Under: AT&T, BlackBerry, Daytona 500, ESPN, Golf, iPhone, PGA, The Masters, US Open Tagged With: , , ,

Race Day in Dover as NASCAR Readies for FedEx 400

June 1, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Some very interesting 3-peats last week. I guess technically they were not actual 3-peats but so what? In the Coca-Cola 600 Kasey Kahne won for the third time and it is clear that he really likes this race since on the tour he has only won 13 times. The list of other 3 time winners shows that he is in an impressive group with luminaries such as Dale Earnhardt, David Pearson and Buddy Baker among the six others that have accomplished the feat.

The race was a great day overall for Hendrick Motorsports, which aside from Kahne had an additional 3 cars in the top 11. Filing out the top five was Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Greg Biffle and Brad Keselowski.
http://www.doverspeedway.com/

This Week
The FedEx 400 benefiting Autism Speaks will be run at the Dover International Speedway’s monster mile, touted as the world’s fastest one mile oval. Good news for fans that have visited the track’s web site, they now have a mobile app that seems to be speedier than the regular one.

Broadcast
June 3 12:30 pm ET on Fox

Sprint Cup Standings
1) Greg Biffle
2) Matt Kenseth -10
3) Denny Hamlin -16
4) Dale Earnhardt Jr. -18
5) Jimmie Johnson -48

Twitter Feeds
@NASCAR-Official NASCAR feed
@NationwideNNS-Nationwide Official Twitter
@NASCAR_NNS-NASCAR Nationwide feed
@NASCARONFOX-Fox Sports feed
@AllWaltrip-3 Time NASCAR Champ and Fox announcer
@PRNLive-Performance Racing Network
@EdHintonESPN-ESPN Columnist Ed Hinton
@nascarnowespn-ESPN2 NASCAR
@siriusxmnascar- Sirius XM:
@SPEED-Speed

Nationwide Series
Brad Keselowski skated to a nice win last week in Charlotte, leading the last 67 laps and praying that the gas he got when he fueled up with 73 laps to go would last-it did, making his caution lap decision not to pit pay off.
The top five was filled out by Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Elliott Sadler. Point’s leader Ricky Stenhouse had mechanical issues and finished 26th while one other widely watched driver, Dancia Patrick disappointed by starting 3rd but finishing 13th.

The 5-Hour Energy 200 is this weekend and they will be racing in just a little over 24 hours of posting this. It should be a fun race as speeds will be high and drivers should be raring to go on this interesting track.

Broadcast
June 2, 2 pm ET ESPN & WatchESPN

Nationwide Standings
1) Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
2) Elliott Sadler -13
3) Austin Dillon -28
4) Sam Hornish Jr. -57
5) Cole Whitt -94
5) Justin Allgaier -94

Indy 500
Congratulations to Dario Franchitti who won his third Indianapolis 500 in a very intense last lap battle with Takuma Sato, who ended up hitting the wall in a tremendous crash after their tires made contact with each other.

Filed Under: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Danica Patrick, Dover International Speedway, ESPN, Fox Sports, Greg Biffle, Indy 500, Kurt Busch, Live sports via mobile, NASCAR, Sam Hornish Jr. Tagged With: , ,

Wanna Bet? World Series of Poker is Here

May 29, 2012 by 1 Comment

For those of you in the non-betting category the World Series of Poker has started and will run from May 27 to July 16 in lovely Las Vegas. As usual the rooms are packed with the hopefuls and the hapless vying for a total of 61 bracelets..

The official site is an interesting hodge podge of good and bad. Live reports from the ongoing events are nice, a link to Twitter feeds is always a positive and so is live video of events. Links to Facebook and a mobile app are great. But where is a general event news link? I am not just talking about past results- how about who has left the tournament, who did not attend, etc…? It might actually be there but it is not easy to find.

Also there appear top be a number of new events including a re-entry event and the $1 million buy in tournament, as well as more tables on the Rio’s floor for the main event which will mean a faster overall tournament.

As in past years the event will be broadcast by ESPN, starting July 3, but as yet does not have a prominent position on the sites web page, you have to look under the More Sports section to find it. There is one event that ESPN is doing on its own that I did not realize had been ongoing- a Fantasy Tournament.

Over the years I have been in a number of different fantasy leagues, baseball, football, NASCAR and one year golf but I have never been in a fantasy poker league, and yet not only is there one but it is in its seventh year.

This Fantasy leagues is however a closed one, which I suspect may change a bit if ESPN decides it wants to do a bracketed tournament of some type like it does with March Madness, for instance, but it still makes for some interesting watching for poker aficionados.

There are ten teams, and the owners of the teams select 8 players and during the course of the tournament they can add/drop one player during the course of the tournament. Many of the team owners are probably well know to poker fans since there are a fair number of pros.

The professionals include professional poker players Daniel Negreanu, Dwyte Pilgrim, Eric Baldwin, Josh Brikis and Bernard Lee. There are two from ESPN, Gary Wise and Andrew Feldman while the remainder of the field is comprised of Bluff editor-in-chief Lance Bradley; Chops from WickedChopsPoker; and PokerNews contributor and 2010 fantasy poker champion Chad Holloway.

Players on teams score points for a variety of actions including finishing in the money, making a final table and finishing first, with additional points being earned on higher buy-in games. I think that this is an interesting way to follow the World Series of Poker and I am a bit surprised that I have not noticed it before.

I am also surprised that it is not more heavily hyped by ESPN as a draw to its site. There are plenty of poker players spending a great deal of time online and this is a way to draw them to ESPN’s site.

Filed Under: ESPN, World Series of Poker Tagged With: ,

NFL and NFLPA Headed to Court Again

May 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The unhappy couple is once again heading to the legal system to settle their disagreements, and there is the chance that more legal issues will come to a head soon that might result in more court action in the near future.

It seems that the NFL’s uncapped season a year ago was actually capped, they just did not bother to tell the players. However the issue came to light with the Commissioner fining the Redskins and Cowboys a total of $42 million in cap space for having the audacity of treating an uncapped year as an uncapped year.

The big issue now is that the NFL Players Association is charging that the NFL owners engaged in collusion, however there seems to be an article in the current Collective Bargaining Agreement that gives the NFLPA’s approval of the move and so prohibits a lawsuit of this type.

So far the NFLPA disagrees and said that it has cost the players $1 billion and that it will see treble damages. (Can you say $1 billion without doing it in Dr Evil’s voice?) For a much more complete coverage of the issue I would recommend heading over to ProFootballTalk at NBC Sports, the site has been covering the issue vigorously from the start.

However there are other issues bubbling to the top as well between the two. The NFL has installed a new pads rule and will start requiring thigh and knee pads as mandatory equipment for all players starting with the 2013 season. The league has determined that since this is a playing rule it does not need to get the NFL’s Players Association’s permission.

The NFLPA has an entirely different take on the issue and believes that this is a change in work conditions and that is something that needs to be negotiated. Thigh and knee pads are already required in high school and college.

Then there is the bounty case, and all the fallout associated with it. ESPN has reported that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said that the NFL will make the evidence of the case public, but not until after all of the players’ appeals have been heard. The commissioner also mentioned that while he understood that current Cleveland Brown’s linebacker Scott Fujita, suspended for three games for his participation, was in a tough position but that suing the commissioner for defamation was the wrong way to go about it. But the courts seem like the place where much of the NFL’s hard hitting will take place, at least this summer.

Filed Under: ESPN, Lawsuit, NBC Sports, NFL, NFLPA, ProFootballTalk, Yahoo Tagged With: , ,

ESPN’s John Skipper on CNBC: Great Interview

May 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Caught this great interview from CNBC with ESPN’s John Skipper from the cable show going on this week in Boston. Too often these video vignettes are about as illuminating as a sideline reporter asking a coach questions at halftime. But take a minute to watch this one, CNBC’s Julia Boorstin asks some good questions, including one about the new Twitter partnership, and also whether or not ESPN will ever offer WatchESPN as an a la carte option (spoiler: they won’t, but watch to see how emphatically Skipper says no).

Filed Under: ESPN, Twitter, WatchESPN Tagged With: , ,
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