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CBS Live ‘Chat’ With Danielson — Pretty Cool

November 5, 2011 by 6 Comments

His voice is shot from calling color on the LSU-Alabama tilt, but I have to give CBS and Gary Danielson credit for the cool “Fifth Quarter” chat following the game. I didn’t quite understand the format beforehand but having Gary camping out in the CBS motohome (with a Diet Coke) answering questions live (being read to him by some other guy off a laptop) works pretty well — would love to see Herby and Corso do this on Gameday.

What also worked was CBS’s decision to use a “quick login” on its chat tool, meaning that I didn’t have to give up my Twitter sign-in info to CBS. I was able to just log in and ask a question and hey! They even asked Gary my question and we won’t even dis them for calling us “mobEEL sports report,” like we are from Alabama or something:

I was giving Danielson some grief on Twitter during the game but I have to say that after watching and listening I can see why he is the No. 1 analyst on CBS (too bad Fox doesn’t have someone his equal to sit beside Joe Buck on baseball). Gary answered my question by saying he didn’t think Bama was tight, but that it does need an elite receiver to compete with the big boys. Fair enough.

Like its Internet broadcast of the game, CBS’s production of the chat is over the top good, with the loud air conditioner noise behind Gary D giving it a bit of that raw edge. Think this is a great model for future online video chats… I am thinking here in a sports bar or some guys like Wilbon, Greg Couch and Jim Rome on a couch with some adult beverages… I’d watch!

Filed Under: CBS Sports Tagged With: ,

Alabama-LSU Twitter Reaction: No Game of the Century

November 5, 2011 by 1 Comment

If you liked defense, maybe LSU-Alabama tonight was your cup of tea. But as the night wore on and neither team’s offense lived up to the hype the sentiment on Twitter started calling this one a boring tilt that didn’t deserve all the attention. ESPN columnist and talent for Pardon the Interruption Mike Wilbon even shouted down his own employer, saying the hype was unworthy:

I love all the Kool-Aid drinkers…All they heard all week (90 percent of it from my employer, ESPN) was huge hype…It ain’t living up…

November 5, 2011 8:16 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@RealMikeWilbon

Michael Wilbon

Jason Whitlock at least gave the teams credit for playing great defense, but put the “boring” idea out there as well:

What do we think of the Game of the Century? Pretty boring? Or great defensive battle?

November 5, 2011 8:17 pm via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite
@WhitlockJason

Jason Whitlock

Bob Wojnowski of the Detroit News got in a Daylight Savings Rip:

Don’t forget to turn your clocks back tonight to mark Bama and LSU turning football offense back half a century.

November 5, 2011 8:47 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@bobwojnowski

Bob Wojnowski

And yes, the expected crying photo after the Bama loss. Though not the way you might expect it:

Photo of Alabama couple crying after loss to LSU http://t.co/tqwrtomM

November 5, 2011 8:39 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@BleacherReport

Bleacher Report

And then the Big Lead caught us up on the game we maybe should have been watching:

oh my gosh, SICK catch by Kansas State at the 5 yard line. Holy cow, you NEED to watch this game

November 5, 2011 8:38 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@TheBigLead

Jason McIntyre

Filed Under: bleacherreport, CBS Sports, ESPN, Twitter Tagged With: , , ,

NCAA/Turner Alliance to expand its Football Presence

August 31, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The alliance between NCAA and Turner Sports will be showing increased activity this Fall

With the start of college football just days away the NCAA and its partner Turner Sports have stepped up with a range of programs for fans and followers of NCAA football including a 30 minute preview show every week.

The show will be hosted by Vince Cellini and SEC college analyst Dave Archer and will cover not only the Football Bowl Subdivision but also the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), Division II and Division III, which should make for a very busy 30 minutes.

The move is just one of many as the two partners start to move forward in a joint effort to expand the NCAA’s on-line and broadcast presence. Last year the NCAA singed a pair of deals with Turner Sports, one of which included CBS as well.

The first deal called for a 14-year television, Internet and wireless rights agreement with CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting. It gave the two the rights to present the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship beginning in 2011 and continuing through 2024 for more than $10.8 billion. This includes all the games being broadcast live, over a combination of four networks-CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV.

Included in the deal are joint marketing effort between the NCAA , CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting. At the time this was labeled the start of a new partnership and so it was as a second deal was cut soon after.

The second deal was just between Turner and the NCAA and it called for Turner create and mange NCAA Digital and which also covers 14 years. No terms of this deal were made available. NCAA Digital will cover all 88 NCAA championships and is designed to heighten awareness and interest in them, including running NCAA.com, the primary web site for all of the championships.

Included in the Fall football push will a number of expected features including a live scoreboard, power rankings and game recaps. There will be live statistics from ongoing games and a Heisman Watch as well as the ability to call up video highlights and watch features produced for the site.

It will be interesting to see how this impacts ESPN who currently is the unchallenged king of on-line and broadcast sports. I expect that will raise the bar for much of the channels analyst, much as the Baseball Network seems to have done, in my opinion. However the 30 minute show has a tough hill to climb to surpass the very popular ESPN College Gameday program.

Filed Under: CBS Sports, ESPN, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, TNT, truTV, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , ,

Mobile Sports Viewers Skyrocket During NCAA Men’s Hoops

April 10, 2011 by 1 Comment

Mobile sports viewers were almost as big a story as the University of Connecticut Huskies during the 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament, as March Madness on Demand (MMOD) experienced a 17 percent increase in online video consumption and a 63 percent increase in total viewership.

MMOD is the broadband and mobile device portal for the basketball tournament.

The MMOD numbers are the latest example of mobile sports programming as a boom industry. MMOD allows for direct marketing opportunities as well as brand evangelism opportunities on social networks. If Turner Sports and CBS Sports are to succeed in a 14-year, $10.8 billion deal with the NCAA to broadcast the men’s collegiate basketball tournament, MMOD and mobile sports viewership must produce new revenue streams to the broadcasters. This was the first year of the 14-year Turner/CBS deal.

Television ratings for the tourney also increased from the year previous, which experts said was further indication that hockey-stick growth trends in mobile sports viewing might continue without threatening the television market. 

“Live streams of sporting events online could actually be complementary to, and not cannibalistic of TV viewership,” wrote GigaOM‘s Ryan Lawler.

Akamai Technologies confirmed traffic for MMOD. Its global network was used to deliver live and on-demand to viewers. Akami, a Cambridge, Mass.-based cloud-computing company, said there were 1.9 million daily unique visitors and 680,000 daily visitors to mobile applications during the basketball tournament.

Viewers also raved about the user experience. Forbes.com columnist Michael Humphrey said Turner, CBS and the NCAA “put on a clinic on how to create the next major revenue stream” with crystal-clear pictures, outstanding interactive applications and advertisements that related directly to viewers using mobile devices. Humphrey challenged the National Football League to be aggressive in developing better sports viewing opportunities for fans with mobile devices.  

Filed Under: NCAA Hoops Tagged With: ,

Apple Customers Get Best View of Masters Golf Online

April 7, 2011 by 1 Comment

If you are a golf fan with an iPhone or iPad, you already have a two-shot lead even before this year’s Masters Tournament kicks off on April 7. That’s because the tourney is tilted in favor of Apple devices for non-TV viewing, especially for iPad owners who will have access to a wide array of features including nine live channels via a $1.99 app, as well as “the only digital live simulcast” of CBS’s weekend coverage.

While Android device owners won’t completely miss the cut, the free official Masters Android app for non-Apple devices will only provide live scoring and radio coverage, with video available only as highlights. (A version downloaded Wednesday night to a Samsung Epic 4G from Sprint also seemed to have issues with it not being able to increase text size.)

Golf fans with iPhones, however, will have access to five live video channels on their free app, an edge that could allow iPhone users to multitask (say, at your kid’s soccer game) on Sunday and not miss any live coverage of a potentially exciting finish.

Though many fans will no doubt be glued to the TV set (since the Masters has only a couple commercials each hour it remains one of the most pure sport-watching experiences) there will likely be many more viewers watching via their PCs, thanks to the beefed-up feature set found at the Masters.com site. One of the first big events to truly embrace the Internet, the Masters in 2011 will add the following online features, according to the tournament press release:

· Eight live video channels, all available in HD-quality

· DVR functionality that allows users to rewind to key moments during live action

· Exclusive live scoring with integrated leader board highlights

· The Internet’s only live, 3D video stream for users with 3D-capable computers

If you are watching via the iPad, you probably want to make sure you are doing so via a Wi-Fi connection, since extended video viewing via a 3G link could potentially burn through your monthly data download limit. But we are guessing there will be many golfing fans with both TVs and tablets ablaze during the tournament, as the multi-screen experience allows for Masters saturation far away from the hallowed fairways of Augusta.

Filed Under: Android, Golf, iPad, iPhone, The Masters, Top News Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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