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Watching Golf this Week: BMW Championship, aka FedEx Cup Playoffs Round 3

September 6, 2012 by

If you need a break from football this weekend — which we sincerely doubt at this point — you can always check out golf’s version of the “playoffs,” which this week is another fairly meaningless tournament, the BMW Championship, the third round in the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

Being out of television range last weekend we missed the whole Rory/Tiger/LouisOoost showdown at the Deutsche Bank but really… we are saving our golf-interest for the Ryder Cup, and maybe for Sunday at the Tour Championship, if only because there will be $10 million on the line. To get there of course the pros need to negotiate Crooked Stick in Indiana this weekend, where we like Dustin Johnson to emerge victorious, possibly because he’ll be confident now that he knows he’s on the Ryder team.

Good news is you can tune in online Thursday and Friday, since Live@ is live during the playoffs. If you want to watch on the weekend, be warned that NBC will cover things early (12 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET) followed by Golf Channel from 3:30 to 6, while the rest of us watch college football. Sunday there’s bonus early Golf Channel coverage from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., useful if you are experiencing a frustrating NFL blackout.

BMW CHAMPIONSHIP / FEDEX CUP PLAYOFFS

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE

Thursday, Sept. 6 — Golf Channel, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Friday, Sept, 7 — Golf Channel, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 8 — NBC, 12 p.m. — 3:30 p.m.; Golf Channel, 3:30 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 9 — Golf Channel, 12 p.m. — 2 p.m. NBC, 2 p.m. — 6 p.m.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite)
12 p.m. — 6 p.m. every day

ONLINE
Live@ video is back this week —
Live@ coverage — 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., every day

PGA SHOT TRACKER
If all you want is shots and distances (which can be addicting) get your fix via Shot Tracker, which will definitely be in action at the Barclays.

FACEBOOK PAGE
Like you perhaps some BMW Golfsport? Now is the time on sprockets when we dance!

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW

Geoff Shackelford — well known golf writer. If you’re not following Geoff you are missing the online boat.
Golf Channel — official Golf Channel feed
@PGATOUR — official PGA Twitter feed
@StephanieWei — great golf writer who is a Twitter fiend.
Doug Ferguson is the lead golf writer for AP. Good Twitter insights that often aren’t part of your wire-service lead.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
Crooked Stick is a Pete Dye course. His “first great” design. Some of us say, that hasn’t happened yet. Ah well.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST YEAR?
Walter Hagen. Sorry, that was in 1916 at the Western Open, this event’s predecessor. Last year’s winner was really Justin Rose.

FEDEX CUP PLAYOFF LEADERS
1. Rory McIlroy, 4,799 points
2. Nick Watney, 3,468
3. Tiger Woods, 3,417
4. Brandt Snedeker, 3,194
5. Louis Oosthuizen, 2,909

See the playoff full standings at the PGA site.

WORLD GOLF RANKINGS
1. Rory McIlroy; 2. Luke Donald; 3. Tiger Woods; 4. Lee Westwood; 5. Webb Simpson.
See the official World Golf Ranking list.

Filed Under: Golf, Golf Channel, NBC Sports, PGA, Tiger Woods Tagged With: , , , , , ,

National Football Foundation Debuts Website, Mobile Applications

September 5, 2012 by

The National Football Foundation (NFF) and XOS Digital Inc. have jointly announced a new website and corresponding mobile and tablet applications to provide fans with multiple access points to NFF content in various formats. Among other tasks, the NFF runs the College Football Hall of Fame.

The new website, www.footballfoundation.org, marks the completion of the NFF Digital Network and is managed by XOS Digital, which serves more than 300 sports organizations with myriad technology solutions.

The foundation’s official website offers exclusive video content and original programming and connects to multiple digital platforms, including a dedicated NFF OnDemand store, Smart TV content, YouTube channel and mobile applications.

The NFF OnDemand store features DVD and Blu-ray content as well as classic college football documentaries, available for purchase for the first time. Fans can access this exclusive video content through a digital account where they can select videos to watch online and access them for viewing on tablet and mobile devices.

Every NFF event will be streamed live on all compatible platforms, including the NFF Annual Awards Dinner, the Annual Enshrinement Show, and the annual announcement of FBS inductees into the College Football Hall of Fame. Fans can download the official NFF mobile application for free, and the official NFF tablet application for $4.99.

The NFF Digital Network also features an originally produced video series, This Week in College Football History, which highlights a memorable historic football event each week throughout the football season. All NFF historic content and original productions are accessible though the XOS College Sports Smart TV channel.

For more information, visit www.footballfoundation.org or www.xosdigital.com.

James Raia is an editor and publisher in Sacramento, California. Visit his site: www.tourdefrancelife.com

Filed Under: Android, Apple, BCS, Live sports via mobile Tagged With: ,

Yes, You Can Watch Cowboys vs. Giants on your Phone Tonight; But it Will Cost You $5 per Month

September 5, 2012 by

To answer the most pressing mobile sports question today: Yes, the Cowboys-Giants NFL Season Opener will be available live via the NFLMobile app (8:30 p.m. ET start), but you will need a Verizon phone to watch it, and be prepared to pay the $5 per month unadvertised fee that goes along with live action via the app this season.

I’ve been giving the folks at Verizon Wireless a bunch of grief on Twitter today mainly because the $5 per month charge isn’t found anywhere in the advertising or promotional material for the app. Last year the NFLMobile app was pretty much free for anyone who purchased a new Verizon 4G LTE phone and a 2-year contract, but this year the free live video lunch is over and Verizon will extract $5 from your pocket per month.

Let me say right here that I don’t think 5 bucks per month is an extravagant charge, since the app is pretty good — it will give you RedZone on Sunday afternoons, plus live viewing of games on Sunday nights, Monday nights and Thursday nights. My guess is that live mobile viewing will cost a lot more in the future, if and when the NFL puts an MLB.com package in place as it looks like they are moving to do. Nothing is announced yet, so stay tuned. And if you have a Verizon phone, though $5 a month sounds bad now it will probably be the lowest amount you will ever pay for live football in the seasons to come.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, Apps, NFL, NFL Mobile, NFL Network, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Bleacher Report adds Group Interaction Feature to Team Stream App

September 5, 2012 by

The popular Team Stream app from sports site Bleacher Report is getting more interactive, with the release of a new version that adds the ability for people to share their sports-team preferences with friends. Available initially only for the iPhone version of Team Stream, the “groups” feature will let fans share not only news but opinions with each other, bringing Team Stream into the field of smack-talk/interactive sports apps like PlayUp and others.

Bleacher Report, which was recently acquired by Turner Sports for approximately $180 million, claims to have 1 million users of its Team Stream app, which brings a constant “stream” of sports news, opinions, tweets and other content from the Web and organizes it by team for easy consumption. By adding an interactive feature Bleacher Report is seeking to keep fans embedded in Team Stream longer, instead of having to leave it to share opinions or news with friends who share the same team interests.

Fan interaction is hardly a new feature on the web, as sharing opinions and sports news seems to be one of the bigger things happening on Twitter these days. And standalone apps like PlayUp have already found big crowds of fans who want to set up or join sports-specific, game-specific or team-specific “rooms” or other online gathering places to interact. Team Stream, which has been focused on providing news and other content, is coming at the sharing equation from another direction, but one that seems to make sense as sharing apps like PlayUp have recently started adding news feeds to their feature set.

“We’ve found that most sports fans have small but distinct groups of friends they talk to about their favorite sports or teams, but still lack a simple way of sharing and reacting to news with them,” said David Finocchio, Chief Content and Product Officer at Bleacher Report, in a press release. “This version of Team Stream fills that void by providing a more efficient way for fans to quickly share the latest on their teams with the right group of friends and then react together.”

According to Bleacher Report, the new feature allows users to “easily add their friends to a group and share their favorite stories with them. Friends can open the group, read the shared stories and easily reply to the group all from their phones.” From an outside perspective the feature might also act as a good recruiting tool for B/R, allowing current Team Stream users to introduce the app to friends who might not have heard of it before. According to Bleacher Report the new 2.0 version of the Team Stream app will be developed for the Android and iPad versions of the app sometime in the future, but is only available now for the iPhone.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, bleacherreport, iPhone, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , , , ,

Warrior Dash Runs into Portland this Weekend

September 5, 2012 by

Warrior Dash

I was kidding a friend about how he would stay in shape between Spartan Races, since the ones in the Pacific Northwest are few and far between and he said that he would of course be participating in this weekend’s Warrior Dash in Portland.

I should have guessed but what can I say? Anyway this weekend, for those of you so inclined, there will be a Warrior Dash, an event that takes place on a 3.11 mile course and features 12 obstacles, 13 if you count trying to find your way to Horning’s Hideout for the start.

The event provides a nice map that shows you the position and type of each obstacle starting with the Deadweight Drifter and going on through the Great Warrior Wall and ending with the ever popular Muddy Mayhem.

The Warrior Dash does not allow teams, which seems a pity because I could see the

event obviously does not take itself too seriously. In the FAQ section there is the question about what to do if you cannot swim. Part of the response is that you can always jump on another Warrior’s back.

One feature that I like, aside from a free beer for all participants, was the advice that it gives to both experienced and novice participants in terms of a training regime. For the rank novice, called a virgin warrior, it gives a six or seven week timeline to prepare for the race with both strength and cardio training. It is just basic advice but it is a good starting point. There is also advice for both the casual warrior and the ultimate warrior.

It will be interesting to track how my buddy does because since his first attempt at tackling this type of race he has completely changed his workout. I mean in the past he never trained to leap over a fire, what a slacker! If you are attending send us some photos, please.

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Filed Under: Contests, Outdoor Activities, Spartan Race, Warrior Dash Tagged With: ,

SportsPicker Challenge Provides Cyber Bragging Rights with Real World Prizes

September 5, 2012 by

SportsPicker

Want to show that you know your stuff about the upcoming NFL season, or possibly on one of the other major sports ranging from NBA, MLB to MLS and EUFA Championship soccer to your Facebook friends?

Well the SportsPicker Challenge, developed by OHK Labs might just be the app that you have been looking for as it not only covers those sports but also others such as NCAA basketball and football among others.

Everybody has friends that like to brag about how well they pick winners in sporting contests but a little digging often shows that they tend to do so without taking the odds into consideration, something that would have made the task considerably harder. And that is one feature that sets the app apart from others.

Users select the sport that you want to follow and make predictions about how a week’s slate of games is going to turn out, using the odds that have been established for that event. The apps scoring system takes the odds into account so that a victory by the favored team earns 100 points, and underdog team wins earn between 125 and 200 points, depending on the odds of winning.

The importance of the points is due to the apps challenge periods that feature prizes. The nice thing about the prizes is that they are real ones and not a cyber award that only is usable on the app. The company is offering gift cards from a variety of companies including Amazon, Sports Authority, Best Buy and others.

In addition, for the opening week of the NFL (which starts tonight) three fans will win an EA Sports Madden 13 for picking the most winners in the opening week of the season. The OHK has said that it plans to have approximately $10,000 in prizes. Users do not have to participate in sponsored events. They can get friends to join and compete with them via your own challenges.

There s no cost to play and fans have two options; they can play on Facebook or via their iPhone using a free app available at Apple’s iTunes store. It has just emerged from beta testing in time for the start of Football.

There are a growing number of apps that do some of what SportsPicker Challenge does, but as far as I know none use the odds as part of the equation. There are plenty of apps that allow for bragging rights and even some that have prizes, but as far as I have seen the prizes are mostly cyber ones- points for contests and to get extra privileges. This is the one of first that has real world prizes, something I think that fans can appreciate as much as bragging rights.

There are single sports ones that provide prizes including the cool $1 million that the NFL is now offering but that is a fantasy league and so really a horse of a different color. PickMoto is also a one sports play, at least currently.

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Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Baseball, Facebook, iOS, iPhone, Major League Baseball, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, NFL, NHL, SportsPicker Challenge Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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