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Watching Golf this Week: The John Deere Classic, and Senior Open

July 12, 2012 by 1 Comment

So who needs the big names? If you, like me, watched the end of last weekend’s Greenbrier tourney you saw some top-notch golf from guys I guarantee you never heard of before — and saw Ted Potter Jr. show off some stones, going eagle-birdie to get into a playoff with um, um, with… oh yeah, Troy Kelly, and win.

I love these guys. Tiger who? Phil who? The anonymous-guy PGA could continue this weekend as the pros head to a spot near and dear to my heart — western Illinois, aka Quad Cities territory — for some Midwestern heat, corn bugs, fireflies and the John Deere Classic, where Steve Stricker will be trying to win the thing for the fourth time in a row. And just for good luck, Stricker’s wife will be carrying his bag.

With Zach Johnson as your highest-ranked star, it’s a field that may have you saying “who’s he” a bunch. But as last week showed, maybe that’s not so bad.

So if you need a bunch of birdies before tuning in to the wind and gorse at the British Open next week, head on over to the Golf Channel and CBS (no online video this week) for a taste of the Midwest.

BONUS GOLF COVERAGE: If the John Deere isn’t your cup of tea — or even if it is, don’t forget that the U.S. Senior Open also takes place this week, in Lake Orion, Mich. See below for TV, which is basically ESPN Thursday-Friday and NBC Saturday-Sunday. There may be some online action via WatchESPN, but you need a compatible cable contract if so.

Here’s where to follow the action:

THE JOHN DEERE CLASSIC

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE
Thursday, July 12 — Golf Channel, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Friday, July 13 — Golf Channel, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Saturday, July 14 — CBS, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Sunday, July 15 — CBS, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.

U.S. SENIOR OPEN TV
Thursday, July 12 — ESPN, 3 p.m. — 7 p.m.
Friday, July 13 — ESPN2, 3 p.m. — 7 p.m.
Saturday, July 14 — NBC, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Sunday, July 15 — NBC, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite)
12 p.m. — 6 p.m., Thursday, Friday and Saturday; 11 a.m. — 6 p.m., Sunday

ONLINE
No Live@ video this week — the PGA’s live online video doesn’t return until the Barclays in late August, so you will need to get your online fix from…

PGA SHOT TRACKER
If all you want is shots and distances (which can be addicting) get your fix via Shot Tracker.

FACEBOOK PAGE
Of course the John Deere Classic has a Facebook page. Like it.

And don’t forget the Senior Open Facebook page.

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW
The John Deere Classic has its own feed.
Geoff Shackelford — well known golf writer. If you’re not following Geoff you are missing the online boat.
Golf Channel — official Golf Channel feed
@PGATOUR — official PGA Twitter feed
@StephanieWei — great golf writer who is a Twitter fiend. Check her Instagram stream for some cool shots of the Homestead, one of our favorite places.
Doug Ferguson is the lead golf writer for AP. Good Twitter insights that often aren’t part of your wire-service lead.

TOURNAMENT APP
This is new — at least to us — but if you are there the John Deere Classic has its own app, which looks like it has all the stuff the regular PGA app has plus some local info. Download away.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
The tourney has some fine info on the TPC Deere Run. Here’s the course’s own website.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST YEAR?
Stricker. And the year before. And the year before.

LOCAL FLAVOR
I love that Wikipedia names five cities for the Quad cities. In the old days the hard one to get in trivia answers was East Moline, which if memory serves was bigger than Moline itself. Argue in the comments if you know better. We’ll link to the Quad Cities Times for our local coverage.

FEDEX CUP LEADERS
1. Tiger Woods, 1,952 points
2. Jason Dufner, 1,849
3. Hunter Mahan, 1,654
4. Bubba Watson, 1,617
5. Matt Kuchar, 1,423

See the full standings for the FedEx Cup points list.

WORLD GOLF RANKINGS
1. Luke Donald; 2. Rory McIlroy; 3. Lee Westwood; 4. Tiger Woods; 5. Webb Simpson.
See the official World Golf Ranking list.

Filed Under: Apps, CBS Sports, ESPN, Golf, Golf Channel, NBC Sports, PGA, Tiger Woods, US Open, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

All Wimbledon All the Time Pays off for ESPN: Digital Viewership Soars

July 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

ESPN’s decision to make available all of the recent Wimbledon’s matches has paid off with record viewership both for broadcast and online as the company cashed in on its bet to broadcast the entire tournament.

The digital demand saw a massive increase, just as ESPN’s broadcast of the recent Euro 2012 Tournament, showing the strong growth in interest in watching sports via more than just traditional broadcast medium.

Viewership for the Ladies’ Championship was up 5% from the previous year while for the Gentlemen’s it was up 39% over 2011’s match, and there were many additional highlights over the course of the two week tournament.

ESPN reports that its overall audience grew, that it grew younger (a good sign for the sport) and that overall it had five of the top ten most viewed Wimbledon matches that it has broadcast in a decade this year.
The overall ratings matched last year’s shared broadcast, when the tournament broadcast was shared with NBC and shown on ESPN2. For this year as the sole broadcaster ESPN’s ratings were up an average 40%.

The Gentlemen’s Championship lead the way with Roger Federer’s four match victory over Andy Murray bringing in ESPN’s all time highest rated match with a 2.9 coverage rating.

ESPN reported that across all of its digital platforms demand was nearly triple compared to last year. ESPN3/WatchESPN registered 126 million live minutes of viewing across all platforms, up 182 percent from 2011 lead by the Federer vs. Murray match which drew in 23.6 million live minutes watched, significantly better than the second best numbers ported on Friday, July 7 of 16.2 million.

Filed Under: ESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN3, Tennis, WatchESPN, Wimbledon Tagged With: ,

Friday Grab Bag: ESPN’s Strong Euro, Archos $250 Tablet

July 6, 2012 by 1 Comment

ESPN followed Spain’s’ lead and finished strong in the Euro 2012, bringing in its strongest soccer ratings to date. The broadcaster reported double and triple digit increases in viewers across all of its platforms that carried the matches.

The finals match that featured Italy against Spain, won by Spain 4-0, set a record as the most-watched UEFA Championship game in the United States and was watched by an average audience of 4.068 million viewers. This represented an 8% increase from four years ago from the Spain vs. Germany match.

For the whole of the tournament, which took place over a three week period and featured 31 matches, ESPN’s English language presentation had a 51% viewership increase from 2008. Its digital properties were in some ways even stronger with 900,000 unique viewers on its ESPNFC.Com and ESPNSoccernet.com , up 54% and 28% respectively while mobile usage across its platforms was up 497%.

Samsung fails to block injunction
A US Court has denied Samsung’s request for a stay on a preliminary injunction against the company that is preventing it from selling its Galaxy Nexus smartphone as well as for a similar injunction against it selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet.

The injunctions are the result of a ruling in a long running patent dispute between Samsung and Apple. The company wanted the suspension while it takes its case to the US Court of Appeals, according to an article in Infoworld.

Tablets to outsell notebooks in four years
A report from the research firm NPD Display Search predicted that notebooks will be supplanted by tablets and the mobile computing device of choice by 2016. It said that notebook sales will continue to increase, from an estimated 208 million units this year to 393 million units by 2017.

However during that same time span tablet sales will grow at a much faster pace, increasing from 121 million units this year to an estimated 416 million units by 2017. Among that factors that will fuel the growth are its improved portability and battery life when compared to notebooks.

Apple loses patent round in UK
While Apple has managed to block Samsung in the US, to a degree, it has failed in a similar suit in the United Kingdom, where the courts have ruled against it in a fight with HTC. The high Court ruled that HTC did not infringe on Apple’s photo management patent.

It also ruled that three additional patents that were in dispute were invalid, including apple’s ‘slide to unlock’ feature, according to TechWorld. If Apple had succeeded in its cases it would have affected both tablet and smartphone products from HTC.

Archos unveils 97 Carbon Tablet
Archos has taken the wraps off of its latest tablet, the Archos 97 Carbon. It features a 9.7-inch display with 1024 x 768 pixels that is capable of running 1080p HD video. The 1.5 pound tablet features 16GB built-in storage and supports an additional 16GB via either a SDHC card or a USB flash drive.

The tablet features a mini-HDMI port and has 1GB of memory. It runs the current Android 4.0 operating system and is powered by a 1GHz ARM Cortex processor. The starting price for the table is expected to be $250.

Recapp adds Summer Olympics news
Sports news aggregator Recapp has added support for the upcoming Summer Olympics in London. The app, which brings the leading news stories on user selected sports topics has expanded its support so that now you can follow your favorite teams and events during the games with articles from a wide source of news outlets including Sports Illustrated and ESPN.

A tale of two smartphones
Samsung, developer of some of the most popular smartphones, has reported that its latest quarter had a profit of $5.9 billion with earnings from its mobile phone division more than doubling in the quarter as Galaxy sales soared.

On the flip side is HTC, which had a very poor quarter, reporting that its net profits fell 58% from the same quarter a year ago, with a net profit of $247 million and it said that the current quarter’s outlook is cloudy due to increased competition.

LUMOback- the anti-couch potato device?
A sensor and app designed for better posture? That is what LUMOback is designed to provide. The sensor pad fits in your chair and vibrates when you slouch in your chair and provides feedback to your iPhone in an effort to promote good posture. Android and other platform support is on the horizon, the company said. The project on Kickstarter has already exceeded its $100,000 goal. I wonder if it is a comfortable vibration because I could get a pretty good massage while watching the NFL.

Rumors de jour
Amazon is planning on fighting back against Google and others by introducing its own smartphone and is looking to buy patents in that space first. Amazon has declined to comment.

It also looks like the next generation Kindle, the Kindle Fire 2, will be available in the fall as well. This is not really a surprise considering how hot the original Fire sales were during last year’s holiday season.

Is Apple preparing a mini iPad for Fall introduction, many sources say so. Numerous sites and news agencies have reported that a 7-inch version is on the way in order to fight Amazon, Google and others that are concentrating in this space.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, ESPN, ESPN FC, ESPN3, Euro 2012, FTC, Google, HTC, iPad, iPhone, Kickstarter, Kindle, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Olympics, PCWorld, Samsung, Smartphone, Soccer, Tablets, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , , , ,

BCS Playoff Gains Approval while ESPN Extends its Rose Bowl Relationship

June 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Earlier this week the second round of approvals needed for the creation of a playoff to decide the BCS Championship made it with flying colors as conference commissioners and university presidents and chancellors came to an agreement on the topic.

There are still a number of issues that need to be decided, but most of these are simply housekeeping issues. Among the topics are: Ink a new TV deal and work out how the revenue sharing will work, and of course what is the new name for the playoffs. The composition and election of the selection committee that will determine the playoff teams is also a topic that needs to be worked out. I wonder if they will also create a new trophy?

The move will end the reign of the BCS Championship Series after next year, when the four team playoff is scheduled to begin. There are a number of people that have called for a larger number of teams to be allowed in the playoffs, but that seems unlikely at least in the near term and the current playoff plan is slated to run for 12 years starting in 2014.

The semifinals will rotate between six bowl games and the final game will be put out to bid for host cities just like the NFL’s Super Bowl. It had appeared earlier that the bowl games had already been decided but it now looks like that is not true. The marketing activity to be included should be tremendous in the upcoming year.

At the WWL ESPN the news is that it has reached an agreement for a 12 year extension of its broadcasting the Pasadena Tournament of Roses with the Pas-12 and the Big Ten Conferences. Starting in 2015, after the current deal expires, the deal will continue ESPN’s broadcasting of the Rose Bowl.

ESPN could, and most likely will, get a nice bonus from the deal if the BCS Playoff system selects the Rose Bowl as a playoff site, as the agreement is expected to cover that opportunity as well. The Rose Bowl is the site of the 2014 BCS Championship already.

All of the games will be played on Jan 1 at 5 pm ET except for the years that the 1st is on a Sunday. The broadcasts will span much more that television and will include, ESPN Radio, ESPN Mobile TV and can be seen on smartphones, tablets, online and on Xbox LIVE via WatchESPN and will be available on ESPN 3D .

Filed Under: BCS, ESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN3, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA Football, Rose Bowl, WatchESPN Tagged With: , ,
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