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ESPN VP on Live Penn State Coverage: ‘We Missed the Story’

November 10, 2011 by

Along with other media types, Mobile Sports Report thought that ESPN’s live coverage of the turmoil surrounding the firing of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno Wednesday night was below par for the worldwide leader in sports. Thursday ESPN executive vice president Norby Williamson agreed in part, saying that he’d like “a do-over” and that ESPN “missed the story” by not having the right kind of live coverage on the spot.

In a podcast released Thursday on ESPN’s website Williamson, the network’s executive vice president for production, discussed ESPN’s coverage of events Wednesday night. While he offered praise for ESPN’s “perspective” and its large roster of learned commentators, Williamson at several points admits that ESPN fumbled its coverage, especially by failing to provide live coverage when the activities were at fever pitch.

“We were a little remiss of our live coverage, on the ground,” Williamson says on the podcast, right around the 4:00 mark of the taping. Though ESPN had camera crews on site, including front-line talent Tom Rinaldi, Williamson said that ESPN got caught out of position and in the turmoil with students sometimes turning hostile toward news crews, were unable to move into the proper position for a live shot.

“We were a little late with that,” Williamson says, referring to the live coverage of the hottest parts of the so-called riot. “That [the live coverage] is the one thing I’d like a do-over on.”

Due to the swarming crowds — and the potential for actual harm to ESPN’s crew — the network was unable to get its cameras to where the action was, Williamson said. “Where you were is where you were,” says Williamson. “We could’ve done a better job of positioning.”

After praising competitor CNN for being better positioned, Williamson goes on to compliment the ESPN reporters on the scene for getting good interviews in the crowd, even though live on air via phone, reporter Tom Ferrey told anchors Stuart Scott and Steve Levy that he left the action after getting hit in the leg by a rock. Williamson closes his review (around the 7:30 mark) by saying simply — like we saw — that ESPN dropped the ball.

“I think we missed the story for a window there, of being live on the ground when the student insurrection happened,” Williamson says.

Filed Under: ESPN, Joe Paterno, NCAA Football, Penn State Tagged With: ,

Twitter is Hammering ESPN on Penn State ‘Riots’ Coverage

November 9, 2011 by

Calling it a riot may be premature, but the events taking place in College Station State College Wednesday night following Joe Paterno’s ouster as Penn State head coach are happening largely in the dark, thanks to some serious news misjudgements by the “worldwide leader in sports,” ESPN.

Though ESPN apparently has a reporter live in the area, for several hours following the Paterno firing ESPN had no video or even still pictures from the scenes of the controversy — the massing crowds of students on College Avenue, or a smaller crowd outside Paterno’s house.

Conversely, on the ground Twitter reports were breaking news left and right, with CBS columnist Gregg Doyal using his @greggdoyelcbs to be among the first to report news trucks being overturned. And the school paper’s blog, @psufootblog, was the first outlet we saw to report Paterno’s brief public statements to the crowd outside his house. Other tweeters posted pictures of the crowd and of the overturned trucks, at least an hour before ESPN got any still images on TV.

ESPN recovered a bit later on, with some taped interviews by reporter Tom Farrey, including one with a brave student who said, on tape, that he supported the decision and that Joe Pa had to go. There was also an interview with another student who seemed a bit possessed with anger; but throughout the crisis, ESPN’s live cameras were nowhere to be found.

ESPN’s Poynter Review team issued a report Wednesday night saying the network missed the boat when the Paterno story broke. It appears that ESPN continued to be unready for more news at Penn State like Wednesday’s firing, which was predicted by many other media types. We’ll leave it to Jason Whitlock to deliver the coda on ESPN’s coverage:

No live feed, Matich in studio, Mi Son Lee on the scene = ESPN caught w/pants down tonight.

November 9, 2011 10:43 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@WhitlockJason

Jason Whitlock

And it looks like CBS Sports was on the scene with more material (HT to Bleacher Report for the heads up)

UPDATE: Here’s the Daily Collegian video from outside Paterno’s house:

Filed Under: ESPN, Joe Paterno, NCAA Football, Penn State

Need to see if your team is Bowl Bound? There is an App for that.

November 9, 2011 by

ESPN updates Bowl tracking App

ESPN has updated its ESPN Bowl Bound application, and the 2011 edition sports new features as well as the established features such as providing news, video and the ever important tweets about favorite teams.

One key new feature, which works with users of the Watch ESPN mobile app, gives fans the option to stream live games on their mobile devices. Some of the new features are simply tweaking the program such as adding refresh to the scoreboard and being able to set up video alerts to key games.

A key feature for fans that looks to really appeal to a range of fans, particularly those that do not live near the teams they root for is the Bowl Bound Team Clubhouse. The Clubhouse is a customizable feature that allows fans to add their favorite team as well as its logo and colors. It includes team Twitter feeds specifically tailored for the fans school and has a Conversation feature that enables a user to chat with similar fans and trash talk rivals.
The Clubhouse includes 240 FBS and FCS team clubhouses and has a host of information about the teams including rosters, schedules, stats and a flow of news and video t keep fans up to date.

The program has a host of other features, some also available in other ESPN programs. Weekly schedules and scores for instance. Other features include weekly projections for all 35 bowl games, aggregated Twitter feed from ESPN’s college football people, weekly team rankings and poll results.

In addition you can follow ESPN’s Bowl news at @ESPN_BowlBound on Twitter. Currently the app is only available of the iOS 4.0 or later environment, or to the uninitiated Apple’s iPad, iPod touch and iPhone.

Filed Under: ESPN, iPad, iPhone, NCAA Football, Twitter Tagged With: , , , ,

CBS: 214,560 Online Viewers for LSU-Bama Sets New Record

November 6, 2011 by

Turns out we weren’t the only ones sampling CBS Sports’ free online broadcast of the LSU-Alabama game Saturday night: According to the network, the No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown attracted what it believes to be the biggest-ever online audience for a college football game, with a total of 214,560 unique viewers through both website and mobile-device application interaction.

“CBSSports.com continues to set the pace in terms of streaming major sports event on multiple platforms,” said Jason Kint, Senior Vice President and General Manager, CBSSports.com, in a press release Sunday. “Extending the audience by nearly a quarter of a million viewers during primetime on a Saturday night is quite an accomplishment and the perfect compliment to the CBS Sports broadcast.”

According to CBS, there were 171,648 viewers who watched the game via the CBSSports.com website, and another 42,912 viewers who viewed the game via CBS Sports mobile using an app for Apple iOS devices (either an iPad, an iPhone or an iPod Touch). According to CBS, “this number of unique viewers for the LSU/Alabama game is believed to be the largest audience ever to watch a football game through digital platforms.” Though Mobile Sports Report can’t immediately confirm that claim it’s more than likely true given the limited number of big-time events ever being available for free online.

Though Saturday’s event isn’t close to being the biggest online experience for CBS — according to the press release CBS hosted 1,153,981 online viewers of an NCAA men’s basketball tournament game in 2010 (a first-round game between BYU and Florida) — it also helped prove that online viewers don’t necessarily take away from a regular-broadcast audience, since the TV part of the broadcast earned the network’s second-highest rating since September of 1987. According to CBS the game had an 11.9/21 Nielsen rating.

And while the game might not have lived up to its No. 1 vs. No. 2 hype the expected online audience certainly did, and should mean that we may see more such events toward the end of the year and into college bowl season. Bookmark Mobile Sports Report to stay informed about any future online NCAA football broadcasts.

Filed Under: Apps, CBS Sports, NCAA Football, Nielsen Ratings, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Big Online Crowds Expected for CBS Live Stream of LSU-Alabama Matchup

November 3, 2011 by

Live broadcast of College’s #1 vs #2 could change the market.

One of the biggest college football games of the year, regular season edition, is coming this weekend in the LSU-Auburn matchup, and in a sign of the growing importance of presenting sports in all mediums it will be available as streaming media from an online source.

In addition to presenting the game on regular broadcast television, CBS is pulling out all the stops by not just putting the game live online, but also by beefing up its social-media efforts, soliciting fan reactions both prior to and after the Saturday contest.

CBSSports.Com has said that it will be streaming the game that pits No. 1 LSU versus No. 2 Alabama, with the game being presented at CBSSports.com/SECLive. The live streaming video is also available via the Internet to iPhone and iPad users who have downloaded the free CBS Sports app available at cbssports.com/mobile.

Fans can comment online and send tweets while watching from a computer or an iOS device

The broadcast is the centerpiece of CBSSports’ aggressive weeklong coverage of the matchup. That included daily coverage at the Alabama/LSU Central page or the CBSSports.com’s Eye on College Football Blog.

CBSSports has streamed SEC games in the past as well as conference championships on both its website and to iOS devices, with an audience that hovers around six figures — but this is different. Jason Kint, senior vice president and general manager of CBSSports.Com told Fierceonlinevideo.com thats “It’s the biggest football game across all platforms,” and added that he sees this event as a breakthrough for streaming media.

While over the years many big matchups have been touted by the networks only to have them come up short, CBS is playing this one like it could be a preview of the BCS Championship game. The amped-up buildup, plus the stature of the SEC (and its five consecutive BCS championships) should make this online broadcast a far cry from the ho-hum acceptance that many streaming events have received in the past.

Second tier Olympics events, often broadcast at odd hours have garnered little attention and even smaller audiences and have in some ways turned people off to using mobile and handheld devices for watching sporting events, although MLB.com and the NFL have been aggressively pushing out into some segments of this market.

CBSSports will not stop its coverage with the game but will also have its usual postgame show, “5th Quarter with Gary Danielson” as an interactive afterparty. This site can be found at cbssports.com/gary.

Filed Under: Apps, CBS Sports, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, NCAA Football Tagged With: , , , ,

Fanatic Fans: An Insider’s Look at Mobile Applications for Live Events

October 6, 2011 by

Brian Holmes, a driving force behind Calibrus' breakthrough Fanatic Fans application

If you ever wanted a good look into the infancy of sports social media, you could get it by taking a look at Calibrus Inc. Fanatic Fans application.

Fanatic Fans debuted at Arizona State University home games last month, and today fewer than a thousand people have it on their smartphone or other mobile device. Yet that’s enough momentum to convince the 26-year-old developer of the application, Brian Holmes, he’s on to something big – a concept that could fundamentally change the fan experience at live sports events and concerts.

“We feel there is a real opportunity to tap into this marketplace to grow a significant brand with large numbers of users,” Holmes told MobileSportsReport.com.

 Indeed, Fanatic Fans marks one of the most aggressive moves to date by a major college athletic program to mirror sports social media innovations occurring in the NFL, according to MobileSportsReport.com. The Miami Dolphins are among the leaders in pro pigskin with an application developed by Mobile Roadie LLC, but the college market is wide open. Beyond ASU, Fanatic Fans is now being made available to University of Grand Canyon and University of Denver sports fans. Calibrus also sees Fanatic Fans as potentially a big winner in the live music space, Holmes said.

While ESPN, CBS Sports, SB Nation and numerous others have won big user numbers for mobile sports applications that provide news and buzz, applications that facilitate live event experience are just emerging. Indeed, the implications of mobile sports applications at live events are often misunderstood even by the experts, as evidenced by the South Eastern Conference’s recent decision to revise such impossible-to-enforce social media policies as the prohibition of mobile devices use at games.

For business, Fanatic Fans and other applications are promising because they can be used to provide offers to consumers at the moment they are ready to buy whether that’s before, during or after and event, according to Fast Company.

Available for Android and iPhones, Fanatic Fans works this way: Users download the application, and log in with user name and password whenever they go to a game. At present, check-in at a game qualifies them for prizes. At University of Denver games that includes a seat upgrade, and at ASU games there’s a $500 cash prize. During timeouts, fans are also prompted to respond to scoreboard contests via text. At ASU, that’s currently a contest to name the MVP of the game. Ultimately, applications like Fanatic Fans can be used by fans to interact with other fans when they are tailgating or at the stadium.  

Fanatic Fans took shape quickly, and the speed with which it went from concept to in-game experience underscores how nimble dot.com companies and sports teams will need to be in order to capitalize on the growth of sports social media. Fanatic Fans began to take shape in February, when Holmes took the idea to Calibrus management.  At the time, Holmes was working as a project manager on a website called JabberMonkey, which allows people to post questions, videos, pictures and articles that others can respond to via chat, webcam, email or VOIP. Calibrus used its development team in Saudi Arabia to turn the idea into a reality, and quickly won the support of ASU. Its business model is to create an avid user base for Fanatic Fans, and reward affinity marketing points for sports fan participation, Holmes said.

Filed Under: Android, Brian Holmes, Calibrus, Fanatic Fans, NCAA Football, NFL Tagged With: , ,
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