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Archives for 2011

On Wi-Fi Day, a Warning: Find Wi-Fi if You Want Sports on Your Phone

August 2, 2011 by

Attention, mobile sports fans: If you are thinking of watching a game anytime soon on your portable device, be prepared to find yourself some Wi-Fi — or get ready to pay Peyton Manning-like dough to stay connected.

Since today is officially “Wi-Fi Day” since the numerical date, 8-02-11 neatly corresponds with the IEEE designation for the Wi-Fi protocol (802.11) it’s a good time as any to start thinking about where you might be able to find a Wi-Fi connection for when you want to watch sports, especially live video, on your phone, pad or laptop. Why? Because the nation’s two biggest cellular carriers, AT&T and Verizon, have recently made it loud and clear that heavy users of wireless data will be forced to pay more for the service the more they use, and may even face data-download slowdowns if they use their phones too much.

AT&T this week let it be known that even those users who still have so-called “unlimited” data plans may see their cellular connections slowed down if Ma Bell decides you are using too much data. And Verizon’s new CEO spent part of the company’s most recent earnings call talking about how “tiered” data plans are inevitable and that cell phone users need to get used to a future where every bit is counted and charged for.

The good news is that both AT&T and Verizon are busy trying to set up free public Wi-Fi networks, especially at major sporting arenas, to help ease the cellular crush being caused by stadiums full of fans snapping pictures and sharing videos from their phones. The alternative is to find a Starbuck’s or other friendly eating establishment where you might be able to use a local Wi-Fi connection to get the bandwidth you’ll need to watch sports live on your phone for longer than a few minutes.

And if you are dead set on using your phone or tablet to watch sporting events via a cellular connection, now might be a good time to take a look at what Sprint has to offer, since as of this writing the No. 3 cellular carrier in the country is the only one still offering truly unlimited data plans for its new, faster 4G network.

We’ll have more on this topic soon but in the meantime it might not be a bad idea to take a look at Wi-Fi aggregators like iPass or Boingo to see if your corporate communications needs can sync up with your desire to stay connected with your favorite team.

Filed Under: AT&T, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Video Streaming Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Options Abound to Follow MLB Trades This Week

July 25, 2011 by

One of my favorite days in the baseball season will soon be upon us, as will my least favorite day, oddly they are the same, the first of the two trade deadline days. For those that are not quite clear on the deadline days there are two in baseball. The first, July 31, is for straight trades, player A for player B or money, or draft picks or some combination of these scenarios.

The second deadline, Aug. 31, has a caveat in it, you can trade a player but he must clear waivers first, meaning all teams have an option to pick him up before the deal goes through, with the worst getting first shot.
The reason for the mixed feelings is that sometimes teams I root for make great moves and naturally I like that, much as I enjoy it when teams I dislike make those “what were they thinking” moves. I have it when good players that look to be a good fit for my team get traded for I feel my team could afford to pay, and so on and so forth.

However if you are on the road and are seeking to follow all of the trades, or rumors of trades, it is good to be pre-loaded, so to speak, with all a range of sites that cater to this market segment, as well as to some of the old standbys. If you live in a city that has MLB, and follow that team, then the local newspaper’s on-line sports page is probably your first option.

However for most, the first up is ESPN, which will no doubt be awash with breathless rumors about potential trades as well as what has actually gone down. Then there is Major League Baseball’s own site, where you can go for confirmed trades as well. There are a host of others ranging from Yahoo!Sports to Sports Illustrated.

However there are specialty sites dedicated to this as well, sites such as MLB Trade Rumors, whose name leaves little to the imagination as to what its purpose is, and the name Pro Sports Daily says it all for another. There is one of the granddaddies of sites for fans looking for information on trades and player value, Rotoworld. Others such as Pro Sports Daily have a section dedicated to trades.

For after the fact discussions on trades, as well as a host of other baseball, and often non-baseball topics, look no further than BaseballThinkFactory, one of my favorite places for both on and off topic discussions.

Filed Under: Baseball, ESPN, Major League Baseball, Yahoo Tagged With:

Women’s World Cup Final Available on Sprint Phones

July 15, 2011 by

Want to watch the women’s World Cup soccer final game this Sunday but won’t be near a TV? Sprint smartphone users are covered thanks to the carrier’s ability to provide a live stream of the game (which starts at 2:15 p.m. Eastern time) via its ESPN Mobile TV channel on its Sprint TV app.

To watch the U.S. vs. Japan game Sprint users will need to have the “Sprint Everything” data plan which includes unlimited Web, texting and calling while on the Sprint Network. The everything data plans start at $69.99 per month plus a required $10 add-on charge for smartphones.

As I write this I’m watching the British Open live via the Sprint TV app on my Samsung Epic 4G, and the video is pretty good even through a 3G connection. (They are doing an endless loop replay of Tom Watson’s hole in one right now.) Seems like a great alternative for soccer fans who may be out and about when the U.S. and Japan get together to decide the title.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, ESPN, Live sports via mobile, Soccer, Sprint Tagged With: , , , ,

MLB to allow players to Tweet during Home Run Derby

July 11, 2011 by

Major League Baseball’s All-Star week is upon us once again and as usual I have mixed feelings about the event. I much preferred it when I was younger and not because of any nostalgia about players wanting it more but rather in those days I never saw American League players except in the playoffs and All-Star game.

Overall, games of this sort do not interest me that much because they do not really mean anything, home field advantage in the playoffs notwithstanding. The same goes for other sports — I have never made it past the first quarter of the NFL’s All-Pro game.

Complaints aside baseball continues to advance what happens for the game, and while many are aware of the home run derby (more on that in a second) there are a number of other baseball related events. Yesterday there was the All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball game, which I somehow missed.

Today is of course the State Farm Home Run Derby, but MLB has added a new twist that should make it interesting to follow, at least online. Players will be allowed to use social media i.e. Twitter and Facebook, to comment on events live.

I think this is very interesting as some of the players already have large followings and often have very interesting things to say. Now it is sanctioned by MLB. Included in the lineup is David Ortiz (@davidortiz),Jose Bautista (@JoeyBats19) andMatt Kemp (@TheRealMattKemp), Heath Bell (@HeathBell21), Gio Gonzalez (@GioGonzalez47), Hunter Pence (@HunterPence9), Brandon Phillips (@DatDudeBP), Gaby Sanchez (@GabySanchez215), Justin Upton (@RealJustinUpton), C.J. Wilson (@str8edgeracer), Howie Kendrick (@HKendrick47) and Joel Hanrahan (@hanrahan4457).

In addition, but of less interest to me at least, is that there are now League captains with National League captain Prince Fielder choosing Matt Holliday, Matt Kemp and Rickie Weeks for his team, and American League captain David Ortiz choosing Jose Bautista, Robinson Cano and Adrian Gonzalez for his team. The two ‘leagues’ will face off against each other and there will be an individual overall winner as well from the contest.

Filed Under: Athlete to Follow, Baseball, ESPN, Major League Baseball, Twitter Tagged With: , ,

The Friday Loose Ends

July 1, 2011 by

The Smithsonian looks at ways to cheat in baseball
Cheating in baseball is a time honored tradition except when it annoys the sports writers, who are after all the arbitrators of the sports unwritten rule book. The Smithsonian took a scientific look at a couple of the more popular topics in this space such as the impact that using a corked bats or confining baseballs to a humidor can have on the distance a baseball can travel. Fun read.

Samsung and Apple at odds, again
Samsung Electronics is suing Apple for violating its patents and using the technology in Apple’s iPhones and iPad. If this rings a bell it might be because Samsung already has other litigation brewing versus Apple. On the other hand Apple is suing Samsung for copying Apple’s iPhone look and feel in Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones.

Pac-12 official; Did ESPN ‘lose” the Big Ten over hardball tactics?
Today is the day that changes are occurring in College football. One of many is that The Pac-10 Conference is officially dead, Long live the Pac-12 Conference. With the Colorado Buffaloes and the Utah Utes joining the Pac it will now have two divisions and a playoff, as well as considerably more revenue from a new TV deal. In other news it was reported in the Chicago Tribune that ESPN played hardball with the Big Ten and that led to the creation of the Big Ten Network as feeling were bruised.

Smartphones continue market gains, Android and iPhones lead the pack
Smartphone sales continue to grow as the communications devices are increasingly popular with consumers, according to a May survey conducted by Nielsen. Currently 38% of all US mobile users have a smartphone and in the last three months the handsets accounted for a robust 55% of all mobile phones purchased in the last three months. Android-based systems lead the way with a 38% market share while Apple’s iOS-based devices account for 27%. Apple has seen a surge in recent months according to Nielsen, something that coincides with its move to a second major US carrier. RIM’s Blackberry is third with a 21% share with a number of others having less than 10% market share.

Microsoft adds Office 365 for mobile users
Love the Cloud and want to use it for your business applications? Then Microsoft wants you and has released its Office 365 this week which enables collaboration and access between e-mail, web conferencing, documents and calendars. There is a $6/month version for professionals and small businesses and a $10/month plan for mid and large size offices. Designed for sharing across a range of devices including smartphones it supports versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari browser; mobile devices requires Wi-Fi. Some mobile functionality requires Microsoft Office Mobile 2010, which is included with specific releases of Windows Phones and Nokia phones. So for full functionality sorry iPhone and Android users, Windows phones will rule in this space for the near term.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Baseball, BlackBerry, ESPN, iPad, iPhone, Nielsen Ratings Tagged With: , , , ,

Online Voting Allows for Informed Selections in MLB All-Star Game

June 30, 2011 by

The Major League Baseball All-Star game is just around the corner, with voting ending today for the July 12 event, so as they used to say in Chicago, vote early and vote often! The game will be broadcast on FOX and is being played at Chase Field in Phoenix.

It is interesting how the Internet and the online community has changed the way in which people vote and actually provides them with the ability to make better informed selections, if they are so inclined and they can influence the MVP vote as well.

The baseball All-Star game has always held an interesting position, especially in my early sporting life [editor’s note: does that include the Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig years?]. Going to ball games we always sought out the ushers who were the guardians of the ballot to see how many we could nab. After being given the once over by the usher at the top of our section the person would reluctantly hand a few of the paper ballots to use, no doubt convinced that none of them would ever get used.

We would diligently vote, disappointed that you could not easily punch out multiple ballets at once. We all had different strategies. I voted for the best in both leagues, at least initially. One of my friends would only vote for players on his favorite team and for the other league he voted for the players that we perceived were the worst at their position, with all of us arguing as to which ones they were. After a few full ballots we would inevitably drop the rest around our seats as we lost interest, no doubt confirming the ushers’ opinion of us.

On-line voting has changed all that. While there have been some hiccups over the years, including rumored ballot stuffing, it is not only easier, but MLB has taken steps so that you can make values judgments. Voting for NL players and you only follow the AL? All you need to do is select multiple players, say DeWitt from the Cubs and Emaus from the Mets and you can see which second baseman has the better stats in a number of different categories. Just click on “Compare Stats” and a menu scrolls down showing a number of counting stats including Avg., runs, home runs and runs batted in. If none of the choices appeal to you there is space to add write-ins at the bottom of the ballot. Fans vote for the starting lineup, minus pitchers, and then after the Manager fills out the rest of the positions, an Internet vote is taken for the last man on each squad.

You can vote 25 times, which while significantly lower than that which I witnessed by a group of A’s fans who had built boards with needles built-in to punch out entire ballots and were doing dozens at a time, that seems like plenty to me. If you use your phone I am sure you can double your votes. Fans will not just have a say regarding who is on the team but can also vote for the r choice for the Ted Williams Most Valuable Player Award presented by Chevrolet via the 2011 All-Star Game MVP Vote Sponsored by Sprint. (Nice that they get two sponsors for one award)

I imagine traditions still die slowly and fans of rival teams will have a difficult time voting for players from teams they dislike getting on the team and for the MVP award, and I thin that is just the way that it should be.

Filed Under: Major League Baseball, Sprint, Uncategorized Tagged With:
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