Mobile Sports Report Friday Grab Bag: Legos Leap, Ravens Grasp Social Media

It seems that all anyone could talk about at the start of this week was the amazing feat that Felix Baumgartner accomplished by setting a free fall record and breaking the sound barrier while doing so with a jump from 128,097 feet above sea level.

Now you can watch the entire event played out before you, by Legos!

Intel’s weak Q4 Outlook
Intel’s earnings were released this week and they disappointed, with its profits falling 14% amid a decline in sales of personal computers. The company had revenue of $13.6 billion and reported a profit of $2.97 billion.

The company warned about its outlook for the next quarter as it expects demand for personal computers to remain weak and the global economy to be soft. Also an issue is the demand for tablets, which appears to be siphoning away sales, although Intel will be looking to move further into this space when Microsoft releases its Windows 8 operating system later this month.

FBI warns on Android Malware
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has issued a release that said that a number of different malware apps are attacking mobile phones that run the Android operating system. Some of the latest known versions of this type of malware are Loozfon and FinFisher. Loozfon is an information-stealing piece of malware.

IC3 has a list of helpful hints that are designed to help prevent infection or to let you know how to deal with one when it occurs. Among them are use encryption is offered on the phone, use a pass code and be careful with apps that use Geo-locate.

NBC Sports Group in 4-year partnership deal with Formula One
NBC Sports Group will be showing all of the Formula 1 Grand Prix races starting next year including qualifying and practice rounds after it signed a 4-year deal with the Formula One Management. Four races will be on NBC and the remaining 16 will be available on NBC Sports Network.

The 2013 F1 Grand Prix schedule starts next March and runs through November and will include 20 races in 19 countries with the season starting on March 17 in Australia on NBC Sports Network and concludes on Sunday, Nov. 24 in Brazil on NBC.

NPD Group breaks down Windows Surface rumors
Want an advanced look at the forthcoming Windows Surface Tablet? Well we cannot help you there but the NPD Group has taken the trouble to parse down all the rumors and provide what appears to be a solid outline of the product and the company’s plans for it.

It looks as if there will be 3-5 million built and available on the initial run and that it will feature a Tegra processor, 32 and 64GB of flash memory, and a 1377×768 screen with a starting price in the range of $499 for a base model and the next step up at $100 more.

The Baltimore Ravens: Digital Powerhouse
There is an short piece in the Baltimore Sun about how the Ravens have embraced digital and social media as tools to not only reach out and embrace and inform the fans but also as a tool to publish and profit from that experience.

The image with the article is where the meat is, it shows that the team has a unified approach that includes Twitter, Facebook and mobile alerts along with mobile apps and other digital media all tied into its BaltimoreRavens.com site.

Apple loses too cool appeal
Apple has lost its latest legal round with Samsung when Britain’s Court of Appeal backed a lower court’s earlier judgment that Samsung’s Galaxy Tablet did not infringe on Apple iPad copyrights. The reason the lower court used was that the Galaxy is “not as cool” as the iPad.

Can’t we all be friends? Google event to compete with Microsoft’s
It seems that increasingly plotting the date for a hot new release has become a tough chore as a requirement seems to be to steal a rival’s thunder as well as promote your own product. Many believe that Apple’s iPad event that is expected for next week is one such scheduling example.

Now Google has jumped on the bandwagon and is hosting an Android launch event in New York City on Oct. 29, the same day that Microsoft is launching Windows Phone 8 in San Francisco.

Friday Grab Bag: Atlantic 10 Inks Broadcast Deals — Microsoft Surface/Windows 8 Date Unveiled

The Atlantic 10 Conference has just closed a pair of broadcast deals that will enable it to maintain a strong presence on broadcast television. The 9-year deal with NBC Sports calls for the network to nationally televise men’s and women’s basketball games on the NBC Sports Network, as well as select local games on NBC Sports Regional Networks. Included will be the ability to live stream games on NBCSports.com for mobile users starting next year.

ESPN has also reached a new agreement with the conference, one that will extend the existing agreement to broadcast the conference’s men’s and women’s basketball games, including each conference championship. The agreement will begin with the 2013-14 season and conclude in 2021-22 and will continue to include extensive action on ESPNU.

ESPN’s Atlantic 10 programming will be available across the network’s multiple properties including ESPN, ESPN on ABC, ESPN2, WatchESPN, ESPNU, ESPN3, ESPN 3D, ESPN Mobile TV, ESPN Buzzer Beater, ESPN International, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Classic and ESPN.com.

Google/Motorola drops a patent claim against Apple

Motorola Mobility has withdrawn a patent infringement claim against Apple that it had filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission two months ago according to a report in Bloomberg. However it has said that it does reserve the right to refile and that the withdrawal is not due to any agreement between the two companies.

Tablet Global Market sales expected to top $40B this year
Market research firm Global Information has estimated that the worldwide revenue for tablets this year will reach $40.4 billion and that due to a forecast growth rate of 29% year over year it will reach $181.5 billion by 2018.

Tablets have been in the news a great deal lately, with a bevy of new devices hitting the shelves soon from Amazon and Barnes & Noble while the Windows 8 and Apple iPad launches are in the near future. With all of this news it is probably no surprise how well they have been selling.

Samsung wins a small victory over Apple in U.S.
Samsung has convinced the trial judge that heard the case with Apple in the United States to lift the ban on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet. The tablet was one of many devices that Apple sought to have banned after it prevailed in its copyright and patent win in US District Court earlier this year.

Major League Baseball reaches 8-year TV deals with Fox and Turner
Earlier this week Major League Baseball announced an 8-year national media rights agreements with FOX and TBS, which coupled with the deal signed with ESPN earlier will make the teams’ owners very happy. The three contracts will deliver $12.4 billion over their life.

The new deals with Fox and Turner will start in 2014 and allows Fox to keep the All Star game as well as the World Series while the League Championship Series and Division Series will be shared across FOX Sports Media Group (FSMG), TBS and MLB Network. A plus for mobile fans is that the deals include a digital “TV Everywhere” rights to stream televised games and other MLB-related programming online and through mobile devices.

Microsoft confirms Oct. 25 for Windows 8 launch
So mark your calendar and prepare your ‘Is this the iPad killer’ story as Microsoft and its allies will be taking center stage in New York City to show you everything from Intel’s Clover Trail microprocessor to Microsoft’s Surface Tablet.

Intel has said that there are over 20 designs in works with its processor for the platform and showed a few last week, with Hewlett-Packard taking the wraps off of its offering earlier this week. Expect more details by the time of the event from other OEMs.

Microsoft to open pop-up stores next to Apple Stores
If imitation is the highest form of flattery Apple should be pleased with Microsoft. It was reported in Computerworld that Microsoft will start opening ‘pop-up’ stores at malls starting Oct. 26. Interestingly that is the day after it introduces Windows 8.

What makes it interesting is that all of these 32 temporary stores, which will be selling the Surface tablets, 29 are in sites that already have an Apple store. I guess customers will be able to get a good comparison that way.

Watching Golf this Week: The Ryder Cup

It’s really too bad that the Ryder Cup, the biennial golf competition between the U.S. and Europe, takes place in the fall — because that means a lot of fun and interesting golf is going to get lost in the tornado of football this weekend. Fortunately, thanks to the PGA and Turner Sports there’s a boatload of Ryder action taking place online, so get your browsers fired up for Friday morning foursomes. And then some fourballs. What?

Oh yeah, the Ryder Cup’s first two days have something we never see during the regular tour year — team competitions! If you need a how-is-it-scored primer, the BBC has a great one explaining the scoring — but basically foursomes are alternate-shot competitions (meaning each of the two players trades shots) while fourballs are more familiar team play, with everyone playing their own ball and the team with the player with the lowest score wins the hole. Each hole is worth a point, and the team with the higher score at the end wins an overall match point. If the match is tied each team gets a half-point. Singles on Sunday need no explanation. Mano a mano, also match play so it only matters how many holes you win, not your total score.

And after the inflated importance of the FedEx Cup — yes there was some good golf by the big names and congrats to Brandt Snedeker for bagging the big check — there is nothing truer than playing for your country or your continent, no prize money on the line just pressure and pride. This year the Cup is being contested in my home town, Chicago, at the monster known as Medinah. I remember playing there once, just out of high school, thought I had some game, and put something like a 120 on the scorecard. The pros, of course, will be shooting pars and birdies but the scores matter less than the head to head, between the great Euro players led by Rory McIlroy and the U.S. team, led by Tiger Woods.

With live coverage online, on TV and on an app, you have no excuse for not watching some great golf, even if you are also watching football. The great thing about Ryder coverage is that it’s also unlike tournament coverage — there is usually always some tension going on, and the TV folks are usually in a Red Zone-type mode, switching to where the pressure is most high. A great way to end the real golf season. Just wish we didn’t have to be distracted by the return of real refs and all that.

REMEMBER: ESPN for TV Friday, NBC on Saturday and Sunday.

THE 2012 RYDER CUP

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE

Friday, Sept, 28 — ESPN, 8 a.m. — 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 29 — NBC, 9 a.m. — 7 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 30 — NBC, 12 p.m. — 6 p.m.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite)
8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday; 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. The live broadcasts are also available to subscribers on the SiriusXM Internet Radio App and online at SiriusXM.com.

ONLINE / MOBILE APPS
Ryder Cup Live will be online basically the whole tourney, starting at 8:20 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, 12 p.m. on Sunday, and going until competition is over each day. The live video is free (no cable contract required), and mobile viewers can download the iPhone app, the iPad app, or go to the Ryder Cup Mobile Site if you have an Android device.

ESPN3 is also carrying the ESPN broadcast live on Friday.

FACEBOOK PAGE
The PGA Facebook page is the Facebook home of the Ryder Cup.

SOCIAL MEDIA
The Ryder Cup has something called the 13th Man page, similar to the Social Caddy we saw at the PGA. Lots of Twitter streams, a USA vs. Europe Twitter competition, an Instagram feed… worth a bookmark.

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW

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.
Doug Ferguson is the lead golf writer for AP. Good Twitter insights that often aren’t part of your wire-service lead.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
Here’s the deets on Medinah Country Club course.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST TIME?
Europe is the defending champ, if you remember. I remember bad raincoats.

Ryder Cup Gets Big Online Push — Live Video and Social Media Too

Following on their successful joint effort at the season’s last major, the PGA and Turner Sports will kick out the online jams for this week’s Ryder Cup matches, with a lot of free online live video and some social-media bells and whistles that include a U.S. vs. Europe Twitter contest.

According to a press release from Turner and the PGA, the Rydercup.com website will be the host of a wide array of event coverage that will supplement the TV coverage, which is also extensive — 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Eastern) on ESPN on Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on NBC Saturday, and noon to 6 p.m. on NBC Sunday. Online coverage will start Friday and Saturday at 8:30 a.m., and continue until play concludes. Sunday, online coverage of the singles matches starts at noon. The matches are taking place at Medinah Country Club just outside Chicago.

The live video online will probably be similar to the experience we saw at the PGA Championship, with live updates, video archives and scores. There was both good and bad, with a great feature that let you go back and replay anything that had happened previously, and a terrible feature called “predict it” that keeps annoying you in a popup window asking you to predict what’s about to happen. Though sports prediction games are increasingly appearing, I have yet to be convinced that predicting shots in golf online is what the experience is all about.

There is one big whiff, however, on the Ryder Cup mobile side — the accompanying mobile-device apps for all this online goodness only work on iPhones and iPads, leaving half of the mobile consumers who use Android platforms high and dry. Though Turner reps claim the mobile website will work just as well as the iPhone app, any mobile user knows that a dedicated app almost always delivers better performance.

On the social-media side, Rydercup.com will offer a “Tweet Battle” between Team U.S.A. and Team Europe, with a “Social Scoreboard” showing which team is winning, both online and at the course. The score will be tallied by counting the number of fans using the respective hashtags — #RyderCupUSA or #RyderCupEurope — in their social media posts. The event is also on Facebook and on Twitter, with something called “The 13th man” replacing the “Social Caddy” feature from the PGA, where you could follow a bunch of Twitter streams.

The PGA earned itself no small amount of social media self respect by not censoring messages from the PGA, especially when its parking situation at Kiawah Island resulted in a lot of angry fans and media for long delays getting out to the course. Right now it appears the site is taking a very USA-USA-USA stance, which is perhaps understandable, but probably not so appealing to European fans. Not sure if other golf fans agree but I for one would rather we see a return to the days when this competition was more collegiate and friendly, and less jingoistic. You can still compete hard without having to make it a sports equivalent of war. But I may be on the short side of that argument.

Watching Golf this Week: TOUR Championship, aka the $10 Million Tourney

If you decided to watch golf instead of football two weekends ago, you may have caught the star-studded leaderboard (Tiger! Rory! Phil!) at the BMW Championship, which ended with POY top candidate Rory McIlroy winning his second straight tourney, and third of the last four. Going into this week’s TOUR Championship in Atlanta, Rory the lad is the favorite to walk away with the big playoff prize, $10 million to the FedEx Cup champ.

Please don’t ask us to explain the convoluted points system, which “reset” after the last event so that theoretically any of the 30 players in the field this weekend could win the final prize. That is supposed to introduce drama but I think it’s a waste. There are several theories floating around about how to change the “playoffs” to make them exciting or original — why not do playoffs like all other sports, make it head to head (aka match play), and the losers go home? Instead of 30 guys and weirdo mathematical combinations (like last year when Bill Haas didn’t even know he’d won the big enchilada after winning the weekend), why not a “final four” weekend where there are singles match play on Friday and then again on Sunday?

Really, no charge for my ideas. You’re welcome PGA. And FedEx. Though we are going to need to ramp up that online coverage while we’re at it. The last three tourneys of the playoffs have been great since the PGA’s Live@ coverage has been around, but it’s been severely limited — usually only showing a couple holes, still not up to the multiple cam/group choices offered by the Masters online. Ah well, there’s always next year. Just be sure to tune in to the last 15 minutes on Sunday, when the great tension of the playoffs comes to an end and one of the millionaire golfers gets to add another 10-spot to his career earnings. A construct, but $10 million makes you watch.

Bonus TV coverage this week on Golf Channel, starting at 1 p.m. Eastern on Thursday and Friday, and then at 12 p.m. Saturday and 11:30 a.m. Sunday before the NBC broadcasts; also on ESPN3 for those who follow at work; ESPN3 will mimic the Live@ coverage times, 1-6 p.m. each day.

TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP / FEDEX CUP PLAYOFFS

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE

Thursday, Sept. 20 — Golf Channel, 1 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Friday, Sept, 21 — Golf Channel, 1 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 22 — Golf Channel, 12 p.m. — 2 p.m.; NBC, 2 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 23 — Golf Channel, 11:30 a.m. — 1:30 p.m. NBC, 1:30 p.m. — 6 p.m.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite)
12 p.m. — 6 p.m. every day

ONLINE
Live@ video is back this week —
Live@ coverage — 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., every day

ESPN3 will offer live action from 1-6 p.m. each day with unique views of the Par 4 No. 1 hole and the Par 3 No. 11, plus the Par 3 No. 18 each day when play finishes on No. 1.

PGA SHOT TRACKER
If all you want is shots and distances (which can be addicting) get your fix via Shot Tracker, which will definitely be in action at the Barclays.

FACEBOOK PAGE
We don’t know why it’s an all-caps TOUR Championship but here is their FACEBOOK PAGE.

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW

The TOUR Championship Twitter 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.
Doug Ferguson is the lead golf writer for AP. Good Twitter insights that often aren’t part of your wire-service lead.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
Here’s the deets on East Lake GC in Atlanta.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST YEAR?
Bill Haas, with his amazing chip from the waves. Then he had to be told that he won the overall playoffs too. So don’t feel bad, the players are as confused as you are. But they’re also a lot richer.

FEDEX CUP PLAYOFF LEADERS
1. Rory McIlroy, 7,299 points
2. Tiger Woods, 4,067
3. Nick Watney, 3,586
4. Phil Mickelson, 3.420
5. Brandt Snedeker, 3,357

RESET POINTS (used to calculate final FedEx payoff)
1. McIlroy, 2,500 points; 2. Woods, 2,250; 3. Watney, 2,000; 4. Mickelson, 1,800; 5. Snedeker, 1,600.

See the playoff full standings at the PGA site.

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

NBC’s Sunday Night Football Expands Social Media Presence

Sunday Night Football on NBC

I was reading an old NBC Sports press release this morning and an interesting note caught my eye on its growing use of social media as a tool in reaching fans. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all will feature much more prominently in the networks pro football efforts.

The first thing I saw was that for what seems like a first you will be able to get live video updates from the sidelines of Sunday Night Football. It seems that NBC’s broadcast team sideline reporter will be posting updates directly to Twitter.

As the ultimate in mobility, if not image quality, it looks like instead of a traditional camera they will be using an iPhone, according to Mashable, to record the updates that will be provided by reporter Michele Tafoya and then post them to @SNFonNBC.

I think that this is a great idea because it will enable her to expand beyond the role that sideline reporters often seem to fall into such as asking blindingly obvious questions to the coaches and occasionally providing an injury update when they can squeeze them into the broadcast.

During sports broadcasts I do not like the breakways from the action that seem to increasingly occur. ESPN almost ruined Monday Night Football for me by having a guest in the booth and talking with them and showing the conversation rather than the action that was on the field. I did not tune in to hear Mark Wahlberg tout his latest movie!

Apparently the Twitter effort started in the preseason and I managed to miss it, as I followed my tradition of not watching preseason games, or pretty much caring about their results aside from the injury reports.

For the second year NBC will also be employing Instagram as a tool to send images to fans, both ones that it generates from the control truck, field and locker-room but also fan-generated ones as well who can submit via Instagram using #SNF that be sent into a special Instagram tab on the Sunday Night Football Facebook page.

The centerpiece of the social experience will be its Facebook page, Facebook.com/SNFonNBC that will serve as an aggregation site for all of its various properties including NBCSports.com, ProFootballTalk.Com and RotoWorld.com as well as the Twitter feed and the Instagram postings.

I think this is one of the best uses of social media by a broadcaster and shows that as the broadcasters, at least this one, are getting a grasp on the fact that fans view events and gather information about them with a greater variety of media tools than ever before and that reaching them all takes a more concentrated effort.