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ESPN3 Provides College Football Fix this Weekend

April 12, 2012 by

Missing college football, and to make matters worse, that huge pile of receipts and miscellaneous paperwork that represents your taxes adamantly refused to do itself? Well look to ESPN, specifically ESPN3 for a touch of stress relief as its starts broadcasting spring college football games.

The channel will be hopping around the various conferences and will have games from the ACC, SEC, Big 12 and Pac-12 on its slate. To top it off it will not be teams that you have to scratch your head about and wonder which state they are in, almost all look to be ranked when the season starts later this year.

Even better news is that this weekend is just the start of a three week span in which games will be broadcast, with 10 on Saturday, then an additional 7 the following week and a lone Oregon spring football program on the 28th.

Teams that will be included in the broadcasts include — Alabama, Georgia, Oregon, West Virginia, Florida State, South Carolina, Arkansas, Virginia Tech and Clemson. Six games are exclusive to ESPN3 while the rest will have some local blackout issues. The Florida State game will also be simulcast on ESPNU.

So now freshly armed with new ammunition in your procrastination arsenal, stock up on beer and chips and get ready for some football. The real advantage is that you can be watching the streaming service anywhere, so you can appear to be at your desk wondering why you thought that you could write off a $135 Taco Bell dinner, or even how you managed to spend that much there while watching your favorite team.

All times ET
Sat, Apr 14
1 p.m. South Carolina Spring Football ESPN3*

2 p.m. Miami (Fla.) Spring Football ESPN3

2:15 p.m. Virginia Spring Football ESPN3

3 p.m. Alabama Spring Football ESPN3

Auburn Spring Football ESPN3

Georgia Spring Football ESPN3

North Carolina Spring Football ESPN3*

4 p.m. Florida State Spring Football ESPN3*

Clemson Spring Football ESPN3

7 p.m. Vanderbilt Spring Football ESPN3

Sat, Apr 21
2 p.m. Tennessee Spring Football ESPN3

Ole Miss Spring Football ESPN3

3 p.m. Arkansas Spring Football ESPN3

3:30 p.m NC State Spring Football ESPN3*

4 p.m. Virginia Tech Spring Football ESPN3*

6 p.m. West Virginia Spring Football ESPN3

6 p.m. Mississippi State Spring Football ESPN3

Sat, Apr 28
2 p.m. Oregon Spring Football ESPN3*

*Exclusive to ESPN3

Filed Under: BCS, ESPN3, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA Football Tagged With: ,

Follow Luck, RG III Pro Days This Week Online at ESPN3

March 19, 2012 by

Now that the Peyton’s Place drama has all but concluded, the next big issue in the upcoming NFL draft revolves around which of the two top QBs is going to be picked No. 1 — and you can decide for yourself this week by watching the “pro day” workouts for Stanford’s Andrew Luck and Baylor’s Robert Griffin III live online, at ESPN3.

Baylor’s Heisman Trophy winner Griffin is up first, with his workout starting live Wednesday at noon Eastern time. The worldwide leader will have talent Sal Paolantonio and analysts Ron Jaworski and Todd McShay on hand to provide the breathless commentary (“look, a 20-yard out pattern! Superb!”)

Stanford’s Luck will have his workout covered in similar fashion Thursday, beginning at 2 p.m. Eastern. On hand to watch this scholar athlete will be ESPN’s Rachel Nichols and analysts Trent Dilfer, McShay and Steve Young. Of course if you have something else to do during the workouts the results will be overanalyzed on SportsCenter, NFL Live and NFL32 shows afterwards. The pro days will also be aired on ESPNU.

Remember, if you need help figuring out if you can get ESPN3 online, start here.

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

The Big Ten Network expands to Mobile Devices with BTN2Go

March 2, 2012 by

Fans of Big Ten sports who are on the road can now take a piece of the conference with them, a sporting piece as the conference has expanded its Big Ten Network (BTN) presence to cover both mobile users as well as expanding its footprint on the Internet.

The BTN2Go features the live sports feed of the programming that fills BTN, it is simply made available to users of smartphones, tablets or access the site via the Internet. The BTN has done a staged rollout of the program, it debuted with the start of the football season last year as an Internet-only feature and then expanded to the iPad and iPhone quickly afterwards. A version for Android-based phones is expected within the next month or so.

The goal of the effort to provide fans of Big Ten sports access to games anywhere, at any time on any device, said Michael Calderon, BTN’s vice president of digital and interactive media. The network is currently looking at other platforms such as Windows Phone and connected devices including game consoles and expects to launch a new platform with the start of next year’s football season, Calderon said.

Users have to be subscribers of the participating cable or broadband providers, a list that includes Bright House Networks, Charter, Cox Communications, DIRECTV, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.

If you fall into that category then BTN2Go is free with no addition subscription needed and this gives you access to a huge amount of both current and past programming. First and foremost for many fans is the ability to watch live games. However games that are broadcast by BTN’s partners such as ABC and ESPN will be available the following day on-demand.

Calderon noted that a real benefit the program brings is for fans that do not live in the Big Ten area, where a game that are interested might not be broadcast, it will still be available on BTN2Go. Also when an event runs long, say the first of a basketball doubleheader, a user can still go to BTN2Go to watch the opening of the second game if that is the one they are interested in viewing.

The BTN has benefited from its founders foresight. When it was founded five years ago in ensured that it had control of all its digital rights so that the licensing issues that have the potential to stymie a program such as this do not exist.

Then there is also access to archival footage from earlier this season broadcast by both BTN and its partners. Of course there is highlight reels and coaches shows on a regular basis. The BTN also creates home grown series such as Original series such as The Journey, Big Ten Icons, Big Ten’s Best and The Big Ten’s Greatest Games that are also available for viewing.

Going forward the network is looking to add additional features to BNT2Go including possibly a social media module for Facebook and Twitter users, but for the first generation of the platform it focused on delivering a top video experience, Caldera said.

Filed Under: ABC, Android, Apple, Apps, Big Ten Network, ESPN, Facebook, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, Time Warner Cable Television Tagged With: , , , ,

Pac-12 Looks to Build ‘Digital Network’ for Social-Media Centric Sports Future

January 31, 2012 by

The Pac-12 conference, one year into its new broadcasting deal is now looking to expand its presence in other areas aside from broadcast television, a move that will encompass streaming media and other technologies broadcast to smartphones, tablets and other devices, mobile and immobile.

To spearhead the program the conference‘s wholly owned subsidiary Pac-12 Enterprises has hired David Aufhauser as vice president and general manager of digital media. He has been in various positions in the sports and social media market for almost two decades with his most recent position being Vice President, Media at Say Media where he managed the global ad network. Prior to that he led business development at Yahoo Sports and has a variety of positions at Citizen Sports, Evite and Netscape.

The job will entail all aspects of the digital media properties of the Pac-12 as well as the creation and management of the Pac-12 Digital Network. The Digital Network will be a unified web site that will provide world wide access to mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets as well as computers and even television for a wide range of sports activities that the Pac-12 is involved in.

The group will handle hundreds of sporting events and provide original programming at all 12 major campuses. This will include live streaming, mobile technology and social TV capabilities, the world. The network is expected to be launched in late summer 2012.

Last year the conference entered into a major upgrade on its broadcasting presence by working with major cable companies to create six regional cable networks as well as signing new national deals with FOX Sports and ESPN. The Digital Network is expected to work with the television networks to provide a more unified presence for the league. The new effort will also handle all sponsorship, licensing and event management for the Pac-12.

His hiring is just the latest in a string of newly enlisted personnel, all seemingly with wide experience in both sports and an array of various media. Last August the conference hired Gary Stevenson as the head of the Enterprise group. Stevenson has more than 30 years in a variety of sports and broadcasting experience including working with the NBA, the PGA Tour and owning his own sports consulting firm OnSports.

The Pac-12 Enterprise has also hired Bill Cella as its chief revenue officer. Cella has experience in sales and marketing and will design and implement long term strategies and oversee the management of all revenue generation for Pac-12 Enterprises.

Expect this to be the tip of the iceberg and a move that is carefully watched by both rival conferences and the NCAA governing body. No school is going to let additional revenue slip through its fingers and we will probably see a number quickly emulate the Pac-12.

The NCAA on the other hand may want a bigger piece of the pie. When Major League Baseball teams started to move onto the Internet MLB itself was a bit slow to follow. When it did it moved everything under its own umbrella, and no doubt gets a larger cut for its effort.

Filed Under: ESPN, Fox Sports, Live sports via mobile, Major League Baseball, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, Pac-12, Smartphone, Social Media, Tablets Tagged With: ,

Elemental Technologies Lands Stanford for its Sports Replay Solution

January 25, 2012 by

Elemental Technologies, a startup developing an array of technologies including instant replay for mobile devices, has signed a deal with Stanford University’s athletic department to show replays for events played at the school’s Maples Pavilion and Stanford Stadium.

Stanford is using the Elemental Live product as the basis for its Wi-Fi Instant Replay system that it is deploying on campus. The system will enable fans at events to view an instant replay immediately after the play occurred.

The solution takes input from four different camera sources that is continuously encoded in real time and immediately stores them on a local web server where clips are created and then pushed to fans within seconds after the play. Stanford fans can access the replays on their mobile devices via the school’s Stanford Gameday Live website.

This is just the latest in a line of strategic partners the company has signed deals with, but the first where its technology will be put in front of a cadre of experienced sports fans that have been weaned on instant replay and will know if it meets their needs or not.

The Portland, Ore.-based company was founded in 2006 and has had several rounds of venture funding. The first was in Dec. 2007 when it received $1.05 million from the Oregon Angle Fund. The Series A round of funding closed in July, 2008 with $7.1 million being raised in a round led by General Catalyst Partners and Voyager Capital.

The second round, in July, 2010, raised $7.5 million in Series B funding with Steamboat Ventures, a venture capital firm affiliated with The Walt Disney Co., joined existing venture funds General Catalyst and Voyager Capital in round.

The company is led by a trio of co-founders starting with CEO Sam Blackman. Blackman had previously has held a variety of positions in the industry including designing integrated circuits for Pixelworks and engineering positions at Intel and Silicon Graphics

Jesse Rosenzweig, the second co-founder, serves as Elemental’s chief technology officer. He also is a former Pixelworks employee and worked on developing software applications at that company. To fill out the triad of co-founders is Brian Lewis, who is the company’s chief architect. He also hails from Pixelworks and previously, he worked as an engineer and team leader at Rockwell Collins developing navigation, guidance and sensor control software for military transport aircraft.

The company has tested its technology with a range of companies in the high tech space and has a number of big-named partners including Amazon Web Services, Intel, nVidia, Adobe, Hewlett-Packard, Apple and Microsoft. Apple has been an important partner in helping with the live streaming technology.

Just as important it has a growing range of big name corporate and media customers that now number over 100. In that group are ABC, CBS Interactive, BTN, National Geographic, PBS, Oceanic Time Warner Cable, Comcast, HBO, and ESPN.

Filed Under: Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, NCAA Football, PBS, Startup

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

January 12, 2012 by

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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