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Mobile viewership soars in setting March Madness record

April 1, 2014 by

f4

Mobile digital viewers are making their collective strength known during the current NCAA tournament by blowing away last year’s then record setting totals, and doing so with the championship weekend still ahead.

The numbers of hours of live video consumed is up only slightly from last year but the amount of live video streams that fans are viewing has tremendously increased as users are voting with their tablets, computers and smartphones that streaming video is a viable delivery format for fans.

The breakdown for the tournament through its second week shows that NCAA March Madness Live has seen 13.5 million hours of video watched, a 7% increase over last year’s 12.6 million at this point in the event. That video is comprised of 64 million live video streams over that time period, a 40% increase from last year’s 45 million. To put it in a clearer context last year for the entire tournament there was a total of 49 million videos streamed.

The role of mobile usage in driving up these numbers is obvious. Simply counting the mobile portion of the total streaming viewership shows that smartphones and tablet usage saw a 71% increase over the same two weeks last year with live streaming hours on those two platforms increasing by 38% over the same span a year earlier.

Of course in terms of percentages the growth appears to be leveling off since in 2013 the growth rate for live video streams was 145% over 2012 and the number of hours was up 201% from 2012, but it shows that strong growth is still occurring and is likely to maintain a strong pace going forward.

According to video delivery technology firm Ooyala the amount of minutes video minutes that have been viewed on tablets and smartphones has grown 719% in the last two years and that sports fans spent 62% of the time viewing videos longer than 10 minutes. It estimates that mobile viewership will encompass half of all video viewed by 2016.

Two Final Four Apps Launched
NCAA.com and Turner Sports are launching a pair of event-based apps to take advantage of the interest in the Men’s and Women’s Final Four tournaments this weekend available for Android and Apple mobile devices.

The two apps, NCAA Final Four North Texas app presented by AT&T and Women’s Final Four Nashville will serve fans at the events as well as those that will be following them remotely. For fans in the two towns where the games will be played the app can serve as a guide to the city and event with information such as schedule information, interactive maps, tickets, free Wi-Fi locations in the cities, news, and social media features.

The Men’s app appears to be the more feature rich and has a number of events such as AT&T Final Four Photo Hunt- a scavenger hunt around North Texas, the Coke Zero NCAA Social Arena. Both have an interactive map, the ability to buy tickets and merchandise and a daily events schedule.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Basketball, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Market Research, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, Social Media Data, Sports Social Media, Tablets, truTV, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Fan engagement app CheckinLine gains traction

March 31, 2014 by

checkin

One of the major challenges that any new app faces is how does it separate itself from the pack. Simply having solid features and an easy to use interface is no longer enough in these days when a user has millions of apps to choose from.
CheckinLine is one of the new types of apps that are designed to engage fans, an area that others have tried to gain traction in and then fallen by the wayside. Yet CheckinLine might be able to break that mold as it has not just had a successful beta test but also gained support and recommendations from some major sports teams. It also helps that the app is taking a slightly different approach to addressing fan engagement, with solid metrics for teams to use on the back end.

In reality the app is half about fan engagement and half about access to tickets to sporting events, and how one can naturally lead to the other. The app enables fans to “check in” to get in line for tickets to select events. Then they can demonstrate to others who are also checked in how big a fan they are in conversation and other ways. The focus of the latter part is determined by the sports agency or school that is using the mobile program. There can be games such as quizzes and trivia contests to gain access to tickets, either as rewards or permission to purchase or simply moving up in the queue.

While the app has been adopted already in Australia by teams and stadiums in the Australian rules football league such as Hawthorn FC, Stadium Australia (ANZ Stadium), Etihad Stadium, Octagon and St Kilda FC it is still in the testing level in the U.S. but is making progress toward widespread adoption.

CheckinLine said it has just completed a beta test with Arizona State University and it said that it has received commitments from several schools such as The University of California at Berkeley, Boise State University and Illinois State University and claims that a host of additional schools are looking to come on board later this year. It has also gained support from The Aspire Group, a fan relations management group that has 25 colleges as clients and has recommended the app to them.

While the app can provide advantages to fans in that it might enable them to get tickets to sporting events that they otherwise might not have access to, it also brings advantages to the schools in that it enables them to harvest a huge amount of data about its fans and so tailor programs to continue engaging them. The app can also be used to sell advertising to companies seeking to reach the demographics that the app has revealed.

It will be interesting to see how the app fares in the U.S. when it gets a real world test. Even devout fans can be forgetful to check into mobile apps, since it’s not quite the same as going to the team fan page but it looks like CheckinLine has a boost in the right direction to keep its users.

Filed Under: Apps, NCAA.com, Pac-12, Sports Social Media, Sports Social Media Data Tagged With: , , , , ,

MLB delivers completely revamped At The Ballpark app

March 27, 2014 by

mlbcom

With the start of the Major League Baseball season just days away the league has delivered a complete rebuilt At The Ballpark app that includes a great deal more local customization, new technology integration and support.

The app has been available for 4 years and the facelift will add many features that will give users a greater ability to customize the app to meet their personal needs and usage model. It is available now for 20 ballparks and runs on both Android and Apple’s iOS operating system with additional customization in the latest release for the iOS 7 operating system.

The first of the two key technologies that have been incorporated is mapping and directions provided by a MapQuest-powered engine. MapQuest has a deal with MLBAM that will call for the delivery of additional MLB-focused features that will be available soon for both operating systems that At The Ballpark supports. In addition MapQuest and MLBAM also are co-creating an original video series, expected to debut in May 2014.

The second technology has been much more talked about in recent months, and that is the inclusion of iBeacon, a low powered micro-location technology that was introduced with iOS 7. MLBAM has equipped 20 ballparks with dozens of iBeacons each, and starting with Opening Day fans can check in at the ballpark and then receive offers and information from locations within the park as they travel around or sit in their seats.

Currently there are only a select few applications for the technology at the ball yards but MLBAM is working to create more and expects to deliver them later this year, as well as expand the number of fields that have the technology.

For fans who have been using At The Ballpark in the past it will still have the familiar functions including the ability to use MyTickets Mobile for delivery and storage of all MLB tickets sold as well as seat upgrade functions in select clubs. Some clubs also allow you to order food and beverages with the app.

You can view team stats, schedule and watch video of games, a number of hooks into social media and rewards for check-ins as well as more mundane features such as ballpark guides, parking and directions are all among the functions of the app.

This is a great upgrade to the app and really enables fans to not just customize their experience but will provide even seasoned baseball game attendees the ability to make the experience easier and more enjoyable.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, iOS, iOS 7, Major League Baseball, Social Media, Sports Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Turner Sports’ digital approach to March Madness a winner

March 24, 2014 by

turner

While most people I know have already seen their NCAA brackets crushed, one player is clearly winning at the tournament and that is Turner Sports and its online game-viewing policy.

According to Turner the men’s 2014 NCAA tournament has set an all-time record for online video consumption with a total of 51 million video streams accessed through the first full week of the tournament, a number that is 40% greater than what it achieved a year ago at the same point in the event.

To put the number in greater perspective, last year for the entire tournament there were a grand total of 49 million video streams accessed for the event. These numbers represent users accessing the videos from desktops or laptops as well as smartphones and tablets. Mobile (tablets and smartphones) platforms experienced the highest segment growth this year, with live streams for mobile device users up 74% over the first week of the tournament in 2013, according to Turner.

It is interesting to note that the videos were watched for 10.5 million hours, a number that witnessed only an increase by a mere 6%, showing that fans liked the ability to cherry pick the events that they watched and came in droves for them.

According to Turner Sports the top games featured some of the exciting upsets that have been a major factor in this tournament.

§ Dayton vs. Ohio State – 4,626,000 viewers
§ Mercer vs. Duke – 4,218,000
§ Harvard vs. Cincinnati – 2,767,000
§ Kentucky vs. Wichita State – 1,987,000
§ Stanford vs. New Mexico – 1,451,000

Not surprisingly the broadcast side of the business also had a record setting first week. The four networks that carried the games, TBS, truTV, CBS and TNT reported that they had the best first week in the 23 years that they have been carrying the tournament. It is averaging 9,277,000, up 4% from last year.

Filed Under: Apps, CBS Sports, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, TBS, TNT, truTV, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Where is the MLS TV deal?

March 21, 2014 by

For those of you who managed to miss it the Major League Soccer season started recently and its broadcast contract, which many had expected to be finalized sometime last winter, is still unfinished business.

Awful Announcing does a good job pointing out the issues, which have to do with how each side perceives itself. An interesting note showing the increasing popularity of the sport is that the average MLS attendance is greater than the NBA or NHL’s.

Android flaws could make upgrades a danger
System updates are a fact of life for most mobile phone users and a recent report from researchers at the System Security Lab at Indiana University and Microsoft have found a vulnerability that could enable hackers to take over Android systems.

It is not a real threat as they did a proof of concept test only but the threat would be in the form of an app that waits for a system update and then takes gains access for privileges that it had not had previously. Interestingly it only works if you have a fairly old version of Android running.

FIFA Exec paid millions for votes
If you ever wondered how sun-baked Qatar managed to win approval to host the World Cup during its summer this story might help explain it: FIFA executive Jack Warner appears to have made millions off of the deal.

According to a piece in the Telegraph a Quatari company paid Warner millions after the country won the vote. The Big Lead has a list of his apparent transgressions over the past few years that shows a long history of shady dealings.

NBA pondering new TV deal
MLS is not the only sport that is taking its time in finalizing its next broadcast deal as the NBA is also taking a leisurely approach on its current round of negotiations. However the NBA is in a much stronger position.

According to the Sports Business Daily there are a number of interesting options being considered at this time including adding an additional broadcasting partner, bringing its digital rights in-house and moving NBA on TNT off of Thursday night. It looks like big changes are in the works.

Drones can read Wi-Fi messages?
A report in the International Business Times is saying that you should turn off your smartphone’s Wi-Fi because drones that are flying overhead can monitor the conversation, using a pretty simple trick that I think many of us would fall for.

A drone overhead could present itself as a free Wi-Fi network, something that phones are constantly looking for. Then if a user connects it can intercept traffic. Boy would they be bored with reading my stuff.

Love baseball and need a date? MLB has you covered!
Major League Baseball has joined forces with online dating site Match.com to create club-focused singles pages, because apparently there was a need for this. I am not kidding it seems that some rabid fans, say Yankee fans, whose first question is to ask “Who hates the Red Sox?” [editor’s note: insert joke for “getting to first base” here.]

It will be interesting to see how this works; maybe MLB could do the same for the Dungeons and Dragons crowd, or even a dating site set up for stats nerds, which is almost the same as the D&D group.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Awful Announcing, Baseball, ESPN, FIFA, Fox Sports, Major League Baseball, MLS, NBA, NBA Game Time, NHL, Smartphone, Soccer, Sports Business Daily, The Big Lead, TNT Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Google seeks to expand ‘wearable’ options with Android Wear program

March 20, 2014 by
The Moto 360 Android

The Moto 360 Android

Google made a lot of noise a few years back with its push for Google Glass project, a pair of glasses that are connected to the Internet and now it is adding a second front in the wearable war with a push that it calls Android Wear.

The company has launched the Android Wear project in an effort to greatly expand the market for wearable hardware and related technology, with but not limited to helping a new generation watches running the company’s Android operating system.

The core of the effort will be a Software Developers Kit (SDK) that the company will be delivering to interested developers later this year.

While connected watches seem to be the first area that this effort will have an impact Google sees the effort expanding into other areas including bringing additional technology to more established platforms such as tablets.

However watches seem to be at the forefront of this space and potential developers that include everybody from Nike to Apple have indicated some level of interest in developing a watch. In addition there are already several connected watches on the market such as the Samsung Galaxy Gear and Pebble’s Steel Watch. Google has a number that have now announced their intention. With such a huge position in the smartphone operating system already Google has a huge advantage and it looks to be building on it quite quickly.

Several partners have already announced intentions to build watches and in some cases have shown examples of their development efforts. Motorola, unsurprisingly, has one in development called the Moto 360 Android that it said will be available this summer while LG Electronics said it would introduce its first Android watch, the G Watch, sometime this quarter.

The watches will be equipped with a variety of sensors and the ability to connect to an Android phone. So it can sub for the fitness trackers that are popular with the athletically inclined. It will allow notifications and text messages to be forwarded from a user’s phone and enable voice replies.

I imagine it would be a great tool to use to cheat on exams, but that might just be me. However being in a meeting and getting, say, March Madness game updates, could be a boon for those times when it is frowned upon to look at your smartphone. However the flip side of this is that many, at least those of us old enough, might just see this as a glorified pager with a bit more functionality.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Google, Live sports via mobile, Samsung, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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