Friday Grab Bag: Super Bowl prop bets, anyone?

Sure you have purchased a square or two in the office pool and made a friendly wager on the outcome of the game, but that is scratching the surface. Did you know you can bet on how long the National Anthem will be or if the singer will wear gloves? Will the game go overtime?

A look at which are good and bad can be found in a number of places but I liked the ones published in SportsOnEarth and one that was in Football Outsiders as they give some context to what you should and should not do.

Is the Super Bowl a boon on the local economy?
Every year we see a number of time-honored myths rolled out about the Super Bowl. Top day for avocado consumption. No. Top day for spousal abuse. No. That it is a financial boon to the host city/area. Maybe no as well.

A piece in the New York Times points out that since past predictions of prosperity by the NFL were destroyed once the methodology was public the same might be true now. The current estimate, between $550 million and $600 was determined in secret, they will not say who did it or how they arrived at that number. However advertisers are flooding the host city so that they can be seen prior to the event so maybe they know something they are just not telling us.

Winter Olympics broadcast schedule
In case you actually can watch the games from the comfort of your sofa or a cozy corner pub here is a complete viewers’ guide to the events, when they will be broadcast. It should be noted by figure skating fans that the first events take place prior to the opening ceremony.

For a breakdown on what will be interesting as well as the challenges that the broadcaster NBC could face look over to Sports Illustrated and a piece by Richard Deitsch. Will the network let possible bad news from the surrounding area taint its broadcasts?

Why no respect for American soccer players?
With the World Cup now looming on the sports horizon ESPNFC did a piece on why it seems that European based leagues do not value American players and why increasingly that feeling is being reciprocated.

The nice thing about the piece is that it does not jump to a conclusion but points out how different development systems, short earning window and other factors all play in the decisions that players make in where they want to play.

Another black eye for Sochi?
The upcoming Winter Olympics in Russia has received a series of bad news with intolerance, corruption and potential terrorism issues rising to the forefront. Now a recent piece from ABC shows that there could be another piece of bad news on the horizon.

They are saying that one of the key figures in helping Russia win the games over Austria and South Korea was a man named Gafur Rakhimov. The trouble with Rakhimov is that he is considered by U.S. authorities to be one of the top four or five people in the heroin trade and is under indictment in Uzbekistan.

ESPN holding nothing back for tonight’s BCS broadcast

bcs

An era ends tonight in college football with the last of the current format championships about to be played between Florida State and Auburn. Next season will usher in a playoff format that is a major change from the current poll-based system.

The current system was introduced in 1998 and now it is gone, but when you look at the freight train of equipment and army of personnel that ESPN is bringing to the event, it will likely live on for quite a long time in the form of multiple digital recordings.

The sports channel is broadcasting the 2014 Vizio BCS National Championship game tonight with the biggest broadcast team in its history and has termed it the “BCS Megacast” with it being presented across six of its television platforms as well as its audio and digital outlets.

You can pretty much take your choice of platforms- ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPN Radio, ESPN3, ESPN Classic, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Goal Line and ESPN International. There will be pregame talkshows, interviews, analysis, celebrities and much more available prior to the kickoff at 8:30 ET.

Social and digital media will be strongly represented in the mix with the personalities posting thoughts and comments prior to kickoff as well during the game.

For those that are not able to watch at home or in a comfortable sporting establishment the presentations that were broadcast on the ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3 and ESPNEWS will be available to a range of alternative platforms via WatchESPN including online at WatchESPN.com, on smartphones and tablets, through ESPN on Xbox LIVE to Gold members, on Apple TV and Roku to fans who receive their video subscription from an affiliated provider.

So how many people and trucks will this take? According to USA Today Sports and ESPN it will be 16 trucks, 63 cameras, 73 microphones a four-engine generator and as many as 200 employees, only a few who you will see online.

Hopefully this will make for a great broadcast, but much of that will depend on the teams. A stinker of a game will lead to fans tuning out as happened a few years ago when Alabama crushed LSU 21-0. The blowout was obvious early and fans tuned out in droves even though ESPN had added some interesting bells and whistles to its broadcast. At that time the future was 3D and ESPN had a 3D broadcast of the game as well as a more traditional broadcast.

However I am looking forward to the game and hopefully in all of the broadcasts comes something that will last to enhance future broadcasts.

MLB, NFL team up to battle Aereo

aereo

Live-TV startup Aereo has been taking on television broadcasters and winning but now faces an assault by two of America’s largest sports leagues, the NFL and MLB as they seek to prevent it from showing their broadcasts.

The two leagues are seeking to piggyback with an amicus brief to a petition filed by broadcasters that asks the United States Supreme Court to rule on the legality of Aereo’s broadcasting of local over the air signals.

In case you are unfamiliar with Aereo, it is a startup that makes a combination DVR/antenna that captures over the air broadcasts and allows customers to its $8 a month service to view the programming on Internet connected devices.

It started out in New York City last year and then moved to Boston and Atlanta, surviving legal challenges along the way. It has now accelerated its expansion efforts and recently moved into Utah, Chicago, Miami, Houston and Dallas this year.

Apparently this is terrible news to the sports leagues, as well as with NBC, Fox, ABC and CBS, the broadcasters that filed the initial suit. The broadcasters have claimed that Aereo is violating their copyrights and must pay retransmission fees.

The sports leagues have piled on claiming that if they lose exclusive retransmission licensing rights it will make over the air broadcasting less attractive and that they would be forced to go to paid cable networks. According to a piece in Variety the amount that the league collects is about $100 million for those rights.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out on a number of levels. Cable has been losing viewership as a generation of ‘cable cutters’ has emerged and they use Netflix and other online programs, get over the air antennas or do without.

Also the sports should keep boxing in mind. A once popular over the air sport it moved its premium events to pay per view cable, and helped kill the sport. While basic cable is not the same as PPV the example is one to remember.

The trend to get over the air broadcast, either from a service such as Aereo or by using a proxy, often illegal, appears to have accelerated the movement of quality content to basic cable where it is much more difficult to rebroadcast. Will sports follow this trend?

Friday Grab Bag: Watch NBA Finals on Select Mobile Devices: New Rival to Google Glass

Just a reminder that with the NBA Finals now being fought out on the court you can still watch the games if you are not in front of your television on ABC. Well on most but not all mobile devices. For users of Apple’s iPhone and iPad there is an app at the iTunes store.

There is also an app for users of the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD. Viewers using laptops as well as desktop computers can log into ABC.com. Looks like Android users are out in the cold on this for some reason. This is all part of a free access preview running through the end of June.

Asus fights for tablet share with low cost Memo Pad HD7
Asustek’s latest offering is a 7-inch tablet that could create demand for lower cost offerings in the tablet space. The $129 Asus Memo Pad HD7 has a 7-inch display with 1280 x 800 resolution and it includes a 1.2 megapixel front facing camera and a 5 MP rear facing camera. Depending on market it will be available with either 8GB or 16GB (at $149) of storage.

The company also delivered a 10-inch tablet this week, the 10-inch Transformer Pad Infinity that has the Android 4.2 operating system and is powered by a quad-core Tegra processor. It also features a 2048 x 1600 resolution display. Pricing is not yet available according to Arnnet.com.

Intel invests in gesture control technology developer Thalmic Lab
There has been a great deal of talk about the advent of wearable computing devices, from smartwatches to Google Glass and Intel does not want to miss out on the fun. It has joined an investment round to provide $14.5 million in Series A funding to Thalmic Labs.

Thalmic Labs has developed a wearable gesture control device called MYO and said that it will use the funding, which came from a round that was led by Intel Capital and Spark Capital and included Formation 8, First Round Capital and FundersClub, along with the following individual investors: Paul Graham, Marc Benioff, Geoff Ralston, Sam Altman, Garry Tan, Fritz Lanman, Hank Vigil, Tom Wagner, Alex Bard, Michael Litt and Daniel Debow.

Intel will provide access to manufacturing and technology to Thalmic to help it both scale production of its existing devices as well as develop future generations.

Rivals to Google Glass starting to emerge
At the annual Computex trade show a developer called Oculon Optoelectronics surface, that has a rival product to Google Glass that Oculon calls Oculon Smart Glasses. It claims that they will have better battery life, a better display and will cost less, around $500. Well that is settled.

Google Glass is not the first time a developer has created a wearable computer in the form of glasses, although Google’s effort is by far the largest and best financed effort. I wonder if developers that once sneered at the idea of a tablet now want to try and be in front of the acceptance curve rather than behind it and so are working to have products out simultaneously with Google so as to not initially surrender the market?

Watching NASCAR: Bruised Teams Head to Charlotte

If the old saw “Misery loves company” is true, it sure had a lot last weekend at Talladega where the track took its toll among the leaders in the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship, and like a living entity it waited until almost the end to extract as much drama as possible.

Tony Stewart was defending his lead on the last lap when he moved over to block some fast moving traffic. In hindsight I am sure that he did not want to end the evening sailing through the air as part of the 25 car pileup that he created, one of the most spectacular crashed this year. He had just zoomed to the lead at the start of a two lap sprint to the checkered flag and moved to block Michael Waltrip’s car and clipped the car, starting the mayhem

The move did not just hurt his finish at the race but featured 10 of the 12 drivers competing for the Cup as, not surprising; they were all competing for a top finish at the restrictor-plate track. The ultimate beneficiary of the accident was Matt Kenseth, who won under a caution flag. The rest of the field included Jeff Gordon at second followed by Kyle Busch, David Ragan and Regan Smith.

The toll of the crash will be felt for some time now. Dale Earnhardt Jr. suffered a concussion in the crash, and following an unreported one that he suffered in an August race that was just too much for him and he is shutting down for at least the next two races, killing his hopes for winning the Sprint Cup Championship for this year. He was currently 11th in the standings.

This Week: Bank of America 500

This week everybody heads to the Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Bank of America 500. Hopefully everybody’s bruises from last week have had time to heal before they tackle Charlotte’s 1.5 mile quad oval under the lights.

Broadcast: Oct 13 at 7 pm ET ABC

Twitter

Sprint Cup Standings
1) Brad Keselowski
2) Jimmie Johnson -14
3) Denny Hamlin -23
4) Kasey Kahne -36
5) Clint Boyer -40
6) Jeff Gordon -42
7) Tony Stewart -46
8 ) Martin Truex Jr. -48
9) Greg Biffle -49
10) Kevin Harvick -49
11) Dale Earnhardt Jr. -51
12) Matt Kenseth -62

Nationwide Series

I am pretty sure that there was a collective sigh from the Nationwide drivers when they saw the last lap at Talladega last week, glad that they did not find themselves in that mess. With no race last week they could prepare for this week’s race without the problem of possibly needing a new car.

This Week: Dollar General 300
I somehow though this race was last week- sorry about that.

Broadcast: Oct. 12 7 pm ET ESPN

Nationwide Standings
1) Elliott Sadler
2) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. -9
3) Austin Dillon -25
4) Sam Hornish Jr. -60
5) Justin Allgaier -128

Mobile Sports Report Grab Bag: New Tablets from ZTE & Huawei and MNF Flop

Toys 'R' Us Tabeo

Tired of losing your pricey iPad to your kids and then they yell when you try and take it back? Well Toys “R” Us has stepped in with a product that just might save the day with its Tabeo offering. A 7-inch tablet that runs the Android operating system will be available in stores Oct. 21, but will start shipping Oct. 1.

The $149.99 device will feature 4GB of storage that is expandable to 32GB, but the big plus for parents is that it will come with more than 50 books, games and educational apps preloaded including such popular ones as Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja. The Tabeo is now available for preorder.

Chinese vendors ZTE & Huawei catching tablet fever?
DigiTimes is reporting that both Huawei Technologies and ZTE have both shown a good deal of interest in entering the tablet space. The move is seen as an effort to expand their respective footprints globally as well as take advantage of the huge Chinese market.

First Monday Night Football game of season a flop with fans
The first MNF games have come and gone, and thank goodness if you were forced to watch them. Apparently not that many did as Sports Media Watch reports that the opening game, a Ravens blowout of the Bengals only managed an 8.1 rating.

Monday Night Football

The season opener, shown on ESPN, was down 21% from last year when the Patriots and Dolphins played and down 23% from the Jets vs. Ravens in 2010. It was the lowest rated MNF broadcast by ESPN since it took over broadcast duties of the iconic show in 2007.

However just a few days later the NFL Network, with a much better matchup with the Packers vs. Bears, received the highest rating in its short history. However its numbers, at 6.3, are hurt because it still is not carried anywhere near as much by cable operators as ESPN.

Analysts predict 58 million iPhone sales in 2012
The iPhone orders only start today after the introduction earlier this week with the first phones expected to ship next week but analysts are predicting a tsunami of sales for Apple’s iPhone 5 smartphone in 2012.

According to a survey done by Bloomberg and reported in Mashable the consensus from analysts is 58 million sold this year and FBR Capital Market analyst Craig Berger is predicting 250 million over the life of the device.

Is Samsung’s LTE threat an issue still?

Samsung mentioned that if Apple included LTE in its iPhone 5 there was a high likelihood of Samsung suing Apple. Samsung owns a huge number of patents in this area and has a healthy business in the LTE area that is spate from the smartphone business.

Now so far Samsung has not acted but it might just be that the company is looking at the technology that is used in Apple’s LTE offering to make sure that it has it right. We could always hope that maybe the two are actually talking and can settle things out of court.

Samsung & MLB partner on contest
Speaking of Samsung the company has entered into a contest with Major League Baseball called Photo Hunt. It is a pretty basic game, one I think even I would have a decent chance at. Every week MLB, at @MLB, will tweet out a Samsung Photo Hunt item using the hash tag #SamsungMLB.

All a user has to do is take a picture of the item and share it with @MLB. Winners will get a Samsung S III phone and two free tickets to a game of their favorite team.

Kindle opens to lukewarm reviews
I was impressed by what I saw during the Kindle HD press conference last week, but reviewers with hands-on experience with the device have been less than complimentary. Some seems to be valid complaints, such as the speed apps load and a few issues with software.

Some of the complaints appear to be, well it is not an iPad, and that really is Amazon’s fault for proclaiming it the best tablet in the market. I still like it, but it is obviously what Amazon said it was at its introduction: a device that opens up other Amazon services to customers. It seems to me to make a product like that (in hindsight) that there will be features that are not included that a general purpose tablet user might want.

USA Today to look like iPad?
I have not been down to the local newsstand but it appears that USA Today will be sporting a new look starting this morning. The paper, which in many ways revolutionized the way papers look and how much space they devote to a story, is now taking on a sleeker appearance.

The paper took a lesson from the Web and how many sites present information. It will also feature input from social media users, including comments from Twitter and Facebook. Its web page will function more like an iPad, according to a piece in the New York Times.

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