Rugby’s HSBC Sevens World Series Ends this Weekend

If you are a fan of rugby, and are looking for something to watch this weekend, then you owe it to yourself by tuning into the HSBC Sevens World Series 2011/2012 with the final matches being held in London, England this weekend.

The length of this series makes the NBA and NHL playoffs appear to be short by comparison. Counting this weekend’s games there will have been nine rounds that started last year with the first matches being played November 25-26th. So far New Zealand is in the lead with three series wins and a total of 150 points followed by Fiji at 139 and then England at 123. The United States is tied with Kenya at 11.

I would have watched more of the games but aside from catching a rerun on this week I had no idea that this event was even taking place. I did notice that it does have roughly 88, 000 likes on Facebook but really that is a drop in the bucket compared to other sports. Apparently the second day will be broadcast live in the United States on NBC.

While I do not quite understand all of the rules, even though they have been explained to me more than once, I have to say that I have always enjoyed watching the sport. A while back I was in France when its national team beat New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup and the town I was in celebrated all night. The person in the bar I was in chatted with me all night, apparently failing to notice that I had no idea what he was saying.

I do not want to call this a bad example of marketing yourself because it could be that I just have not been on the right sites or watched the correct program to see when the matches were being held. Still it seems to me that on a sport such as this, which has a large international following but a small, yet avid US following, a bit of marketing might be in order.

Part of the issue could also be just the way that I find out what is on the television at night. I often just look in the local paper, although I am breaking that habit. The problem is that the local paper does not always list all of the games that will be on- mine often misses Cubs baseball on WGN, football on the NFL Network and baseball on MLB’s network.

Hopefully events like this, and non US mainstream sports such as cycling and sailing will get more media savvy and learn how to get their message, and news about their events, out to the viewing public.

Looking for NBA Games? BuddyTV wants to Guide You

One of the challenges to following sports playoffs is that the games are often carried on multiple channels, sometimes overlapping time slots and sometimes not- the question is where is the game? Well BuddyTV Guide is seeking to solve that question.

BuddyTV Guide is a free app that has been available for some time for Apple iOS and Android owners, but it has added a feature that targets fans of the current NBA playoffs and should enable them to more easily follow the various contests.

The app has added an “NBA Playoffs” feature that will enable users to find all of the games from now until the end of time, or rather until the NBA Championship end. It has automatic updates and is designed to use local airtime and channels so no worries about thinking a game starts in ET and it is not.

The nice thing about this feature in my mind is that as teams are eliminated and advance the listings automatically update themselves so that they are always current. This brings to 4 the number of curated lists at BuddyTV, the others are Most Popular, Watch List and Upcoming all of which update automatically each time a user logs in.

The NBA Guide brings to 4 the number of curated lists at BuddyTV, the others are Most Popular, Watch List and Upcoming all of which update automatically each time a user logs in.

At a basic level BuddyTV Guide is designed for a user to log in to their cable, sync it with the app and then program in your favorite shows and channels. You can have it not follow channels that you are not interested in as well. It will also make recommendations based on previous viewing history and favorites.

The smartphone can act as a remote control and is also compatible with a range of additional devices including AT&T U-verse receivers, DirecTV DVRs, Sony Internet TV with Google TV, Logitech Revue, TiVo Series 3, TiVo Premier, and any devices controlled by Google TV and Samsung Smart TVs.

There are other solutions to finding games such as NBC’s local channel finder for the NHL playoffs, but that is an online feature rather than a phone app, which is a bit more convenient.

I like this and hope it is a trend of the future. Some leagues, particularly the NFL are relatively easy to know when and at what time the games are played while others such as, well pretty much everybody else has a much more varied schedule that is more difficult to follow.

The NFL Metes out Punishment to Saints Players — This could be a Long Battle

After a week delay NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has come down on the New Orleans Saints players that were most active in the notorious bounty program installed by defensive coach Gregg Williams by suspending four players for various lengths of time.

Suspended without pay are Jonathan Vilma for the entire 2012 season, Anthony Hargrove (now a Green Bay Packer) was given an eight game suspension, Will Smith was suspended for four games and Scott Fujita, now with the Cleveland Browns, was given three games. Vilma’s was the most sever because he supposedly put his own cash up for anyone that would injure Brett Favre in the 2010 NFC Championship game.

The four players are not taking this sitting down and have already pledged to fight the issue in the courts as well as appealing the ruling. I did a quick look and cannot find anybody that has won an appeal from Goodell, I guess that might be because he has to decide if his original ruling was correct and he goes with his first impression.

The court battle could be a protracted affair and I wonder of a judge will order the league to let the players participate n games while the matter is being disputed? I wonder how Goodell will react to being over ruled by a judge, if that happens?

On top of the lawsuit and the appeal, the NFL Players Association has issued a short release that simply said that the NFL has still not provided it with details or specific evidence of these players involvement in the pay-to-injure program.

There is one other interesting aspect to this mess, and that is the numerous lawsuits against the NFL regarding concussions will take a good look at this program At least one of the has already cited the bounty program, that only leaves about 50 lawsuits and 1,200 plaintiffs to go!

London Olympics Creates Online Social Hub for Athletes and Fans to Mingle

If you are looking to follow your favorite athletes at this year’s Summer Olympics, the governing body has just set up a system that will enable you to do just that with both famous and those that hope to soon to be famous.

The International Olympics Committee has set up a site called the Olympics Athlete Hub, an effort that hopes to enable fans to make connections with the athletes that are participating in this year’s games as well as past performers.

What the hub does is simply aggregate the Twitter and Facebook feeds of the athletes and provide a single unified spot that brings them all together. A quick look over at the page shows that currently three of the five players are American NBA players.

Once you sign up you can search the athlete directory by athlete name, country, sport, discipline or event. There already 1,000 athletes in the hub and this will grow as qualifying for events is ongoing and as athletes qualify they will be added. There are also former Olympiads such as Mark Spitz, Nadia Comaneci, Edwin Moses, Yelena Isinbaeva, and Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, who pass along tips on training.

Users of the service can post photos and also win prizes for liking athletes on Facebook and following them on Twitter, and the site is expected to roll out a number of additional award programs leading up to the games, including one that can send the winner to the games.. During the games the site will feature a section that will feature real-time chats with athletes that will take place from within the Athletes’ Village.

It really seems that the Olympics as an organization truly understand the advantages of social media as well as the reach and power that a major on-line presence brings. With its broadcast partners making all events online and highlights that can be followed on YouTube it is certainly much easier to follow the contests easier than possibly any other sporting event in the world.

Friday Grab Bag: The Olympics are 98 Days Away!

Next week in pro football news, the ever popular draft is coming. One interesting thing about the NFL regular season schedule being released this week is that Las Vegas already has lines on the games! Not sure if it is time yet to lay a dime on Green Bay giving the points however.

Intel delivers high capacity solid state drives for consumers
Intel has delivered the Solid-State Drive 330 Series, a lineup that is directly targeted at the consumer market. Now being a consumer you might wonder why you would want one of these drives and the answer is easy. They have the capacity to store your growing digital music/video/images collection that might not fit on your smartphone or tablet, or even computer.

The drives will be available in the 60GB, 120GB and 180GB capacities and is a SATA 6Gb/s-based SSD. The difference between a SSD and what is probably in your computer is that a traditional hard disk drive has rotating material and so is much more prone to damage from dropping or other accidents. A SSD is what is in your smartphone, or at least the underlying technology is.

Exercise cycle delivers feedback wirelessly
Ever ridden an exercise bike and found that the data that it provided was worthless, or like at my gym, the data technology always seems to be broken? Well a company called Body Bike wants to fix all that with a wireless solution that can provide feedback using Ant + wireless technology developed by Ant Wireless.

The Body Bike Connect uses the wireless technology to send a wide range of information including VO2 max, calories, distance, and average, percentage and maximum values to an Ant enabled console. It also can be used to handle personalized settings.

Foursquare tops 20 million users
Now I have to admit I am not a Foursquare user. I don’t care that you are buying a cup of coffee or getting your haircut. Why do you think that is interesting to anybody but stalkers and home thieves? Well enough of the rant, as I see that the location-based check-in service startup has 20 million users, up from 15 million in December.

Google’s Motorola plans driving partners to rivals?
There is growing speculation that part of Google’s plans for its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility is to emulate what Apple is currently doing, becoming a vertically integrated developer. What that means is that it would develop the hardware, the operating system and possibly even the chip, for future Android devices. Currently it helps partners design products that are sold as Nexus systems.

This would make it very tough for partners to compete with Google’s own products, and could be a major impetus for them to look for alternatives. While Apple’s iOS is out two alternatives remain that already have at least a bit of mainstream acceptance.

The two are Research in Motion, which reportedly is in talks to license its technology to Samsung. The second and possibly more viable alternative is Microsoft. Its Windows 8 is due soon and it has Intel helping to promote the technology.

Apple and Samsung to settle?
Among the many patent battles being fought across the globe, two of the bigger participants are Apple and Samsung with over 20 cases between the two pending, and now it looks the top bosses will be talking face to face about how to settle the issues.

The two companies have agreed to settlement talks that will be presided over by a San Francisco-based magistrate judge. At the meeting are expected to be Apple chief executive Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Choi Gee-sung, as well as the general counsel for both companies.

BBC will stream all Olympic games
The BBC is taking an aggressive broadcasting stance for the upcoming Summer Olympics. With the games in its own backyard the broadcasting giant said that it will be broadcasting up to 24 streams of live HD sports to cable and satellite broadcasters for television viewing.

This will enable viewers to watch every Olympic sport, if they were so inclined. The move is an expansion of its previous plan that had called for all of the games to only be broadcast online. In addition it will be broadcasting on BBC One and BBC 3 as well as radio coverage.

This move, coupled with NBC Sports promising to put a huge amount of the games online mean that viewers can now see events that they wish to rather than simply the ones that the broadcasters have determined that viewers want.

No Greek Warship for Olympics?
A Greek trireme powered by 170 rowers has been scratched from the opening ceremonies of the upcoming London Olympics- the reason is that they are afraid that it will be too popular, causing I guess people to actually want to come to the opening ceremony.

That is really too bad because it not every day you see a replica of the Olympias, an ancient warship that was used in one of history’s most important battles sailing by. I hope they are not planning on canceling the basketball portion of the Olympics because I hear that is very popular as well.

NBC Launches Olympics Site, Pledges to ‘Stream Everything’ Online

Call it the fully online Olympics: In a news release today NBC said it would put as many events as possible from this year’s Summer Olympics online, often live as they happen from London. “If cameras are on it, we’ll stream it,” said Rick Cordella, vice president and general manager of NBC Sports Digital Media, in a report from the New York Times. The content will be offered free at NBCOlympics.com, a new site which launched Wednesday with the games 100 days away.

With digital viewing of live sports on the increase everywhere, it’s no surprise that NBC is going to show as much of the Olympics as it can. With high-profile partners like Cisco and AT&T helping flesh out the technical infrastructure, NBC should be well prepared for the expected online onslaught. Like the Masters and other events occuring over long periods of time at non-U.S. prime time hours, the Olympics are tailor-made for asynchronous viewing on mobile platforms. You could even say that the Olympics are the perfect event for online, on-demand viewing since many of the sports aren’t mainstream but have devoted followers who for years had to go through bizarre hoops just to find coverage of their beloved events, like curling or equestrian.

And it’s a good bet that people who watch an event live on a mobile platform will return later that day or the next day to watch a produced version of the event on the regular TV shows; so far all stats for online viewerships show that having more content online only increases the regular broadcast audience of an event.