Dodgers to have Asian flavor after $1.2bn offer?

The embattled Los Angeles Dodgers owners have been reportedly offered $1.2 billion for the team by a consortium of Chinese investors led by investor Bill Burke, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Dodgers are currently in bankruptcy protection and are being run by an executive who was appointed by Major League Baseball. In addition the owners, Frank and Jamie McCourt are involved in a bitter divorce that centers on, among other issues, who actually owns the team. The two had been using the ball club to finance an extravagant lifestyle and are now mired in debt and have been seeking a variety of outside sources to help meet payroll and other expenses. When Nintendo started the process of buying the Seattle Mariners about a decade ago there was a great deal of resistance and I expect more of the same for this, if it materializes.

Can Sports Teams do more to take advantage of Fan Check-ins?

Do you use location based services to check into places with your smartphone? Obviously you know you are not alone as millions of others vie to be Mayor of such and such and makes you wonder how these people have lives if they are logging into the local pub at twice the rate you are. But anyway Jason Peck has a nice piece on his blog about the technology and proposes that sports teams could take much more advantage of this mobile feature. He points out that the teams have a huge captive audience at games and could leverage this via mobile technology much better than they are currently doing. He links to several interesting papers on the topics and shows which MLB ball parks lead in check-ins. Not surprising that the San Francisco Giants at AT&T lead the way.

Is your NFL draft lineup set?

Thank heavens that preseason football is over (I know, Seattle and Oakland play tonight but..) and now the real work begins. By that I mean drafting your fantasy football team. As a persistent bottom dweller in my league I am not going to offer any advice on players but I do recommend The Big Lead’s excellent Jason Lisk’s look at the skill positions for some insight into players. He also is in the process of doing short evaluations of all of the teams. He is not doing comprehensive ones but often focuses on a single player or area, such as the Ram’s quarterbacking situation, and how it could be expected to change based on historical analysis. Always a good read.

Will Samsung bring Note to US Market?

Samsung is continuing to expand into the mobile computing space with a new product as well as updating its existing tablet, according to Computerworld. The more interesting of the two looks to be the Galaxy Note, a handheld device that enables users to write directly on the screen using its 5.3-inch display and it also serves as a smartphone. The second is a replacement for the Galaxy Tab that it introduced a year ago. The latest version, named Tab 7.7 which sports a sleeker look and a better display. However at this time it is unclear if Samsung will be offering either item in the US. The Tab 7.7 is expected to be priced around $800, significantly higher than rival products and the next wave of tablets are expected to be even lower.

Imagine a Super Bowl Sunday in the near future. You are sitting in the stands with 70,000 or more hardcore fans. Your team’s star wide receiver goes into the slot. On your smartphone, a betting proposition comes up. Do you take three-to-one odds that there will be a completion to your team’s stud?

The technology is already available to make that experience a reality, and the future of the $2.76 billion legal sports betting industry in the United States may depend it becoming a reality, according to a Sunday August 28 report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. 

Already, smartphones are being used in Nevada to make the sports experience better for fans. Cantor Fitzgerald, a Wall Street investment firm that was devastated by the 9-11 attacks, has taken over the sports books of The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, The Palm and a host of other casinos. It uses the same technology it uses manage Wall Street hedge funds to provide “in-running” betting services to customers with smart phones, offering proposition betting throughout the game. The only reason “in-running” is not offered to your smart phone, unless you are in the State of Nevada, is because state and federal laws prohibit it. Global Positioning Systems are used to detect whether consumers are attempting “in-running” bets, and someone straddling the state line between California and Nevada, Utah and Nevada, Arizona and Nevada and Oregon and Nevada, can literally see their bet go through or be declined depending on whether they move six meters inside the State of Nevada or move into a state where the practice is banned.

Las Vegas-based American Wagering, which already produces BlackBerry, Android and iPhone betting applications is currently developing similar technology for iPad and Android tablet, the Review-Journal said. And U.K.-based William Hill recently shelled out $53 million to acquire American Wagering and Club Cal Neva Satellite Race and Sports Division, bringing a company known for pushing for reform in gaming regulations to the United States sports gambling scene.

Write your Congressman.

Bleacher Report continues its onslaught on the traditional Internet sports domains, winning on Thursday Aug. 25, a $22 million cash infusion from Oak Investment Partners, Crosslink Capital and Hillsven Capital.  The money will be used to expand Bleacher’s production and distribution of sports videos and mobile applications.

The move is significant because Bleacher is already a leader in user-generated sports content, but it has established itself from the ground up. Using a content farm approach, where people submit articles, photos and commentary, Bleacher Report has become a go-to source for sports information about high school and obscure college athletes. Much of the information is impossible to find anywhere else. Where ESPN and others concentrate editorial efforts on the Andrew Lucks, LeMichael Jameses and Peyton Mannings of the world, Bleacher Report can provide you with information about your third cousin who plays right tackle for a rural high school in Indiana. That’s been a powerful formula that ESPN and others will be hard-pressed to duplicate.

At the same time, Bleacher is now chasing the big boys. It recently hired marquee sports writers Dan Levy, Matt Miller, Dan Rubenstein, Josh Zerkle and Bethlehem Shoals, and has stated that it sees no reason why it can’t compete on the national stage.

Led by CEO Brian Grey, a veteran of online sports information, Bleacher now has total funding of $40.5 million.

According to a report in TechCrunch, investors see online sports information as a big opportunity that has yet to be fully exploited. Here is what Oak general partner Fred Harman said to TechCrunch:

“Sports is a big opportunity and no one has gotten it right yet,” Harman says. “People are clearly as passionate and opinionated as they are in politics, and they are less inhibited to express their opinions. I’d argue Bleacher Report has done a far better job of embracing the capabilities of the online medium than the big sports brands have.”