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Boston Bruins Combine all Social Media in Bruins DEN

March 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

While lamenting the fact that it is impossible for my March Madness team, now in second, to gain any additional points I failed to notice that the Boston Bruins have launched one of the most aggressive aggregation sites for social and traditional media concerning the team.

The Bruins, winner of the last Stanley Cup, have launched the Bruins Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), a site that combines television, ticket info, with a wide range of social media contacts and sources.

The site promises that it will provide not only what fans have come to expect in terms of data on players and games but it also said that it will be creating original content for fans to view. You can follow the team in a variety of manners including via BostonBruinsTV.com, at its popular web site BostonBruins.com or on Facebook. The list goes on with support at Twitter, Google +, Tumblr, as well as Facebook and Foursquare check-ins.

The Bruins DEN is a tool that will enable the teams’ corporate sponsors to reach out towards fans with a focused effort, and the site said that it expects to have 2.5 million unique visitors each month, so it should be quite an opportunity for them. Not only that but any technology that it uses is often highlighted with the name of the developer or partner,

An example of that is when the site says that its partners will benefit from its enhanced social analytics capabilities, courtesy of startup Umbel. It has an app for fans called the Official Boston Bruins Mobile App (Bruinsmobile.com) powered by AT&T. The app already features a sitcom series called ‘The Bear and the Gang’ that centers on the teams mascot. The bear also has his own Pinterest page.

The site is easy to navigate and all of the social media connections are clearly marked and easy to find. There is the almost obligatory Twitter feed, pictures from other fans posted using Instagram, and a hsot of additional connections ranging from one that gives you the all-time player roster to one that has a list of giveaways and events.

The organization is moving to provide fans access to its team in a great number of ways, and allowing them to show their pride and interest in the team. Regardless if you download and use the mobile app, post images on Instagram, comments of Facebook or check-in the Bruins are putting the fan experience first. At the same time the business side is carefully intertwined with the effort so that the team can monetize itself and its partners’ efforts in this endeavor.

About a decade ago just a few baseball teams had an Internet presence but MLB quickly learned what a tool the Internet was and pushed all of its teams online, and has since been very aggressive with all forms of social media. I hope that the NHL takes a page from that book and uses this as a template for the other teams in the league because I believe that fans will greatly embrace this opportunity.

Filed Under: Apps, AT&T, Facebook, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NHL, Pinterest Tagged With: , , ,

Timeout Tuesday: Monday Night Fights Return to the NHL, and a Real ‘Classic’ Skier

March 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Had enough of hoops action for one week? Welcome to the Timeout Tuesday videos, an NCAA hoops-free zone today. How about some hockey? What’s the best thing about the sport — players flashing by quickly on frozen water, a great dance of athleticism, shooting skills and lightning-quick reflexes. Old time hockey, right?

Well… how about something right out of Slapshot instead? Monday night the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils started brawling three seconds after the opening faceoff. Hat tip to Deadspin and Hockey Fights for the video:

From fights to fun: You gotta love the way former World Cup downhill champ Didier Cuche “retired,” with a run down a GS course Saturday in full skiing gear — full gear from the early 1900s, that is, wool knickers, leather rucksack and wooden skis with bear-trap bindings. The video is kind of long, but fun to watch all the way through. In case you didn’t know Didier, he was well liked within the skiing fraternity and won the legendary Hahnenkamm downhill for the fourth time last year. Hat tip to Scott Raynovich for finding the Cuche video.

Filed Under: NHL, Olympics, Skiing, YouTube Tagged With: , ,

Are Carrier-Exclusive Sports Deals Good for Fans?

February 13, 2012 by 8 Comments

If you have a Verizon Wireless phone and are a hockey fan, good news today — Verizon extended its deal with the NHL and NBC Sports to add live streaming capabilities to its NHL GameCenter Premium app, presumably meaning that you might be able to watch those fisticuffs in real time on your handset.

CORRECTION: Thanks to a friendly note from the folks at the NHL, hockey fans are not tied to one provider for the NHL’s GameCenter Live app, which provides live out-of-market coverage (for $79 for the rest of this season) to a number of different platforms, including Andriod phones, iPhones and iPads. The new Verizon deal with the NHL provides “bonus” coverage not offered in the regular GameCenter program. But fans with other carriers’ devices can still watch live NHL video. We apologize for the reporting error, and have edited the original post to eliminate confusion.

Even though fans can still watch NHL games live using any provider’s device, my greater worry is whether these deals in general are at all good for fans, or if they are short-sighted pacts made by leagues and broadcasters who are choosing some easy-picking rights fees over what’s best for their fan base at large. Though the NHL deal sounds more like a bonus for a Verizon subscriber, other pacts like Verizon’s NFL Mobile deal and Sprint’s NBA pact seem to put the deal before the concern of the fan.

Is that a good long-term strategy for any league? I mean, I understand all about rights deals — and why you have to switch from Fox to ABC to ESPN to NBC to watch different events at different times. But usually you can watch all those on the same TV. On a mobile device it’s different because for most of us the device is tied to the network via a subsidized contract. And few of us can afford another cell phone plan just to watch a certain sport.

The NHL, perhaps, should be praised for moving to a “carrier agnostic” plan this year for its GameCenter app. Let’s hope that practice catches on with other sports. Maybe the deals could simply result in a price discount for customers of a certain carrier; but exclusion of content by contract seems a slippery slope.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, NBC Sports, NHL Tagged With: , , ,

No Chrome Browser for Mac Users Watching NBC Online

January 2, 2012 by 1 Comment

We are as excited as anyone about the launch today of NBC’s new all-sports network but if you want to watch the NHL Classic outdoor game on your Mac computer, you won’t be able to use Google’s Chrome browser according to an error message generated by the NBC site.

Since you probably already have either Firefox or Safari loaded somewhere on your machine it’s probably not a big deal but if you are experiencing difficulties, Mac fans, this is why. We will be watching some online to see how the multiple camera-angle things and DVR functionality work out. Let us know your impressions of NBC’s online efforts in the comments below during and after the game.

UPDATE: Watched a little bit of the game — the different camera angle thing was fun but wow, NBC, couldn’t you wait with the pop up ads? Two in just two minutes of watching. Plus, I thought the Twitter challenge and social-media window on the right wasn’t prominent enough to stand out. Think the whole thing needs a full-screen revisit before the Super Bowl.

Filed Under: Live Sports Video Consumption, NBC Sports, NHL Tagged With: , , , , ,

Xfinity Develops TV Sports Remote for iPhone

December 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Have you ever been channel surfing and wished that you could simplify the process and just have a set of buttons that take you to live sports or scoreboard updates? Well if you are a subscriber to Xfinity, and use Apple’s iOS mobile devices there is an application that will meet your needs.

Called the Xfinity TV Sports Remote, it is a free, downloadable app available from Apple’s iTunes store that can turn your iPhone or iPad into a remote control for your TV that enables you to just move between sporting events.

It currently is designed to work with a large number of major sports and includes NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, NCAA Football, and NCAA men’s basketball and the company said that it is working on expanding the app to support additional broadcast sports.

It serves as a remote control and not as a technology that converts the iOS device into a viewing platform but rather makes it a focused remote control that you can program to meet your sports viewing needs.

It is easy to use but does require that you know your Comcast ID or e-mail address, which I did not initially and had to look it up which was not as easy as I would have thought. Once logged-in it checks what cable box you have, what channels you have access to and then takes you to the initial set-up page.

Enables Fans to select Favorites

This page has lists of sports events being broadcast today in your area. You need to temper your enjoyment by realizing that you may not subscribe to all of those that are displayed. It shows the channels that they will be broadcast on, and that should be the clue.

You can select a league by simply tapping on its icon and that will give you a list of games, so for the NFL it will list the Thursday, Sunday and Monday games, and then on the right had side show the channel for the ones that will be broadcast in your area. Unless the NFL uses it’s flex programming of course. In each of the leagues sections, just visiting will give you current scores for teams that are playing.

It is also very simple to add favorites although one step stumped me initially. You just click the small + by a team and it’s a favorite the first time you go to the favorites section. The second time you need to go to edit to add or subtract a team, otherwise it just tells you the status of any games your favorites are playing on that day.

The favorites section will show you the time and channel that your favorite teams are playing on the current day, if they are playing that is and if it is broadcast The only limit to favorites is the number of teams available, you can favor them all if you wanted to.

Other features include the ability to select which TV you are watching and the ability to record sports on DVRs. A caution on this feature, it will preempt any other recording setting so you might delete someone else in the houses setting to record a non sports event, hard as that might be to believe.

The program will show the sports packages available in your area but you need to directly call to sign up for one- no on-line option available.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Baseball, Comcast, iPad, iPhone, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, NBA, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, NFL, NHL, Tablets, Xfinity Tagged With: , ,

Canadian Phone Companies Buy Maple Leafs — In Search of Mobile Content?

December 9, 2011 by 3 Comments

Reading through the BusinessWeek account of the purchase of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs by two of Canada’s big phone companies I was struck by a quote that seems to signal that part of the motivation behind the purchase was to secure exclusive content for the carriers’ mobile-phone customers.

Here’s a couple nut grafs from the story which spell this strategy out:

The acquisition fits with what BCE Chief Executive Officer George Cope has called his strategy to make more money by adding content he can sell to subscribers on smartphones, tablets and computers. In addition to the NHL’s Maple Leafs, which have won the Stanley Cup championship 11 times, Maple Leaf Sports owns the National Basketball Association’s Raptors.

“Now you’re getting to people with so many more devices and outlets and ability to access content, the value of that content is going to be more valuable, and that’s what this seems to be a play for,” said Jeff Young, chief investment officer at NexGen Financial Corp., which oversees C$900 million including shares of BCE and Rogers.

So instead of buying teams and then trying to reap rewards from broadcasters, it seems like the Canadian telcos are going straight to the source — and are putting up more than a billion dollars to do so. Again, cribbing from the BW story, the meat of the deal:

Rogers committed C$533 million in cash for a 37.5 percent stake in Maple Leaf Sports, according to a company statement. BCE and its pension fund will also contribute C$533 million for an equal stake. The transaction is expected to close in mid 2012. It gives Maple Leaf Sports, also owner of Toronto FC of Major League Soccer, an enterprise value of C$2 billion.

Zang! If that doesn’t convince you that there’s money at the intersection of mobile and sports, what else will?

Filed Under: Live sports via mobile, NHL Tagged With:
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