MOBILE


Verizon Incredible Ships With Not-Awful NFL App

Posted by Jonathan in MOBILE on 04-16-10    No Comments


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Deep inside yesterday’s rollout of Verizon Droid Incredible — an HTC smart phone due out in a few weeks — is a fascinating sports tech tidbit: With a big honkin’ screen, an 8-megapixel camera and a new touch interface, the unit also  comes with the NFL Mobile software standard.

Look what a horse race mobile sports content has become.

The first issue is how will NFL Mobile work on Verizon versus how it currently works on Sprint. Clearly, the bigger screen and fatter processors will run the experience more effectively than, say, the Sprint Hero. But Sprint is kicking some sport tech butt with its 4G network coming nationally this year. And with its new Evo 4g phone due out this summer, chances are the Incredible won’t seem so incredible for long.

And look how smart the NFL has played the wireless game: By creating freestanding, Apple App independent content, it keeps its games off the general Web, makes mobile-specific riffs on what it does, and then plays the operators against each other to keep pricing high and customer interest sharp.

The NFL really is the smartest league in sports right now.




The Masters @ 30K: Inflight Sports Apps Don’t Suck

Posted by Jonathan in MOBILE on 04-11-10    No Comments


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HIGH OVER LOUISIANA: Well it’s come to this: The Masters at 30,000 feet.

I have never been part of the mile-high wifi club. It’s blisteringly expensive. Connectivity basically sucks. And I really — REALLY — hate the in flight Skypers: “I’m on a plaane. Yea, Ma. on a plane. Right. At 30,000 feet … 30 thousand…. ON THE PLANE. Ma, I’m ON THE PLANE!!!!”

Spare me.

But now … I am taking it back: once feeble in-flight data access might have found a killer app: In pocket sports apps. I have been staying on top of today’s The Masters here on the flight back from New Orleans to LGA, using the iPhone Masters app. Coverage has been decent. Scores are accurate. Video is not awful. And over all, I could pretty much stay on Lee and Phil battling it out. And — like most american men — stare in at Tiger and wonder what all those chicks must have been like.

And if you think about it, mobile sports apps make a lot of sense for in-flight entertainment. They do not rely on heavy data connections, like most sports web sites. They can run on even the crappiest smart phone. And developers actually get paid to make these apps, so in all they offer a smooth, high-quality high tech sports experience.

Which honestly, is better than what YouTube can deliver.

So next flight out: Toss on the NBA, Masters or MLB app, and you’ll see. These all offer the exact right amount of connectivity, without turning your trip time into a complete gadget fest. I realize this is two things I am liking in the same week. So I must be going soft. But the fact is, smart phone sports apps might just be the sleeper tech pick for sports right now.

Not bad.




Is That The Masters In Your Pocket? Or Are You Just Happy To See Us?

Posted by Jonathan in MOBILE on 03-30-10    No Comments


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With Tiger getting ready to actually play with white plastic golf balls– instead of the other set that have caused him so much trouble — what better time to turn that useless iPhone or iPod of yours into a legit sports tool. This year the folks down at The Masters have done a dang nice job, at least at first blush, on their The Masters Golf Tournament 2.0.

The new app will basically replicate the Web site, with full video from Amen Corner and other spots on the course, a full radio feed of the event,  a robust leader board. And some nice use of interactive stats and info.

Particularly for the early rounds, this thing could actually rock. My question, of course is, will it even work at all on AT&T’s crap network? I am fully expecting this to be an only “good for WiFi” App.

But who knows, it could surprise me. The Masters does some serious high tech stuff with sports. And if anybody can fit their content down the 1.5G network that AT&T passes off, it will be them.

Golfer’s ready?




Putting the VZ into the NFL: Verizon to carry NFL Network

Posted by Jonathan in MOBILE on 03-09-10    No Comments


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The NFL continues to lock up mobile subscribers.

The League (that’s no typo — the NFL really has become “The League,” capital T, capital L) said today that Verizon will carry part of its NFL Network feed to its 68 million or so subscribers — about 90 percent of the entire cable universe. Not bad.

The four-year deal is valued at $720 million — a little over $10 a sub, or about $2.5 a year per sub. Keep in mind that cable companies pay $3.50 a sub for ESPN’s content.

Verizon will pump a full slate of NFL Network stuff through its cell system: coverage of the draft, the Sunday Night game, the RedZone and lots more. It’s definitely worth a test drive: I have been impressed with Sprint’s riff on NFL content.

Basically, this is a good deal for everybody. Verizon is smart to lock down a long-term deal with the NFL now since the price of sports content will only skyrocket. The NCAA’s  Basketball deal is coming due soon, which will almost certainly set a new record. Comcast now has NBC and is big into regional sports networks. So it is a new player. And don’t forget the new slate of digital content operations looking for content. Apple will need something compelling to sell on iPads. As does Google. They even violated its “never pay for anything” rule by carrying cricket on YouTube.

The NFL, in turn, gets to broaden its mobile reach while still getting paid. Imagine what poor AT&T and TMobile will wind up paying with a few years of traffic data under its belt.

Really makes the whole ABC/Cablevision spat look like small potatoes.




Tiger Woods: The Sports Tech Story of the Century?

Posted by Jonathan in INTERNET, MOBILE, TELEVISION on 02-23-10    No Comments


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Get over it, Tiger cheating on the missus is the story of our times.

Just look at the data video tape.

At first techno-blush, the Tiger Woods press conference seemed almost like a digital non-event. CNN.com’s International Edition did a nice job pointing out that the press conference did middling Twitter traffic and almost no Facebook buzz. The Obama Inauguration, for example, was a much bigger deal. And in fact, the conference only generated about 800K downloads of the video feed on YouTube. That’s small Web potatoes for sure.

But the cable news ratings were far higher. Nielsen numbers floating around say that FoxNews reported 2.1 million saw the conference, with ESPN, CNN, The Golf Channel, HeadlineNews and MSNBC also running the event; and totaling 4.5 million additional viewers watching — for something on the order of 6.6 million viewers in the cable universe. Or about the size of a season average middle year of The Sopranos. Maybe these potatoes are bigger than we thought.

And there was broadcast: NBC, ABC and CBS also ran the conference. For some reason, there’s no public data that I could find for how many viewers tuned in. But that’s no biggie to tease out. The news audience is well understood. So lets guesstimate that the Tiger event equaled the standing nightly news audience, which usually combines to deliver about 20 million viewers. (That’s probably low, to be honest. Event viewing is usually much higher. But you’ll see it does not matter.)

That combines for about 26 million people, net of broadcast and cable, who saw the conference — or way more than the 22 million who saw Game Six of last year’s World Series. Tiger is big sports potatoes indeed.

And this pile is only a fraction of the total audience who is aware of Tiger. Now the figures get simply mind boggling. The Google news scraper for the terms “tiger woods” for mid day Feb. 23 show a total of 12,000 plus news stories on that topic. TWELVE THOUSAND! Or roughly 12 times the size of the coverage for white hot tech stories like the Apple iPad, which out are lucky to garner 1,500 stories.

Now how many people read all those stories? Again, no hard data exists, but we can make an excellent guess. There are now 6 billion worldwide cell phone subscribers that have easy access to this digital Tiger hype information, which makes it entirely probable that the full English language speaking world, or roughly 3 billion people, had direct touch with this story. And it is also probably that these people told someone else they saw it, meaning, … everybody, everywhere on earth knows the deal with Tiger.

Name another event that comes close to this level of world wide awareness? I can’t. Can you?

And can it get any more delicious than this:  The digital revolution with all its wonders of silicon, IP packets and crystal glass has made a simple story about a golfer cheating on wife into the most well known thing ever.

Not bad, for a man standing in front a blue curtain. Talking.

You can’t make it up.




Apple Tablet vs Netbook: What Does It Mean For Sports Fans

Posted by Jonathan in EQUIPMENT, INTERNET, MOBILE on 12-28-09    No Comments


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For the sports tech smack-down for 2010, it is going to be tough to beat the looming grudge match between the Apple Tablet, due out probably in March, and the commodity netbook computer flooding the market as we speak. Tablet computers have been around since the beginning of computing. Bank installed cash machines are basically tablets customized to rip you off every time you want your money. And netbooks, which are really nothing more than stripped down PCs with no hardrives or big screens, have quietly become the default portable computing option worldwide with easily 200 million of these units being deployed internationally by the end of the year.

What makes these once for geeks only gadgets critical to us sports nutz is, you guessed it, the webification of sports.

Between the TV Everywhere initiative, the sophisticated Web video efforts of the NFL, the NBA, MLB, the NCAA and the rest of the leagues and conferences, web sports feeds online will almost certainly be the must-have sports experience for the first half of 2010. What heats the action up even further is online sports enters its peak season early in the year: March Madness on Demand, The Masters and the big early season NASCAR events like Talladega and even the Indy 500, are all getting way webish way fast.

That puts the Apple Tablet rollout right at the height of the online sports season. And considering it is a done deal that the Apple Tablet will be sexy, heavily promoted, easy to use and probably move something crazy like 100,000 units in its first weekend, the unit may catch on fast with fans. iTunes is set to light up a pay for TV streaming service sometime next year. And with Steve Jobs as a major Disney shareholder, imagine what an iTunes enabled ESPN360 channel will be like running on such an Apple device: games, stats, fantasy info, chat and social media all woven in a single well developed easy to use, touch enabled gizmo that is app ready. And open to third party developers who are cashing in like bandits on weaving new apps every day.

It is no stretch that the tablet will offer probably the best 7 inch immersive sports experience on the market. But the iTablet will not be cheap. Let’s guess the unit comes in at $500. Compare that to an entry level netbook that can be had for $300 and offers roughly the same content, but not nearly the same user experience.

And the battle is on. Will fans decide to ante up for the better sports feel of the Apple Tablet. Or will a properly enabled netbook offer cash strapped customer reasonable access to league websites and content. Which would make paying up for the Apple a flagrant foul.

Stay tuned. Or rather, stay plugged in. Learning to take your tablets might be the sports medication for 2010.




Sports Illustrated has a Digital Life

Posted by Jonathan in INTERNET, MOBILE on 12-15-09    No Comments


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Looks like the future is finally catching up with Sports Illustrated. After missing pretty much every single tech development in sports since cable TV — which went to ESPN — and regional sports coverage — which went to the teams themselves — SI looks like it will be an early mover in digital magazines. The company has thrown up on YouTube a demo video that highlights how their magazine will work on a tablet computer. Much of the demo is wishful thinking: Image quality and speed to render images will be dependent on the processing power of the tablet that supports it, which can vary. And live content will also only work in areas that have active Web access or a full bit rate cell phone connection, which could be pricey. But still SI gets credit for being a thought leader in this digital magazines. And factor in that Apple is expected to roll out a table computer in 2010, and suddenly Sports Illustrated might just be … gosh HOT! You go, SI.




CBSSPORTS.com College Network Releases First Series Of Official School Applications For The iPhone & iPod Touch

Posted by Dan in MOBILE on 11-09-09    No Comments


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CBSCBS sports is launching iPhone apps for several big time college sports programs.  Right now the list includes big time programs like Alabama (BamaMobile), Kansas (KUAthletics), Missouri (MizzouMobile), North Carolina (TarHeelMobile), Oklahoma (SoonerSports), Oklahoma State (OSUTube), & USC (USCAthletics) but eventually will get to more than sixty schools.




Jazz Up That iPhone/Android/Blackberry Eh Whatever You Got

Posted by admin in MOBILE on 11-03-09    No Comments


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All this hype over the Android has meant one thing: getting the right sports app for your phone is no longer the chore it once was. Now companies are lining up to stick sports crap apps on your phone. And a hot one right now is Plusmo over at plusmo.com. The operation has built a rapid prototyping language for mobile apps. So it can take data from anywhere and stick it on any phone. So the operation has has thousands of different apps ready to slide right on your  phone. And some are not ones for sports. The College Football Live App is not awful. And expect Plusmo to only  get better. AT&T just bought the firm earlier this fall. And considering how crappy their network is — iPhone users can feel our pain — this sort of sport content is about the only thing that will keep subs. Let the App wars begin.




Football Night in America in the Car

Posted by Jonathan in MOBILE, TELEVISION on 09-17-09    No Comments


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Audiovox_019_270x202Sure all this Sunday Ticket, MLB.com streaming sports nonsense is cool but what we really want is the effin game in the effin car. Well it looks like sports muckity mucks are finally gettin’ the message. A company called FloTV announced today that is working with in-car electronics company AudioVox to allow for live broadcast TV in your Camry, Sentry or Impala.  FloTV uses a digital sideband that cell phones use similar to Verizon TV packages that some phones support.

Now, of course, this is not fully supported by all the broadcasters yet, only NBC participates, so basically you are getting exactly one NFL game on Sunday night. It runs $9 per month and we can only hope the sports gods get their acts together on this one, since driving to the in-laws might just not be so awful now. You can just sit in the car the whole time.