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It’s Madness Time: Join the MSR Bracket, Follow the NIT @ ESPN

March 12, 2012 by 2 Comments

Is anyone getting any work done today, or is everyone filling out brackets? If you are looking for a place to show the world your NCAA hoops savvy look no farther than the inaugural MSR Bracket Challenge. Hosted over at ESPN, of course, the group is public so come one come all. If you are searching for the group its title is the “MSR Bracket Challenge.” We’ll think of some cool prize for winning; if any sponsors want to step up with some schwag hit me with an email to kaps at mobilesportsreport.com.

Also: If your team didn’t make the dance (Sorry Washington fans!) you will probably be headed over to ESPN since the WWL has the rights to the National Invitation Tournament, including some games shown only online at ESPN3. Here’s the full NIT broadcast schedule.

And here’s a great post from The Big Lead showing NCAA broadcast times and (most importantly) which announcing crews will be on hand.

UPDATE: How cool is this? A CBS Sports interactive map of the tournament field.

Filed Under: About MSR, Contests, ESPN, ESPN3, NCAA Hoops, The Big Lead, truTV, Turner Sports, WatchESPN Tagged With: ,

ESPN: Online Audience for College Hoops Soaring — Now Just Wait Until the iPad 3 Arrives!

March 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Even before the new Apple iPad arrived to save humanity and burn through wireless data plans, ESPN said that people watching college hoops on small screens this season set new records, with 1.6 billion total minutes and 283 million visits across the worldwide leader’s various online entities, representing increases of 16 percent and 5 percent respectively compared to 2010-11.

While these stats aren’t really unexpected — I mean, what’s not to like about watching hoops on an iPad? — it is pretty amazing on one hand to consider that in just a few short years mobile devices like the iPhone, Android phones and the iPad and its imitators have become fixtures in the sports-audience landscape. Want more stats? The most-viewed game online this year, according to figures provided to us by ESPN, was the Duke-North Carolina game on Feb. 8, with 4.4 million online minutes generated across computers, smartphones and tablets.

ESPN called that event the “most watched college basketball game ever” for online, but we are betting that it gets quickly eclipsed sometime during the upcoming NCAA men’s tournament, when all those shiny new iPad 3s get turned on and tuned in.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, ESPN, ESPN3, NCAA Hoops, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , ,

ESPN to Broadcast UEFA European Football Championship 2012

March 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Good news for football fans ESPN will have games in June. Sorry I did not mean to get you excited if you misunderstood, it is not American football but the European style, when it broadcasts the UEFA European Football Championship 2012.

The network is staying true to its word about expanding and deepening its coverage of the sport in the US and it will be doing so with all of the tools at its disposal, live broadcasts, tape delayed, mobile and Internet coverage as well.

The broadcasts will be spread across three of its channels with some overlap starting with ESPN Desportes taking the lead with a total of 27 live matches and four tape-delayed ones for a total of 106 hours of programming.

Second at bat will be ESPN with 22 matches as well as pre- and post- game shows while ESPN3 will have six matches and the additional pre-and post-game programming as well. All 31 of the matches will be available on ESPN Deportes Radio, WatchESPN and 25 matches will be live on ESPN Mobile TV. All broadcast games will be in HD for the first time.

While pre- and post-game shows are a staple for American football fans this will mark the first time that ESPN will be including them in its UEFA broadcasts and including some of the traditions such as the teams walking onto the pitch, the national anthems and ceremonial handshakes that are a cornerstone of European pregame ceremonies.

The tournament begins Friday, June 8, and runs through Sunday, July 1, in eight cities across Poland and Ukraine. If you are on vacation, graduating from school, or working during the games all 31 matches will be archived and can only be accessed on ESPN3 through July 31, 2012, and non-exclusively through the end of the year. All matches will be available for replay on ESPN3 shortly after completion.

Filed Under: ESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN3, Soccer Tagged With: , ,

Friday Grab Bag: ESPN3 and Facebook Team for Hoops Tournaments

March 2, 2012 by 1 Comment

Facebook and ESPN Team on Conference Tournaments
For much of the next two weeks ESPN3 and Facebook will combine to show coverage of all of the myriad college conference basketball games in both the men’s and women’s brackets. This means that users will have access to all 225 live broadcasts.

ESPN3 has indicated that while this is its first partnering with Facebook it will not be its last as it seeks to leverage the huge audience that the social media giant commands. As ESPN3 vice president Damon Phillips said “We see this as a big opportunity. You fish where the fish are.”

However in keeping with the mantra that there is no such thing as a free lunch not all users will be able to access the games from Facebook. If you have a cable TC carrier or a broadband hookup from a carrier that broadcasts ESPN3, then you get the games for. If not, you are on the outside looking in with no games.

Siri now more insufferable?
I actually like Siri and have found the voice to be very helpful when I have used someone’s iPhone that has the technology, it is just the people showing me how many tricks that they can make it do that really annoys me.

Well now they have a new venue as Mercedes-Benz has integrated the Siri into it’s a-Class cars. The Drive Kit Plus will integrate the iPhone with the cars’ electronic platform. This will allow the Mercedes-Benz’ Digital DriveStyle App to display iPhone apps on the infotainment system screen, according to Cnet.

It will be at Mercedes-Benz’ discretion as to which apps the user can add and control but there will be some such as Twitter, Facebook and Aupeo Personal Radio will be available.

Yahoo joins in the patent fun!
Yahoo has been meeting with Facebook to resolve issues regarding a group of Yahoo patents that it asserts are being used by Facebook in a variety of applications including ads, privacy controls, news feeds, and messaging services.

The exact number of patents is not clear and has been reported as being between 10-20, now is the dollar value that Yahoo is placing on these patents. Yahoo has not taken the step of filing suit and the move is being widely viewed as an attempt to paint a positive picture of Yahoo’s overall patent portfolio as a positioning move in case the company can find a suitor to buy it.

Apps can steal your photos?
It is starting to seem that every new day brings a new manner in which data can ‘leak’ from your smartphone. The latest, courtesy of the New York Times, is that there is a group of apps that can copy a user’s entire photo library with no alert.

The problem is, at least so far, confined to iOS devices such as the iPad and the iPhone and appears to ask a user for location information and if that is approved it not only gathers that information but also downloads photos as well to a remote server. I hope it gets mine in focus, I never can

Mozilla helps you track who is tracking you
In a case of turning the tables on data trackers, Mozilla has created a Firefox add-on called Collusion, an experimental program that is designed to enable you to see who is tracking your activity across the web.

The program uses a simple, easy to understand format. As you browse the web a graph is produced showing sites represented as dots. Red for ones that are known trackers, gray for ones that might track you. You can hover your cursor over a dot for more information. It is interesting to see the interplay between sites and how fast sites that you do not visit are now tracking you. The program also allows you to turn off tracking.

Intel Capital Launches Connected Car Fund
Intel Capital has launched a $100 million fund that is dedicated to developing new technologies in automobiles. The Connected Car Fund will invest across the board in hardware, software and service companies that are developing technologies for cars.

The range of areas is large with the company expecting to invest in areas such as information and entertainment systems, wireless connectivity, mobile devices and driver assist technologies. The global fund will seek to invest in all stage companies over the next three to five years.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, ESPN3, Facebook, Intel Capital, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA Hoops, Smartphone, The New York Times, Yahoo Tagged With: , ,

ESPN Scores With Digital Australian Open Viewers

February 1, 2012 by 1 Comment

We’re still waiting on some final viewer numbers but according to ESPN digital viewing of the recent Australian Open is up over last year, with the “average minute audience” for the various ESPN platforms covering the event (ESPN.com, the ESPN mobile Web, ScoreCenter, ESPN3 and WatchESPN) up 12 percent from last year.

The digital increase makes sense, especially among a U.S. audience since the Australian Open is one of those U.S. prime-time challenged events, taking place in the wee hours of our mornings when you might be more likely to be sitting in front of a PC screen, tablet or phone instead of keeping everyone else in the house awake with the TV on. Here’s more from ESPN on the digital viewership:

During the two weeks, the tennis section on ESPN.com was up 91 percent in average daily unique visitors and up 177 percent in average daily visits. The ESPN mobile Web tennis section also saw a 54 percent increase in average daily unique visitors and an average minute audience up 36 percent. ESPN3 and WatchESPN generated 113.2 million minutes consumed, up 88 percent compared to the previous year.

Filed Under: ESPN, ESPN3, Live Sports Video Consumption, SportsCenter, WatchESPN Tagged With: ,

Who Will Build a Kindle for Sports? Millions of Fans Await the Answer

January 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

One great comment I heard at CES in Las Vegas this week was that tablet computers are “the killer app for watching video.” To that I would add a caveat: Tablets could also become the complete killer app for watching sports in a mobile fashion, if and only if the leagues, cellular providers and broadcasters could come to some workable agreement on viewing rights. What could make all that happen quickly? Why not something like Amazon’s Kindle, but instead of books, have it devoted to sports?

The real revolution started by the Kindle isn’t the cool technology behind the device itself. Instead it’s the simple pricing and content procurement method which eliminates the need for consumers to care about the cellular connection and simply allows them to pay for the books they want to read. If only sports could be so simple.

In the real world, we know it’s far from easy to get sports content on your mobile device. Just trying to definitively describe how you could get Monday’s BCS Championship game to show live on a mobile device took a weekend’s worth of reporting and numerous email exchanges with the supremely helpful ESPN folks. It’s not all ESPN’s fault that its mobile offerings are so constricted, but the fees ESPN charges cable providers play a part in the snarl of rights and access barriers that make mobile sports viewing such a pain in the rear.

The hope here at MSR is that all parties concerned learn some lessons from the digital music business, where a simple store and powerful simple device — iTunes and iPod — led to an explosion in sales of music, videos, podcasts and now books too. The Kindle is an extension of the iPod/iTunes simplicity to the mobile ecosystem, eliminating the concerns about how much data you’re downloading and whether or not you are exceeding your monthly mobile limits. Why not build one tailored for sports, with the connectivity costs and rights fees built in? If half a million people went through the maze of tasks necessary to watch the BCS game online, what could the size of that audience be if folks could walk down to Best Buy, pick up a “KindleSports” and start watching immediately?

At another CES panel I heard representatives from the major motion picture houses talk about how mobile video is no longer a future thing, but a booming business already grabbing millions of viewers and the associated advertiser interest. It’s time for sports entities to get into the game in a similar big way, and a KindleSports would be a great way to start. I would be just one of the millions waiting in line to buy one.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, AT&T, BCS, ESPN, ESPN3, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA Football, Tablets, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , , , ,
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