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PGA’s ShotTracker: A Pretty Good Live TV Substitute

February 19, 2012 by 6 Comments

Once again, golf fans are faced with a half-hour gap in live TV coverage Sunday, this time from the Northern Trust Open at Riviera in Los Angeles. We tweeted the Northern Trust’s Twitter feed and got back the suggestion to check out the PGA Tour’s ShotTracker page, which we did. It’s pretty cool. It’s not live TV, but you can “follow” the action shot by shot.

@ We’ll be doing our best. But to get the most complete coverage #NTOpen2012 visit @ ShotTracker: http://t.co/Yp3hhBR1

February 19, 2012 11:25 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@NTrustOpen

Northern Trust Open

If you look at the screen grab it takes a few seconds to figure out — but then you realize how the thing works. It basically follows each player shot by shot on any given hole and reports the length of each shot. It also has color-codes to show where shots landed, rough, fairway, etc. It updates pretty quickly with a good Internet connection; not sure if there is a mobile option or not (didn’t see one on the page and couldn’t find one in the Android store) but without live TV it’s as good as say, ESPN’s GameCenter service.

We’d still like wall to wall live coverage online. But until that day happens, I guess ShotTracker is our only hope.

Filed Under: Apps, CBS Sports, Golf, Golf Channel, Live Sports Video Consumption, PGA Tagged With: ,

Fans Must Pay $3.99 to Watch NCAA Hoops via Mobile Devices

February 16, 2012 by 2 Comments

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and now there’s no such thing as free access to the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament for mobile devices. According to an extremely unclear press release and FAQ released today, it appears you will have to pay $3.99 for access to the games via the March Madness application, whether you are using it on a PC or on a mobile platform, including Apple iPhones and iPads as well as Android-based devices.

Since it’s early and we haven’t had coffee yet this post might have later corrections but for right now here’s how it apparently breaks down: If you want to watch the games for free you have to go to the broadcasters websites. According to the press release you won’t be charged for the Turner-broadcast games if you can validate that you have a cable TV plan that includes the Turner Networks TBS, TNT and truTV. We are guessing that most people with a standards sports cable package will be covered, but you might need to check your plan. And right now there is no info on how that validation will happen. CBS says it will show all its broadcast games on CBSSports.com for free.

But if you want to use a mobile device to watch games online via the March Madness application, which includes a lot of bracket info and other goodies, the free lunch is over. It’ll cost you a one-time fee of $3.99, after which you will get a logon to use over any other device or platform you want. Apparently there is some messiness involved with using Android devices, and I am sure this won’t be the last post we do on the subject since the press release and FAQ look like they were also written without coffee or at least a decent proofreader.

If you want to try to avoid the $3.99 fee there is apparently some promotion coming next week involving Coke Zero where they will grant some folks free access, probably for surrendering your email address and your first-born child. Our quick prediction is that this news will cause howls of pain from the general hoops-loving public, who will start to wonder about government inquiries into the NCAA and its business practices. Maybe it’s time for coffee. And a search through the couch cushions for $3.99.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, CBS Sports, iPad, iPhone, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, TNT, truTV, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , , , ,

More AT&T Golf Failure: Sunday’s Half-Hour TV Blackout

February 12, 2012 by 8 Comments

In this day and age of always-on coverage it seems incredulous that the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am has such a backwards coverage plan. In addition to our already-noted lack of any online streaming coverage, the TV broadcast on Sunday started with live coverage on the Golf Channel — and then just as things started heating up, there was a half-hour blackout. Unbelieveable.

Though I understand that programming schedules need to be set well in advance of the actual tournament, Sunday’s by-chance heavyweight pairing of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson — simply two of the best golfers, ever — should have prompted either the Golf Channel (owned by NBC) or CBS to pre-empt whatever was going on between 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time and Noon to show Phil and Tiger trying for eagles on No. 6.

It’s a minor blip that will be forgotten but perhaps a good lesson for other events down the line — don’t leave yourself the victim of your own schedules or planning. A good online streaming strategy would go a long way to keeping the number of fans who are going to be lost for a half-hour today.

Filed Under: AT&T, CBS Sports, Golf Channel, NBC Sports Tagged With: , ,

AT&T, Golf Channel Missing the ‘Tiger’ Opp With No Online Video for Pebble Beach

February 10, 2012 by 15 Comments

For the second day in a row, we are incredibly frustrated at the lack of any online video opportunity to watch Tiger Woods in his PGA season debut at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Though the Golf Channel has live coverage today and yesterday, the unique three-course setup for the Pebble Beach Pro-Am means no Tiger TV Thursday or Friday since there are apparently only camera crews at the Pebble Beach course and nothing from the other two courses being used, Spyglass and Monterey Peninsula.

So the reason Tiger isn’t on TV is that he played Spyglass Thursday, and is playing Monterey Peninsula today. We get it, because that means that Tiger will be on TV Saturday and Sunday, playing both days in front of the CBS cameras. But it’s an oversight not to have the game’s biggest draws on some kind of live media for the first two days.

This is a huge missed opportunity for the tournament and for Golf Channel, since there are probably millions of fans like me who would tune in online to catch some Tiger action even while at work. It’s hard to believe that with AT&T adding Wi-Fi clouds to the greater Monterey Peninsula to give fans at the tourney better wireless coverage that we couldn’t at least get someone with a GoPro camera on their head to follow Tiger around and stream that video? Hello sponsor opportunity!

Seriously, not having an online component is really a big error especially for events like golf tournaments where there may be an outsized interest in a single player instead of the traditional multi-camera, multi-announcer setup. I mean, online I have been able to follow what Tiger is doing in words; meanwhile on the Golf Channel they are showing some celebrity comedian eating a plate of ribs. I couldn’t hit the off switch quicker. So tell me how that strategy makes sense either to the event or the sponsors.

Note: the best places to follow El Tigre online today are the Golf Channel home page, where writer Jason Sobel is doing a hole-by-hole Tiger recap in real time. You can also follow Stephanie Wie, who is Tweeting Tiger’s round live. But really, AT&T and Golf Channel, you shoulda done better.

Filed Under: AT&T, CBS Sports, Golf, Golf Channel, PGA, Twitter Tagged With: , ,

Can CBSSports.com Become the iTunes for Fantasy Sports?

January 16, 2012 by 2 Comments

In a move expected to be announced at this week’s Fantasy Sports Conference in Las Vegas, CBSSports.com is going to open up its fantasy sports game infrastructure to independent developers, in an effort to perhaps become the iTunes of fantasy sports.

Reported by the Sports Business Journal Daily, CBSSports.com’s move is a bold one in the largely secular world of fantasy sports, where almost every provider has traditionally tried to keep customers to itself. Unfortunately for fantasy players that often means that if you play in different leagues on different platforms you must maintain separate lists of teams, passwords and logins, an especially tough task if you are trying to access your league info on a mobile device.

Theoretically, by opening up its fantasy infrastructure CBSSports.com could build an iTunes-like ecosystem where third-party developers could create applications that blend the CBSSports.com player environment either with new over-the-top apps (like ones that allow fantasy players to talk smack to each other) or with apps that might let a player access teams from different fantasy platforms in one place. Just like under iTunes, developers will share revenue with CBSSports.com on a 70-30 split, with 70 percent of associated revenue going to developers and 30 percent back to CBSSports.com.

MSR favorite developers Bloomberg Sports and StatSheet are part of the first wave of CBSSports.com partners, according to the SBJD report. Here’s a money quote from Bloomberg head honcho Bill Squadron:

“This effort by CBS connects directly with the vision for fantasy that we also have,” said Bill Squadron, head of Bloomberg Sports. Bloomberg will enhance its Front Office fantasy baseball and Decision Maker fantasy football applications using the CBSSports.com fantasy data. “Having this level of deep integration is going to be very helpful.”

Here’s the Wall Street Journal take on the announcement.

Filed Under: Apps, Bloomberg Sports, CBS Sports, STAT.US, StatSheet Tagged With: ,

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

November 6, 2011 by 9 Comments

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: , , , , , ,
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