You are here: Home / Archives for ESPN

ESPN Gets its Social Media Game On: Twitter Deal, YouTube Channels and More

May 15, 2012 by 1 Comment

They’re called advertising upfronts but today’s announcements from ESPN show mainly that the worldwide leader in sports isn’t missing the bus when it comes to social media. Instead, it’s firmly behind the wheel and driving in the lead.

While there were many ground-breaking developments announced by ESPN today, the ones we think are really big news are the Twitter/ESPN branded ad campaigns, the new ESPN radio apps and some cool plans for the Bill Simmons/Grantland outlet that include a dedicated YouTube channel and a podcast channel. In all, what ESPN is basically saying is that it’s not going to be run over by social media like Twitter, as some astute observers predicted might happen. Instead, ESPN is using its content might to leverage social media’s appeal, marrying the best of what it has with the ongoing revolution of user-driven content consumption.

I’m not so sure how the branded ESPN/Twitter idea will pan out — it involves having fans send in their pictures to then be highlighted during an ESPN broadcast. Though I am sure we will all watch to see how silly people are willing to be, to me the power of Twitter is that it’s not directed or harnessed, but most amazing when it forms through happenstance and intuition. But acknowledging that Twitter is better at giving users an online identity than its own commenting system is a big leap for a big company like ESPN, and it shows that the network is ready and willing to embrace technology that it doesn’t necessarily control. Not an easy thing for a big company to do.

The new ESPN radio app may be the big sleeper announcement that intially gets overlooked and then becomes the thing everyone can’t live without. If the app’s announced ability to act as sort of a radio-broadcast DVR delivers as promised I could see a new wave of “sports radio” emerging where you don’t just tune in to what’s on the air but instead load your device with the latest SportsCenter and maybe a Simmons podcast for the drive to work. That’s a scary thought if you are a local radio talk show trying to compete against ESPN and its massive resources.

I also like the ideas spinning out of the Grantland property, which is interesting at times but is still (I think) trying to find its place and voice. Deeper content vehicles like YouTube, short films and podcasts may be where Grantland finally shines; the real question there may be whether Simmons has enough interest left to drive it toward new ground, instead of continually mining his old and successful but now somewhat tiresome models of mailbags, cousin Vinny episodes, etc. At the very least, ESPN’s doubling down shows it thinks Grantland has legs. Maybe social media will help it run faster.

Filed Under: Apps, ESPN, ESPN Radio, Sports Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: , , ,

Elemental Technologies lands $13m in Series C funding

May 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Elemental Technologies, a young company that is focusing on creating video solutions for multiscreen content delivery has closed its third round of funding after landing $13 million in a Series C round of funding.

The round was led by Northwest Venture Partners (NVP) and was joined by three additional partners; General Catalyst, Voyager Capital and Steamboat Ventures, all of whom are previous investors in the company.

This brings to $27.6 million to the company, which was founded in 2006, has managed to raise in the past few years. It closed its Series B round in July, 2010 after raising $7.5 million and $7.1 million in its first round in July, 2008.

In that time it has signed more than a 100 customers including number of top tier players including ESPN, Comcast and HBO, been named to Forbes Magazine’s Most Promising Companies in America list and more.

One of the most interesting is the deal it landed last month that calls for it to be part of the backbone to the systems that will be broadcasting the upcoming London Olympics to viewers in Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada and a dozen countries in Latin America.

Filed Under: Comcast, Elemental Technologies, ESPN, General Catalyst, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Northwest Venture Partners, Startup, Steamboat Ventures, Venture Capital, Voyager Capital Tagged With: , ,

Comcast Subscribers Finally Get WatchESPN Access

May 8, 2012 by 1 Comment

Screen shot of ESPNWatch TV ad with the cowboy in the horse trough -- note the disclaimer text.

If you are a paying Comcast cable subscriber, the day of sports freedom has finally arrived — you are now part of the lucky group that is able to use the WatchESPN app to get sports content wherever you want it, on basically any mobile device.

While this does mean that approximately 40 million more Comcast customers can now watch games and other ESPN programming in the horse trough should they so desire, it still isn’t quite the Internet freedom you get from watching events that are served up live to anyone with an Internet connection, like say The Masters or the Super Bowl. But it’s hard to argue with the fact that content must be paid for in one form or another; and since the cable providers pay ESPN a hefty fee to have the channel available for their regular services, it makes sense that ESPN would require the cable-subscription validation in order to consume that same content on other platforms.

Still, I would like to see ESPN offer some kind of separate, Internet-only subscription fee and I expect that someday we may see such a serving. But not anytime soon, because it makes no sense for ESPN to bite the hand that feeds it so well. For now.

Filed Under: Apps, Comcast, ESPN, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , ,

ESPN Gameday Contest Draws Fan Interest — Maybe Too Much Interest?

April 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Any but the most casual college football fan has seen the throngs at the ESPN College Gameday sets, with fans in the background hoisting all sorts of signs, occasionally ones that are risqué or outright rude, and during the course of the week we see lots of ads for the program.

Now fans can influence where the ads will be shot in a clever little contest that ESPN and Facebook are hosting that enables fans to vote once a day for their school of choice. The winning school will have a Gameday ad shot on campus and it will include students from that school.There are a total of 120 schools involved and you can vote over at Facebook or ESPN GamedayVote.

I really like the contest on a number of levels. It should generate a great deal of attention between rival schools and rival contests. A quick look at some of the blogs out there already have battle cries that call for votes or else.

For ESPN it just brings additional attention to its football programming, and at a time that it is not usually on the minds of fans. It seems to have already taken off since the ESPN Vote page, and the Facebook one, as of this writing, has been overwhelmed and are down while it verifies the votes. I suspect that it will just get busier before this is all over.

The one flaw seems to be that the powers that be underestimated the popularity of the program. Looking at some of the posts on the Facebook page I noticed both accusations of cheating and complaints that votes were credited to the wrong team. I have to say that if I was in school and knew a hacker I might be so inclined to see if I could ‘rock the vote.’

I would really love to know where the votes are coming from, not in terms of schools and conferences, but are more voters coming from the Facebook page or the ESPN site? ESPN’s Facebook page has one million followers and so can be a tremendous force in this contest.

Filed Under: Contests, ESPN, Facebook, Fanatic Fans, NCAA Football, Social Media, Sports Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

Cleveland Indians Open Suite for in-Game Twitterers

April 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

A special section for Twitter users? Well that is the plan for the Cleveland Indians who already have a strong following in the twittering crowd apparently. The team will now cater to this market segment by creating a social media suite.

The effort actually has been an evolutionary progress, dating back to 2010 according to ESPN, which also once labeled the Indians as baseball’s most Twitter friendly team.

Fans can get invites to the suite, which are available on a game by game basis and then enjoy not only the view from the seats but also chat online from the Wi-Fi enabled suite with friends not in attendance and ones that are present.

This is part of a greater trend in baseball to make the ballpark experience much more social media and online friendly. There are already 4 stadiums that have in-house networks that enable fans to use mobile apps from Facebook to YouTube with a great deal more ease than in the past when network overloading often shut them off from connections.

Anything that helps boost attendance will be appreciated by the team. With a huge amount of rain last month the team suffered from poor per game attendance, but has seen it shoot up by more than 10,000 a game as the weather has dried and warmed. Who knows maybe the twittering masses can help shoot that number even higher.

Filed Under: Baseball, Cleveland Indians, ESPN, Facebook, Major League Baseball, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: , ,

MLB Network adds New Channel for Highlights: The Strike Zone

April 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

MLB Network expands its broadcasting presence, part time, with the introduction of the Strike Zone channel, which a number of its cable partners have agreed to carry in a number of markets large and small across the nation.

The channel, which will only broadcast part-time, will be available currently from DIRECTV, Dish Network, Bright House Network and Time Warner Cable and will be designed much on the model set by the NFL Network’s Red Zone, providing live look in at games and important at bats as well as providing game highlights, all in high definition.

Initially it looks like Time Warner customers will be the big winners as it will be offering the channel in these markets: Albany, Austin, Buffalo, Charlotte, Cleveland, Columbia, Columbus, Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Milwaukee/Green Bay, New York City, Palm Springs, Portland, Raleigh, Rochester, San Antonio, San Diego, Syracuse and Waco.

Interesting that I live in one of those markets and did not know that Time Warner was available here. Anyway then Bright House will be offering the programming in five markets. Two in Florida with Orlando and Tampa; Bakersfield, California, Indianapolis and Birmingham, Alabama.

Dish Network will include it in its ‘Multi-Sports’ package while DIRECTV will offer it as part of its ‘Sports Pack’ and its MLB Extra Innings plan.

When MLB launched its own network the thinking was that this would put pressure on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight and I believe that it did, bring its level of professionalism up a notch. Now with a competing highlight show I expect that we will see a much broader assortment of highlights and game breaks from ESPN covering more teams than the few that it seems to favor.

Filed Under: Baseball, ESPN, Major League Baseball, Time Warner Cable Television Tagged With: ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »