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A Fluffy Friday Roundup

August 26, 2011 by 1 Comment

Big Changes at Apple with Jobs out

As by now every geek in the Western world knows, Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, chairman and CEO has stepped down as CEO due to health reasons. Many are praising him as possibly one of the greatest CEOs of modern times and say that he has performed the greatest corporate turnaround in history. Hard to argue with this and in any case I am not well enough informed on overall corporate history in America to dispute or support the claim. But to play a game of what if- what if John Sculley had not relieved Jobs of his position as head of the Macintosh division in 1985? I believe that Jobs learned a great deal about focus and proper product development in his years at NeXT Computer and Pixar.
Jobs returned to Apple when it purchased NeXT and he began running the company after the ouster of then-CEO Gil Amelio in 1996. At the time Apple’s stock was stuck trading below $10. He quickly killed a number of products and honed the company’s focus. One of the complaints about Jobs prior to his ousting at Apple had been that he was unpredictable and chaotic managing the Macintosh division. Those traits were now gone. Now it remains to be seen if Tim Cook, his hand picked successor, can successfully follow in his footsteps.

An athlete who does not go to the highest bidder?

I think that Jered Weaver is my new favorite baseball player. No I have not started rooting for American league teams but his reasoning for signing his latest contract really struck a chord with me. Rather than wait until next season ended and let his agent, Scott Boras get the Yankees and Red Sox engage in a bidding war for his services, he instead signed an $85 million extension with the Angels. Now of course $85 million is a lot of money, but how many of us would leave additional millions on the table when it could be ours for the taking? He said “If 85’s not enough to take care of my family and generations to come then I’m pretty stupid.” A refreshingly honest comment IMHO.

Do you really need an HP Touchpad, even at $100?

The Samsung Galaxy

A funny thing happened on the way to leaving consumer electronics for Hewlett-Packard, its Touchpad became an overnight sensation. Stores are posting signs proclaiming they have no more, people are following HP execs on Twitter to find out when and if more will be available. There are lines at some stores and people are purchasing extras in the hopes of reselling them for expected profits. Still why buy a poorly reviewed product with a now obsolete OS, even if it is at the sale price of $99? A friend of mine who is self employed admitted to me that if he had spent the time working and gaining billable hours rather than fruitlessly waiting in line, he could have purchased a Samsung Galaxy or Apple iPad rather than a tablet that he had not even considered purchasing a week ago.

Can NBC Sports Challenge ESPN? NBC has Sports?

Is NBC Sports trying to go head to head with ESPN? That is the topic of an interesting piece at Sports Business Daily. The idea seems to be establishing a honed, professional approach to the sports it has, Major League Soccer and the NHL. I had not realized that the Versus channel was part of the NBC sports empire. The network has worked hard in the last few months to rid itself of the junk sports programming it had and has lured, if that is the word, MLS from Fox. Still it has quite an uphill battle and I wish it the best. I think that ESPN would really benefit from some stiff competition in sports broadcasting, and maybe force it to deliver a more focused, professional product rather than simply running its talking heads by us at every conceivable moment. I believe that the MLB and NFL networks are also putting pressure on the World Wide Leader.

Filed Under: Baseball, ESPN, FoxSoccer, iPad, Major League Baseball, NBC Sports, Soccer, Sports Business Daily Tagged With: , , , , ,

Could Twitter + Mobile Phones Kill ESPN?

August 19, 2011 by 5 Comments

Seeing the news today about ESPN teaming up with Foursquare to provide a platform for fans at events is evidence that The Mother Ship of sports is doing all it can to keep astride of the latest trends. But as our purposely provacative headline asks, is there a new “broadcast” paradigm emerging that could allow Twitter and fans on mobile phones to become the dominant method of disseminating sports news, opinions and information?

Before you dismiss the idea as crazy, remember that when ESPN debuted in 1979 it was seen as a place where you could watch Australian Rules football and exercise videos. Nobody at the time was guessing that ESPN would eventually replace the major networks or newspapers atop the sports-media scene, but some 30-plus years later that has come to pass.

The way that happened is a long story but one of the key reasons for ESPN’s surge to the top was its ability to satisfy the insatiable American appetite for sports coverage, news and opinions, through strategy (a 24-hour focus on sports) and technology (cable TV). I remember watching SportsCenter one night in the mid-80s when I worked as a sportswriter at a daily newspaper, and hearing my legendary editor Dan Creedon say about the show, “you know, these guys are killing off what we do.”

After watching 30 minutes of highlights and scores on TV moments after the games had finished our typeset page of baseball box scores — which wouldn’t be read until the next morning — seemed hopelessly quaint. Now I am wondering if Twitter and ESPN are at a similar inflection point.

Though ESPN is as out front as possible when it comes to the Web and mediums like Twitter and Facebook, the ability for anyone with an Internet connection to be able to “broadcast” their news, views and opinions at any time at all takes away some of the exclusivity and insider status that ESPN and all other established media brands currently hold.

And while established “voices” in the sporting media will no doubt retain or improve their popularity via the exposure of social media, an area where ESPN has no exclusivity is in direct fan-to-fan or friend-to-friend contact, which has become a huge part of how we enjoy sporting events both live and from the couch. No longer do you have to watch a game and listen to Brent Musberger drone on with Tostitos-laced commentary; you can “gather” a group of BS-trading friends on Twitter, via text message or even in a video chat to share your own observations and comments.

Twitter also allows fans to cherry pick the best content from any major provider who is covering a sport or an event, making Twitter a default aggregator that can take commentary from media types, teams and even the athletes themselves — all at no cost to Twitter. ESPN, meanwhile, needs to keep paying huge fees for exclusive broadcast rights. Which business model would you invest in, going forward?

Though ESPN is probably not going to run out of money anytime soon it’s also worthwhile to think that we probably never imagined that the cable channel that once highlighted caber-tossing would someday run its own awards ceremony or broadcast major league baseball games or take over Monday Night Football. So while it might be unlikely to view Twitter as a potential competitor to ESPN I think it’s worth considering that the “Twitter Channel” is already with us. How it grows and where it goes — especially in the world of sports — is going to be an interesting trek to follow.

Filed Under: ESPN, Live sports via mobile, Top News, Twitter

ESPN Takes Shot at Creating NFL QB Rating Stat

August 16, 2011 by 1 Comment

ESPN has developed a new statistic called the Total Quarterback Rating that it claims will provide an accurate assessment of a NFL quarterbacks’ performance and will factor in a range of variables including strength of opposition.

The QBR program will use a scale of 0-100 with 50 being league average and will have a weighted scale to determine how well important and difficult a pass was in a game, as well as a number of other variables including touchdowns, sacks and QB fumbles, to arrive at a total.

The QBR will also use a host of historical data points such as historical outcomes for teams facing the same down, distance, field position and time remaining. There will also be a Critical Index included that looks at when it happens in a game. Here is how ESPN lays out the calculations for QBR.

ESPN has walked down the path of creating its own statistic at least once before, with its Productive Out in baseball, which it debuted in 2004. This showed how many times a team used a sacrifice or a bunt to move a runner over and purported to show that teams with the most were doing a better job. It fell apart rather quickly as other, better thought out stats were much more indicative of success, and I believe that many of the last place teams led the league in productive outs. Here is ESPN’s explanation as well as a good take down by The Hardball Times. Nowadays productive outs are just a running joke on some baseball web sites.

Does this mean that QBR is fated for the same demise? Probably not, and it does look easier to understand than the somewhat bizarre NFL Quarterback ratings. It uses many of the same factors that other homegrown rating systems use, and simply weights them differently. For instance Football Outsiders’ has its DVOA for quarterbacks and Advanced NFL Stats has several rating systems used for slightly different purposes.

TheBigLeads’ excellent football analyst Jason Lisk has a good piece on why this is probably a good thing for the NFL, and shows who it is aimed at, much more a casual fan rather than one that wants to delve down into the complex statistics of the game. He also compares how the different rating systems reveal slightly different results.

It will be interesting to follow this over the course of the season and see if it remains relevant and how much the WWL touts its own invention. Stay tuned.

Filed Under: ESPN, NFL Tagged With: , , , ,

ESPN kicks up Xbox service in time for College Kickoff

August 8, 2011 by 1 Comment

ESPN plans to launch a revamped version of its ESPN360.com live sports service in time for users to for the start of the college football season. The latest version is designed to give viewers enhanced customization so that they can fine tune their broadcast watching experience.

Slated for release on Aug. 25, which not so coincidentally is just a week before the Sept 1 start of the NCAA Division 1-A season starts, so that if you rush you will be able to watch that Villanova at Temple game that has been intriguing you all off-season. Snide comment aside ESPN will be making over 400 regular season games available as well as 31 bowl games.

The live sport streaming service, available on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming console will now feature a host of additional features and upgrades, with possible the most interesting being the ability to have a split screen so that you can watch two games, or programs, at once.

There are many more ranging from a live college scoreboard, the ability to use a Kinect controller from Microsoft to gain voice control capabilities that will enable a user to pause, rewind, play and skip all using voice control. Upgrades will also allow users to set reminders, receive live alerts if they wish add the ESPN crawler at the bottom of their screen for scores and other sports news. This can be personalized to feature a users favorite sports and teams.

The deal is available to customers of EXPN’s Internet and broadband partners which show ESPN.3 and includes include Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Bright House Networks and Suddenlink Communications.

Filed Under: ESPN, ESPN3, NCAA Football Tagged With: , , , ,

Options Abound to Follow MLB Trades This Week

July 25, 2011 by 1 Comment

One of my favorite days in the baseball season will soon be upon us, as will my least favorite day, oddly they are the same, the first of the two trade deadline days. For those that are not quite clear on the deadline days there are two in baseball. The first, July 31, is for straight trades, player A for player B or money, or draft picks or some combination of these scenarios.

The second deadline, Aug. 31, has a caveat in it, you can trade a player but he must clear waivers first, meaning all teams have an option to pick him up before the deal goes through, with the worst getting first shot.
The reason for the mixed feelings is that sometimes teams I root for make great moves and naturally I like that, much as I enjoy it when teams I dislike make those “what were they thinking” moves. I have it when good players that look to be a good fit for my team get traded for I feel my team could afford to pay, and so on and so forth.

However if you are on the road and are seeking to follow all of the trades, or rumors of trades, it is good to be pre-loaded, so to speak, with all a range of sites that cater to this market segment, as well as to some of the old standbys. If you live in a city that has MLB, and follow that team, then the local newspaper’s on-line sports page is probably your first option.

However for most, the first up is ESPN, which will no doubt be awash with breathless rumors about potential trades as well as what has actually gone down. Then there is Major League Baseball’s own site, where you can go for confirmed trades as well. There are a host of others ranging from Yahoo!Sports to Sports Illustrated.

However there are specialty sites dedicated to this as well, sites such as MLB Trade Rumors, whose name leaves little to the imagination as to what its purpose is, and the name Pro Sports Daily says it all for another. There is one of the granddaddies of sites for fans looking for information on trades and player value, Rotoworld. Others such as Pro Sports Daily have a section dedicated to trades.

For after the fact discussions on trades, as well as a host of other baseball, and often non-baseball topics, look no further than BaseballThinkFactory, one of my favorite places for both on and off topic discussions.

Filed Under: Baseball, ESPN, Major League Baseball, Yahoo Tagged With:

Women’s World Cup Final Available on Sprint Phones

July 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Want to watch the women’s World Cup soccer final game this Sunday but won’t be near a TV? Sprint smartphone users are covered thanks to the carrier’s ability to provide a live stream of the game (which starts at 2:15 p.m. Eastern time) via its ESPN Mobile TV channel on its Sprint TV app.

To watch the U.S. vs. Japan game Sprint users will need to have the “Sprint Everything” data plan which includes unlimited Web, texting and calling while on the Sprint Network. The everything data plans start at $69.99 per month plus a required $10 add-on charge for smartphones.

As I write this I’m watching the British Open live via the Sprint TV app on my Samsung Epic 4G, and the video is pretty good even through a 3G connection. (They are doing an endless loop replay of Tom Watson’s hole in one right now.) Seems like a great alternative for soccer fans who may be out and about when the U.S. and Japan get together to decide the title.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, ESPN, Live sports via mobile, Soccer, Sprint Tagged With: , , , ,
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