Is mobile access to live NFL games the next battleground for AT&T and Verizon Wireless?

NFL Mobile screen shot of server fail during Week 1. Photo Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

NFL Mobile screen shot of server fail during Week 1. Photo Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

Today’s news that DirecTV has signed a $12 billion deal with the NFL — priced at $1.5 billion a year for 8 years — to keep carrying its Sunday Ticket package has me thinking: Are we on the verge of a battle royale between the country’s two biggest cellular providers over mobile access to NFL games?

I don’t think it’s hyperbole to claim that mobile access to sports content and live NFL games are two of the hottest things going. Go look up any list of the most-watched live TV shows, and you will find various big NFL games dominating the list. Add that to stats like today’s news out of ESPN where the worldwide leader claimed it had 61.3 million unique mobile users during August and you can perhaps see another reason why AT&T might want to buy DirecTV: Because with Sunday Ticket, AT&T has a possible way to trump Verizon’s stranglehold on smartphone access to live NFL action, which it now shows via its exclusive contract with the NFL for its NFL Mobile app premium service.

Judging by traffic and search terms on our humble little site, people looking to find ways to watch live NFL action on their mobile devices is a pretty hot topic these days. Right now, the only way for most people to see any live action at all on a smartphone is to be a Verizon Wireless subscriber, and have the premium service for the company’s NFL Mobile app. Free to “More Everything” data plan customers and $5 a month for others, the premium NFL Mobile package provides access to Sunday night, Monday night and Thursday night games, as well as local Sunday games.

Sunday Ticket vs. NFL Mobile?

You can also watch the RedZone channel via NFL Mobile, but confusingly if you are on the More Everything plan you need to pay an additional $1.99 a month, a new process that helped mess up Verizon’s NFL Mobile access earlier this season. Non-Share Everything customers who pay the $5 a month fee have RedZone included for free. (For many true NFL fans, RedZone is often even better than having games streamed, since you get all the best action, even from blacked-out games or games not televised locally.)

Screen Shot 2014-10-01 at 2.37.08 PMWhere the battle might be joined is in the tablet space — since Verizon’s $1 billion agreement with the NFL only provides live game access to “phone-like devices” and not to tablets or computers, it will be interesting to see what happens if and when AT&T becomes the new owner of DirecTV. One of the more interesting options from DirecTV this year was the NFLSundayTicket.TV option, which allows a type of “cord-cutting,” providing all the options of Sunday Ticket without having to have satellite service. Right now the option (pricing starts at $199 for the season) is only available in a few cities, universities and apartment buildings, but with the heft of AT&T behind it who knows what might happen to both that deal and the regular Sunday Ticket package.

Though far pricer, the $329.94 Sunday Ticket Max plan offered by DirecTV currently allows for mobile viewing of all games, on “computer, tablet, phone or game console.” Anyone else see the possibility of AT&T offering free Sunday Ticket plans to purchases of new phones or tablets?

Verizon, which provides information about NFL Mobile subscriber stats just like Bill Belichick provides deep insights on the inner machinations of the New England Patriots, has not recently stated how many subscribers it has on the NFL Mobile premium package. But for $1 billion over 4 years you can bet the number of users is well into the millions, maybe even more than 10 million — and the exclusivity of NFL live action has certainly been a big selling point for Big Red. The good news for NFL fans is, if any battle begins, it will likely include more access for lower costs — that’s the kind of competition we can all cheer for.

NBC and NHL provide TV Everywhere for Stanley Cup Playoffs

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The 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs are here and the NHL, along with its playoff broadcast partners are using a variety of mobile and digital strategies and programs to engage fans including streaming broadcasts of the games.

The highlights are probably having all of the games presented nationally across the platforms of the NBC Sports Group for the third year in a row and for the second consecutive year NBC Sports Live Extra will stream every game live. To fans that closely follow the games this might not be a surprise but for the casual fan this could be news.

The live streaming will reach a variety of devices that have downloaded the NBC Sports Live Extra app and can stream the events as they are shown on NBC, NBC Sports Network and CNBC. It will work with desktop and laptop PCs to tablets and smartphones as long as they are authenticated customers.

This is part of the growing push for “TV Everywhere” partnerships between cable providers, networks and sports leagues that all are starting to promote more aggressively. CBS and Turner Sports along with the NCAA saw strong online viewership growth for the recently concluded March Madness even when broadcast viewership slightly declined; and NBC’s push with cable partners during the Winter Olympics also produced large digital audiences. (Editor’s note: So maybe finally broadcasters are really realizing that online audiences are additive, not subtractive ones. Huzzah.)

In addition there will be a stronger social media push for this year’s playoffs including a very interesting deal with Magisto called Making Stanley Cup Movie Magic with Magisto. Magisto is a video creation and sharing app for both Android and Apple platforms and it will enable fans to create movies about experiences and events at the game such as the Blackhawks’ I Was There promotion.

The NHL and CBS are taking an interesting turn at Twitter as well this season. The @NHLonNBCSports twitter account will be handled by a variety of celebrity guests including CBS personalities, ex-players and celebrity hockey fans over the course of the playoffs.

That is just part of its much larger social campaign that also includes the basic news for the playoffs at #StanleyCup, an effort to highlight fans through photos that at #CelebrateStanley Photo Campaign for the Fans and the news and information site of NHL on NBC All-Access Social Media that is located at NBCSports.com/NHLonNBC.

It appears that select sports leagues and networks are increasingly coming to the realization that as an increasing number of fans are also cutting the cord to broadcast and cable TV the best was to reach them is via mobile digital media and programs like these from the NHL and NBC seem like the right approach to encourage that engagement.

(Editor’s second note: Not EVERY game is being shown live, there are still local blackouts… look what we got when we tried to tune in San Jose – LA:)

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MLB.TV available in time for Spring Training

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Every season one of the most popular phrases for a baseball fan is that pitchers and catchers have reported, meaning that the preseason has started and regular season baseball is not too far away. Now a new phrase may start bringing the same excitement-MLB.TV is now on sale.

While this may be a bit of an exaggeration it is not that big of a leap since the huge popularity of the program has seemingly increased every year as baseball fans continue to sign up to watch the streaming video of MLB games. Now in its 12th year the program is the top sports streaming product.

The program allows fans to watch out of market games on a growing variety of platforms ranging from televisions to on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, supported Android smartphones and tablets, Amazon Kindle Fire and Windows Phone 8. There is a range of additional devices that are or will be supported as well such as the Xbox and Sony’s Playstation.

It should be noted that the games shown are only those that are out of market games and the map for which teams claim which territory is very convoluted. For instance I think four or five teams claim Las Vegas. There is (or was I cannot find the current status) a court case that seeks to throw out MLB’s blackout policy, but you should probably not hold your breath for any changes this season.

All subscribers to the service that sign up early i.e. prior to the start of the regular season, will have access to more than 200 live games from Spring Training in Florida and Arizona. Spring Training game broadcasts are scheduled to begin on Wednesday, February 26, 2014.

Some subscribers, depending on which version they select will also receive a free subscription to MLB.com At Bat, enabling fans to listen to any game on a huge range of supported platforms. MLB.TV comes in two flavors. For $129.99 a year you also get At Bat as well as support on mobile devices. For $109.99 you just get the standard features that do not include mobile devices and choice of feeds.

ESPN sets mobile consumption records; why do you think we started Mobile Sports Report?

According to this stunning press release from ESPN the Worldwide Leader in sports is now also the worldwide mobile leader, with sports fans consuming 4.1 billion minutes of ESPN content in November on smartphones and tablets.

Read that again: 4.1 BILLION minutes of content consumed in November, on smartphones and tablets. With mobile usage accounting for 54 percent of all ESPN digital traffic — and with 28.6 million fans only hitting ESPN through mobile devices — you are now getting stats to back up the reason why we started this here Mobile Sports Report site. Sports is not just going mobile, it’s already there. And it’s not coming back.

Neither, apparently, is ESPN. We’ll just let ESPN brag with the money quote from its release, vis-a-vis its digital platform competition:

“ESPN Digital Media accounted for 35% of all sports category usage across computers, smartphones and tablets in November, more than the Nos. 2, 3 and 4 sports properties combined (Yahoo! Sports-NBC Sports Network, NFL Internet Group, and Bleacher Report-Turner Sports Network), according to comScore Multi-Platform data.”

For stats freaks there’s a lot more to dig into here — like, the fact that ESPN is claiming 26.5 million Twitter followers of all ESPN Twitter handles, but only 2.6 million interacted (liked, shared, etc.) with either the ESPN or SportsCenter Facebook pages. Does that mean Twitter is killing Facebook in sports?

I also like this factoid: “ESPN videos were viewed 39.2 million times on YouTube, up 66% from a year ago.” I guess ESPN isn’t too worried about losing viewers to YouTube. Instead it got another 39.2 million ad views. Cha-ching!

Bottom line: People still want to watch sports on TV, but when they’re away from the TV they still want sports. And more often than not — already — they’re using a tablet or smartphone to get that sports content, not a laptop or a desktop computer. Make sure you understand that fact: ESPN’s mobile site usage is ALREADY bigger than desktop traffic. Mobile sports, people. Mobile sports.

Microsoft beats Apple to market with latest generation tablets

winpro

Microsoft has unveiled its newest lineup of Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets at the same time as Apple but unlike Apple, which will not ship for several weeks, Microsoft will have its tablets ready for market now.

The Surface 2 (the renamed Surface RT) and the Surface Pro 2 both underwent some major adjustments as second generation products, with many of the alterations shared by both platforms. They both have longer battery life, enhanced display resolution and more processing power.

The Surface 2 features an Nvidia Tegra 4 processor, which has helped it double its battery life to 10 hours. The tablet has an upgraded display that has a 10.6-inch ClearType Full HD display now renders 1080p video.

The USB 2.0 port has been upgraded to USB 3.0, its camera resolution has also increased, with a 3.5-megapixel front camera and 5-megapixel rear camera. The Surface 2 is available in 32GB and 64GB configurations and starts at $449.

It should be noted that the Surface 2 is designed to run a version of Windows 8.1 RT so that older Windows apps will most likely not work on the platform and a user would need to purchase all new apps from the Microsoft Windows Store.

The Surface Pro 2, which runs the standard Windows 8.1 operating system and is generally backwardly compatible with older Windows apps is powered by an Intel Core i5 processor, which along with other changes will provide a longer battery life than the first generation. It has a 10.6-inch 1920 x 1080- display.

The Surface Pro 2 comes in 64GB and 128GB versions with 2GB f RAM starting at $899 and with 4GB of RAM and in 256GB and 512GB configurations with 8GB of RAM for power users.

Microsoft has continued to aim the Surface family at the business professional with the Surface Pro 2 and at the home consumer with the Surface 2, positioning both as more than simply tablets but as full desktop replacements and has expanded the accessories that are available for the tablets so that the needs of both markets are met.

There are keyboard covers for both tablets, as in the past but the neat change is that they are now backlit so that a sure could type in the dark if they wanted. The Touch Cover starts at $120 and the Type Cover at $130. They are sold separately from the tablets. Next year a $200 Power Cover, that includes a built-in battery will also be added to the lineup.

The two tablets also come with some limited time offers as well. Customers who purchase either device will receive one year of free Skype calling to landlines, unlimited Skype Wi-Fi on their Surface 2 or Surface Pro 2 for one year, and 200 GB of free SkyDrive storage for two years.

In the last year Microsoft has made some headway in the tablet space and it seems as the market continues to fracture into additional segments its position as a desktop replacement, with its high capacity storage capabilities, will help create a distinct personality for its products. One question it will face is will its OEMs stay on board if they are competing with Microsoft?

Nvidia Delivers Complete Low Cost Tablet Platform

tegran

Nvidia has joined Microsoft, Google, Amazon and a host of others this week as it became the latest company to break from its traditional role in the hi-tech industry and deliver a hardware product designed for the consumer and business market, in this case a 7-inch tablet.

The company teased the market months ago with a brief demo of the product, and discussed its plans for a low cost platform last year but now the Nvidia Tegra Note is a reality, and has a basic structure that the company will then offer to third party customers who can add their own features in order to differentiate their products.

The Tegra Note features Nvidia technology to power the system and its graphics and includes a Tegra 4 with a 72-core GeForce GPU and quad-core Cortex-A15 CPU with a fifth battery-saver core. It has a 7-inch display that has 1280 x 800 resolution.

A key technology that the company is touting is its DirectStylus that it claims is a significant improvement over other stylus technology with faster response time, a finer point and broader stroke control. It calls older stylus technology passive in comparison

It will run the latest version of the Android operating system, feature 16GB of storage with an expansion microSD slot, an HDMI port, a rear 5MP camera with a VGA front facing one and what the company calls HD Audio speakers. All for $199.

The company has a host of new as well as established partners that plan to deliver tablets based on this basic platform including EVGA and PNY Technologies in North America; EVGA, Oysters and ZOTAC in Europe; Colorful, Shenzhen Homecare Technology and ZOTAC in Asia-Pacific; and XOLO in India. They join other partners, including HP, ASUS, Toshiba, Kobo and Xiaomi, which have already announced Tegra 4-based products.

As tablets have seen their popularity soar over the last year it will be interesting to see how this cookie cutter method will work. Will the developers be able to create differentiated products or ones that have specialized and localized features that will make them appealing to the market?

It does seem that time to market could be cut for many of the developers because they have an almost finished product to start with, but then in reality so do a lot of other established players such as Samsung, Google and Apple.

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