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Boom Goes the Twitter: Manning-to-Denver News Takes Over Monday Morning

March 19, 2012 by 1 Comment

Here’s the tweet that started it all: ESPN’s Adam Schefter hit the innerwebs at 8:52 a.m. PT today with a missive that simply said, “From @mortreport and me: Peyton Manning will become the next quarterback of the Denver Broncos, barring unexpected snag in contract talks.”

And then Twitter hell broke loose. Not only was there instant reaction to the apparently successful recruitment by NFL Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway in bringing Manning to the Mile High City, but you also had the attendant fallout question of “what now for Tim Tebow,” the one-man twitterstorm who set the league’s social media airwaves aflame last fall when he unexpectedly found success with his unorthodox playing methods.

From @mortreport and me: Peyton Manning will become the next quarterback of the Denver Broncos, barring unexpected snag in contract talks.

As an old comrade of Schefter’s (our paths crossed briefly when I was a sportswriter in Boulder and he was starting his career with the Rocky Mountain News) it’s great to see him toeing the line on “not breaking news on Twitter” — if you’ve noticed lately a lot of his posts start with the wording “Filed to ESPN” at the start. Not the Manning one, though. Better to get the scoop first and worry about the internal politics later, we’re guessing. But see the WWL-correctedness in the follow up tweet:

Either way… a scoop’s a scoop, and this is definitely the biggest one of the NFL offseason. Now we are betting that Jim Harbaugh is on the line to Alex Smith, offering to carry his golf bag at the AT&T pro-am next year. Just guessing.

Filed Under: > Tebow, Denver Broncos, ESPN, Greater than Tebow, NFL, Twitter Tagged With: , , ,

Four Signs Your Bracket Has Gone to Hell

March 14, 2012 by 1 Comment

I like the Funny or Die Tournament Challenge Challenged video, even if I don’t know who all the stars are in it. It’s embedded below, so have a watch. Before that though, I can offer four signs that your bracket has gone to hell. Today is Wednesday, when all brackets are shiny and clean. But tomorrow, the carnage starts. And here are some of the reasons why:

1. “Your Team” went one-and-done. Thanks to Colorado’s miracle run at the Pac-12 tournament this year, I am set up for exactly this kind of failure. Had CU not won the tourney, they wouldn’t have been anywhere near the Big Dance. Now they’re in — and fans like myself are considering it reasonable to believe that the Buffs can win not just one, but two games! Here we go! Our boys will shock the world! No, they won’t. Vegas loves you, superfan.

2. Your “upset special” for the Final Four… just got upset. It’s cool to pick a 2 or 3 seed to not just win their regional, but to go all the way to the title game. Butler! you say. Butler two years in a row! you say. I say, there’s a reason for teams being a No. 1 seed. And even if a lower seed does make the move — odds are it won’t be the one you picked.

3. You picked Duke. Even though the Blue Devils are a perennial title threat… it’s a North Carolina year this year. Sorry.

4. Your team’s NBA prospect center apparently forgot to go to class. Shouldn’t they make a rule that tells us about things like this before the seedings come out?

Anyway, enjoy the professional humor below.

Filed Under: ESPN, NCAA Hoops Tagged With: ,

It’s Madness Time: Join the MSR Bracket, Follow the NIT @ ESPN

March 12, 2012 by 2 Comments

Is anyone getting any work done today, or is everyone filling out brackets? If you are looking for a place to show the world your NCAA hoops savvy look no farther than the inaugural MSR Bracket Challenge. Hosted over at ESPN, of course, the group is public so come one come all. If you are searching for the group its title is the “MSR Bracket Challenge.” We’ll think of some cool prize for winning; if any sponsors want to step up with some schwag hit me with an email to kaps at mobilesportsreport.com.

Also: If your team didn’t make the dance (Sorry Washington fans!) you will probably be headed over to ESPN since the WWL has the rights to the National Invitation Tournament, including some games shown only online at ESPN3. Here’s the full NIT broadcast schedule.

And here’s a great post from The Big Lead showing NCAA broadcast times and (most importantly) which announcing crews will be on hand.

UPDATE: How cool is this? A CBS Sports interactive map of the tournament field.

Filed Under: About MSR, Contests, ESPN, ESPN3, NCAA Hoops, The Big Lead, truTV, Turner Sports, WatchESPN Tagged With: ,

MLS embracing Social Media

March 12, 2012 by 2 Comments

Major League Soccer has kicked off its season last weekend with it its new broadcasting deal with partner NBC. You might have missed the broadcasts because it seems that people are missing NBC Sports a good deal these days leading to very bad ratings.

NBC’s woes might not go away soon due to the fact that the MLS has not yet broken through as a ratings driver. Its troubles in this area are varied, and it has at different times come under fire for everything from when it starts to its trading window. A good look at some of the issues can be found in these transcripts from Eric Wynalda.

Yet if you attend a match the energy is great. Fans are knowledgeable and attendance is growing. So what more can be done? Well using social media and other tools to keep the sport in front of fans is one step, and one that the league is taking.

It conducted a Twitter-based contest last weekend called #FirstKick for fans attending their teams opening match. The rules were pretty simply and any fan with access to Twitter that attended a match could participate. All you needed to do was tweet a photo of you or your friends from a match to win.

The tweet needed a @MLS twitter handle; it needed the #FirstKisk hashtag, proof that you were actually at the game in the photos such as stadium, player, promo or sign visible in your photo and last a link to your photo available on public domain, ex. Twitpic, Lockerz, Yfrog, Photobucket, Flickr, etc.

Submissions were accepted from Saturday, March 10 at 6 PM EST and ends on Monday, March 12 at 11:59 PM EST, so there is still time to send your photo in! There will be a winner draw at random for each day.

Fans that are traveling, or have games that are not broadcast can watch the action via MLS Live, which the league has revamped for the current season. The program, which does have blackout rules, allows fans to watch games via computer, iPad or iPhone, Roku and can be integrated with Apple TV for broadcast as well. Cost for a season is $59.99 and the free preview unfortunately ends on March 12.

The league has the obligatory Facebook page that also has the ability to keep fans in touch with what is going on in games and the league as a whole. I was surprised to find two friends that I did not know were fans not only subscribed to the page but also wrote about the sport in blogs and posts elsewhere. I guess when you have 325,000 likes that is inevitable (the league not me). I did not check Myspace.

I feel that the aggressive use of outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as revamping and increasing its online presence is vital to the success of MLS. The league has a number of soccer only stadiums that show off its product very well. But it is obvious that television alone will not get the message out.

Even as sports powerhouses Fox Sports and ESPN continue to turn up the presence of soccer in their sports programming, MLS often seems to be missing in the mix. Fox captured the World Cup broadcasts in 2018 and 2022 and has increased its broadcasting of soccer matches, just not US MLS. ESPN, after losing the World Cup to Fox has still increased its broadcasting and online efforts with things such as broadcasting the UEFA European Championships and upgrading its online presence.

MLS has been expanding and has seen strong attendance in the new towns like Portland where its games last season were sold out. However television viewership has been flat and this does not bode well for the sport. According to the Big Lead last weekend, MLS averaged 291,000 viewers on ESPN and ESPN2 last season and 70,000 viewers on FOX Soccer. That is just sad.

The league, which is kicking off its 17th season, does not have to worry about out of control salaries for players due to a hard cap, but this is a disadvantage because it will be hard to lure top talent from around the world or to keep talent that hears the siren call of a big payday. Glowing television viewership can change that, but it will take all of its tools, on-line, mobile and broadcast, to achieve this dream.

Filed Under: Apps, ESPN, Facebook, Fox Sports, FoxSoccer, Live sports via mobile, MLS, NBC Sports, Soccer, Social Media, The Big Lead Tagged With: , , , ,

ESPN: Online Audience for College Hoops Soaring — Now Just Wait Until the iPad 3 Arrives!

March 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Even before the new Apple iPad arrived to save humanity and burn through wireless data plans, ESPN said that people watching college hoops on small screens this season set new records, with 1.6 billion total minutes and 283 million visits across the worldwide leader’s various online entities, representing increases of 16 percent and 5 percent respectively compared to 2010-11.

While these stats aren’t really unexpected — I mean, what’s not to like about watching hoops on an iPad? — it is pretty amazing on one hand to consider that in just a few short years mobile devices like the iPhone, Android phones and the iPad and its imitators have become fixtures in the sports-audience landscape. Want more stats? The most-viewed game online this year, according to figures provided to us by ESPN, was the Duke-North Carolina game on Feb. 8, with 4.4 million online minutes generated across computers, smartphones and tablets.

ESPN called that event the “most watched college basketball game ever” for online, but we are betting that it gets quickly eclipsed sometime during the upcoming NCAA men’s tournament, when all those shiny new iPad 3s get turned on and tuned in.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, ESPN, ESPN3, NCAA Hoops, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , ,

ESPN to Broadcast UEFA European Football Championship 2012

March 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Good news for football fans ESPN will have games in June. Sorry I did not mean to get you excited if you misunderstood, it is not American football but the European style, when it broadcasts the UEFA European Football Championship 2012.

The network is staying true to its word about expanding and deepening its coverage of the sport in the US and it will be doing so with all of the tools at its disposal, live broadcasts, tape delayed, mobile and Internet coverage as well.

The broadcasts will be spread across three of its channels with some overlap starting with ESPN Desportes taking the lead with a total of 27 live matches and four tape-delayed ones for a total of 106 hours of programming.

Second at bat will be ESPN with 22 matches as well as pre- and post- game shows while ESPN3 will have six matches and the additional pre-and post-game programming as well. All 31 of the matches will be available on ESPN Deportes Radio, WatchESPN and 25 matches will be live on ESPN Mobile TV. All broadcast games will be in HD for the first time.

While pre- and post-game shows are a staple for American football fans this will mark the first time that ESPN will be including them in its UEFA broadcasts and including some of the traditions such as the teams walking onto the pitch, the national anthems and ceremonial handshakes that are a cornerstone of European pregame ceremonies.

The tournament begins Friday, June 8, and runs through Sunday, July 1, in eight cities across Poland and Ukraine. If you are on vacation, graduating from school, or working during the games all 31 matches will be archived and can only be accessed on ESPN3 through July 31, 2012, and non-exclusively through the end of the year. All matches will be available for replay on ESPN3 shortly after completion.

Filed Under: ESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN3, Soccer Tagged With: , ,
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