Caught this great interview from CNBC with ESPN’s John Skipper from the cable show going on this week in Boston. Too often these video vignettes are about as illuminating as a sideline reporter asking a coach questions at halftime. But take a minute to watch this one, CNBC’s Julia Boorstin asks some good questions, including one about the new Twitter partnership, and also whether or not ESPN will ever offer WatchESPN as an a la carte option (spoiler: they won’t, but watch to see how emphatically Skipper says no).
Archives for 2012
Timeout Tuesday: Playing Your Golf Shot off the Grandstand… to Win
May 22, 2012 by
Welcome back to Timeout Tuesday, a few time-wasting videos to help you get your day going. First up is the PGA’s shots of the week, which include an incredible under-the-tree recovery shot from Phil Mickelson, as well as a winning putt from Jason Dufner. But I think the first shot fron Nick Flanagan is the winner of the bunch. Take a look and see what you think.
Second up is a ridonkulous and-one shot from Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook. While I can live without Westbrook’s angry-man court persona as well as his church-lady press conference red glasses, there’s no denying the skills of Westbrook, Kevin Durant and the other OKCers who made short work of Kobe Bryant and the Lakers legacy. (hat tip to the Big Lead, who always seems to dig up these videos within minutes. If you don’t follow the Big Lead, you should.)
Want to Follow the French Open Online or Mobile? Here is how
May 22, 2012 by
The French Open has started today with warmup match play and as with the Australian Open there is a wide range of options for fans looking to follow the tournament played at Roland-Garros that will run until June 10th.
To start with is a very nicely designed web page, that is easy to navigate and clearly explains where you going. There are nice minor touches such as providing the weather in Paris as well as the time. Then there are the more expected features such as listing the draws, providing past scores and live updates, as well as a number of guides to the event, the players as well as a radio feature.
In the Fan Zone there are a number of photo contests including Fan of the Day and Guess Who as well as a daily quiz and regular blog postings. You can follow the Twitter feed at Rolandgarros and of course there is also a Facebook and Google + page as well
For the truly mobile there is an updated free app for both iOS and Android users called Roland-Garros 2012. It features a 3D tour of the facility and has games that users can play and post scores from. Starting on May 25th the app will also provide all the Twitter feed from the stadium, Facebook connectivity and real time statistics.
Also included will be results schedules, draws, news, videos and interviews as well as match alerts for up to 5 players. Included in the video provided will be daily highlights of the day’s events.
For those that have the opportunity to watch matches at home on the television the matches will be carried by a variety of networks in the United States including ESPN 2, NBC, The Tennis Channel and TV5.
Vergence Labs latest with Connected Glasses
May 22, 2012 by
It seems that after Google made a short blog post about its Project Glass it has lit a match under the market and both new startups and established players are rushing to let you know about how well their individual efforts are going in this space as well.
The latest to appear on the radar is a company called Vergence Labs, and it is taking an increasingly familiar route to funding by appealing to individuals at a crowd funding site, and this one is using Kickstarter.
The funding here is seeking to raise $50,000 and the drop dead date is June 7th, so as of this writing it has 15 days to go. It also has already raised almost half of what is seeking as it now has $22,008 pledged.
I like the pitch which in part claims “become part of the future human-computer revolution!” I thought that I did that when I bought my first PC, an Apple II with not one but two floppy drives. The computer enabled eye wear will have the ability to record HD images and video from a first person point of view at the touch of a button. In addition they are being touted as the world’s first electric sunglasses with chromatic shifting conductive glass by which it means they darken when in sunlight.
The company sees the glasses as a social media tool and is establishing a web sharing site called YouGen.TV from which users can share experiences and export to Twitter, Google + and Facebook. I can see sports fans doing this and I wonder how the leagues will take to it.
MLB has been particularly tough about posting images from its games onto YouTube and I cannot believe that it is going to relent simply because computer powered glasses have made it easier to record the event.
Vergence also has pretty ambitious plans in the future hopes to make glasses that can perform a variety of tasks including sending information directly to a users eyes, and possibly develop interfaces for robotic devices that can be controlled with a gesture.
As with many of the Kickstarter offerings I love the creativity that developers are bringing to the market. Of course it is cracking the market that is the challenge. It is much harder, in my opinion, for hardware developers to do so that software. It is a snap to download a dozen apps in a few minutes, but most people I know, myself included, are concerned with how they look in glasses, just to take the lowest possible issue.
Then there is the competition. Google was very vague about its Google’s Project Glass remarks so it is hard to judge what it plans to do, and others have come out with, or at least talked about, connected glasses and goggles including Recon Instruments and Oakley. Still it looks like there is some momentum in this space and someone is going to break through and establish ‘glasses’ as a new computing device category.
ESPN Sees Strong Online Soccer Viewership Ahead of Euro 2012
May 21, 2012 by
We have been tracking ESPN’s growing focus on soccer with interest and now the company has put forth some numbers showing that it is getting solid feedback from its efforts, and that could pay off even greater in the next few weeks.
The network said that this season’s Barclays Premier League 2011-2012 season had the highest numbers in the three years that it has carried the league. Of course if you were lucky you could have seen the 3-2 Manchester City victory over Queens Park, a game result that forced Manchester United to abort its victory party. The match was viewed by 600,000 ESPN viewers and an additional 189,000 on ESPN Deportes.
The smartphone, computers, tablet and Xbox crowd was out in support as well with 108,000 unique views for that match using either ESPN3 or WatchESPN, and for the season these platforms accounted for an average of 174,000 unique views and 8.9 million live minutes for the matches on computers. The monthly numbers are up 36% and 73% respectively over last year.
Across the spectrum of digital devices including smartphones and tablets the league had a monthly average of 9.2 million monthly minutes, up 78% compared to ESPN3 numbers last season.
While the numbers are of course dwarfed by viewership for more mainstream US sports such as the NFL, it bodes well going forward as fans increasingly know that they can go to ESPN to see top flight matches.
Still in around two weeks the EURO 2012 tournament will start and ESPN has made a major commitment to showing all of the matches, many of which will be available online. I suspect that as it continues to upgrade and expand its coverage it will continue to see its numbers explode as mobile fans will take advantage of watching games that may occur while they are running errands or at work.
Will the UFL Morph into USFL?
May 21, 2012 by
I mentioned the apparent resurrection of the USFL to a friend a few days ago and he said “Well they played last year, didn’t they?” It took me a second to realize that he was referring to the United Football League (UFL), and what did happen to that league.
I have to admit that I did not follow the UFL, and was only vaguely aware of it when I would see the odd score posted someone and have to consciously realize that no, the NFL does not have a team in Virginia and this is not a college game.
So I went looking at it appears that the league was bleeding money, ended its season short and had a championship game. Is this the end of the four team, three year old league? It started out with such aggressive goals, once listing 21 cities that it could build franchises in. It had high profile people such as Mark Cuban saying they would invest (he backed out).
Starting with four teams in 2009 it expanded to 5 and it played an eight game schedule, up from the previous year’s six. Then last year appears to have been a series of setbacks. One team folded, it lost its sole broadcast partner and two that it was in talks with declined to jump on board. The season was cut short after four games and a championship game was played.
Many of the links at the official UFL web site do not work, although the one asking if you want an expansion team in your town does. No statistics from last year are up and the latest news is about its upcoming playoff game. (Played on October 21, 2011) The only new posts on its Facebook page appear to be from fans wondering what is up.
There are reports that the league is still trying to remain a viable sports effort, even after its commissioner and much of the teams infrastructure has apparently departed. It is looking at playing in the Spring, which would put it head to head with the USFL.
So will the league make a go of it? I doubt it. I do wonder if the owners will reach out to the USFL and seek to combine the two groups’ efforts. This makes a lot of sense since one league is looking for team owners (USFL) and the other is looking for a league. I think it will be hard to make a go of it as a Spring Football league, but it will be impossible if there are two leagues competing for investors, players and hopefully NFL recognition.
One note I did find it interesting is that the UFL changes a few rules from the NFL’s official ones. No tuck rule, four down defensive linemen required on each play, no more than six men rushing the passer to name a few. I wonder of the USFL will also have slightly different rules?
