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MLB.TV available in time for Spring Training

February 4, 2014 by

MLB_Blackout_Areas

Every season one of the most popular phrases for a baseball fan is that pitchers and catchers have reported, meaning that the preseason has started and regular season baseball is not too far away. Now a new phrase may start bringing the same excitement-MLB.TV is now on sale.

While this may be a bit of an exaggeration it is not that big of a leap since the huge popularity of the program has seemingly increased every year as baseball fans continue to sign up to watch the streaming video of MLB games. Now in its 12th year the program is the top sports streaming product.

The program allows fans to watch out of market games on a growing variety of platforms ranging from televisions to on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, supported Android smartphones and tablets, Amazon Kindle Fire and Windows Phone 8. There is a range of additional devices that are or will be supported as well such as the Xbox and Sony’s Playstation.

It should be noted that the games shown are only those that are out of market games and the map for which teams claim which territory is very convoluted. For instance I think four or five teams claim Las Vegas. There is (or was I cannot find the current status) a court case that seeks to throw out MLB’s blackout policy, but you should probably not hold your breath for any changes this season.

All subscribers to the service that sign up early i.e. prior to the start of the regular season, will have access to more than 200 live games from Spring Training in Florida and Arizona. Spring Training game broadcasts are scheduled to begin on Wednesday, February 26, 2014.

Some subscribers, depending on which version they select will also receive a free subscription to MLB.com At Bat, enabling fans to listen to any game on a huge range of supported platforms. MLB.TV comes in two flavors. For $129.99 a year you also get At Bat as well as support on mobile devices. For $109.99 you just get the standard features that do not include mobile devices and choice of feeds.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , ,

Adobe research finds mobile sports viewing driving huge growth in digital video

February 4, 2014 by

One namesake trend we focus on here at Mobile Sports Report — watching sports online or on mobile devices — is the primary driver of the continued worldwide growth in digital video consumption, according to the latest comprehensive study put together by software giant Adobe.

In the Adobe Digital Index Benchmark Report for Q4 2013, the survey looked at digital video, spanning 2012 and 2013 and using aggregated and anonymous data from more than 600 media and entertainment sites. According to Adobe the survey analyzed 22.5 billion online video starts, half a billion mobile video starts as well as 574 million authenticated streams from cable providers’ “TV Anywhere” implementations. The survey also asked 400 sports fans about their viewing habits. While there’s lots of chewy bits to digest, the killer line from the research says, in part: “The trends outlined in this report clearly demonstrate that sports viewing is the engine behind digital video growth.”

Well WE could have told you that. But it’s nice to see solid data backing up our directive assumptions.

Just how potentially big is online and mobile sports viewing? While the Adobe report is just one (albeit comprehensive) set of data, some points jump out, like the one that found that sports video streams increased 640 percent, year over year, compared to an overall growth of 440 percent for all types of content. On the TV Everywhere side, sports events accounted for 37 percent of all streams, compared to 32 percent for news programs and 28 percent for TV shows. Again, no surprise to us: People like the ability to watch sports live, whenever they can. And mobile devices help them do just that.

Campbell Foster, director of product marketing for Adobe Primetime, the company’s TV publishing infrastructure platform for service providers, said the data back up what many other industry observers have noted about sports: It is engagement viewing that fans don’t want to miss, so they use whatever device they can to watch.

“The nature of the content [in sports] is perishable, so sports is something people want to watch live,” said Foster, in a phone interview to discuss the report’s findings. Another nugget from the report is that one quarter of all sports digital viewing now happens on mobile devices, a 73 percent year-over-year increase. And though tablets lead all forms of non-TV devices for video viewing, streams on smartphones and gaming consoles are also growing rapidly, a finding we take as meaning that the top of mobile and online viewing is a long way away.

Some other interesting points from the report include:

— Facebook leads the way with social referred video starts
— Half of visits referred from Facebook or Tumblr to sports related sites result in a video view (vs. 39 percent for YouTube, and 25 percent for Twitter)
— Most video starts come directly from search to branded sites, with social referrals accounting for just 6 percent of all streams
— Apple iOS devices are still killing the competition, with more than a 50 percent market share

It will be interesting to see how other industry outlets react to the Adobe report, which we think has the chance to become the online video industry’s informational equivalent of the Cisco Visual Networking Index. At the very least, Adobe’s attempt to quantify the surge of online sports video use we see in our reporting and analysis every day is admirable, and it puts some stakes in the ground for further discussions about audience value, ROI of mobile, and potential new businesses that can be crafted from the idea that a new audience type is not only emerging but continuing to expand.

Adobe chart showing growth in sports streams. (click for larger view)

Adobe chart showing growth in sports streams. (click for larger view)

Breakdown of video streams for TV Everywhere (click for larger view)

Breakdown of video streams for TV Everywhere (click for larger view)

Filed Under: Apps, Cisco, Comcast, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Variety of apps to support the Sochi Olympics

February 3, 2014 by

nbcsports

NBC’s broadcast of the Olympics should be boon to its online and streaming viewership, even though this is something that the network has made available for some time. As with many apps and capabilities users often only discover them when looking for specific tool or event.

There are a surprising number of apps available for the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics that will be held in Sochi starting later this week. They range from simple calendars to one that will be showing live events.

Actually this is probably not surprising but then it’s hard to say why you would want something aside from the one that is available from NBC Sports, the official broadcaster of the games. Aside from the fact that the app, NBC Sports Live Extra, is from the broadcaster it was hardly just conceived for the Olympics.

The app also provides live sports events that air on NBC, NBC Sports Network and the Golf Channel so that over the course there will be IndyCar, the PGA Tour, Premier League Soccer and the NHL to name just a few.

We have already mentioned most of the features of the app as it pertains to the Olympics but it’s good to mention that there will be 1,000 hours of live streaming video with some replay on demand capabilities. It is free to use with select caveats.

However if you are looking for different functionality there are plenty of options starting with the U.S. Olympic team’s official app. It details who has made the team, links to athletes’ social media and an up-to-date following of how they do.

Another general purpose sports app, this one with a more international flavor, which will have a special focus on the Winter Olympics, is BBC Sports. It will have live coverage of events at the games and can be used to follow a wide range of International sports.

samms

An interested app is the Sochi 2014 WOW (Wireless Olympics Works) that comes from Samsung Electronics, one of the major sponsors. The app is customizable so that a user can have it focus on their specific interests. Not too surprising is that it is also optimized for Samsung devices.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, BBC, English Premier Soccer League, Golf, Golf Channel, Indy 500, iOS, iTunes, Kindle, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NBC Sports, NHL, Olympics, PGA, Samsung, Smartphone, Soccer, Social Media, Stanley Cup Tagged With: , , , , ,

How to watch the Super Bowl online, or on your phone

January 31, 2014 by

Just in case your TV goes on the blink this weekend, don’t worry, you can still watch Sunday’s Super Bowl XLVIII between the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks — either via an online stream, or via your smartphone if you are a Verizon customer.

SUPER BOWL XLVIII KICKOFF: 6:30 p.m. ET

TV: FOX

WATCH THE SUPER BOWL LIVE ONLINE HERE

Fox, which is showing the game on regular TV, will also make the broadcast available online via its Fox Sports Go app and website. Usually, you need a pay TV subscription to see the Fox feed, but it will be free to all viewers on Super Bowl Sunday. The same feed will also be available at NFL.com and at SuperBowl.com, just in case you need an alterate website address. If you want to watch on an iPad, you will want the Fox Sports Go app.

Smartphone viewing via Verizon NFL Mobile

Remember, you can’t watch the game on a smartphone via the Fox app. That’s because Verizon Wireless has the rights to live action on smartphones, via its NFL Mobile app. To view the game live, you must A) be a Verizon customer, B) have the NFL Mobile app installed, and C) have paid the $5 per month premium NFL Mobile fee.

HERE IS THE VERIZON NFL MOBILE INFO PAGE

Remember, both the Fox website feed and the NFL Mobile app feed will be significantly behind the live TV broadcast, anywhere from 20 seconds to more than a minute. And, no, you won’t be able to watch the live feed if you are at the game.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, Denver Broncos, Fox Sports, Live sports via mobile, NFL, NFL Mobile, Seattle Seahwaks, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Winter Olympics Online offerings grow with Comcast move

January 28, 2014 by

comcast

If you are a subscriber to Comcast’s cable service and use its Xfinity TV X1 set top box and are a fan of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, there is great news for you as the carrier has agreed to live stream all of the events.

NBC has been making a great deal of news with its big expansion of streaming Olympic events and extra programming, so this is really no real surprise since Comcast is the majority owner of NBC, but it had not publicly committed to live streaming the events to its customers.

It plays out pretty much as expected based on the previous NBC announcements. 1,000 hours of Olympics competition will be streamed live from the games in Sochi, Russia. The online content will be double that which is broadcast over the air by NBC and its four cable partners.. Then there will be 200 hours available on video on demand.
There are a few interesting wrinkles in the broadcasts. If you come late to watching an event you can get the video on demand to start at the beginning. An interesting social media hook is a feature called ‘SEEiT” that allows a user to tune into events that are generating large amounts of tweets by simply clicking on the SEEiT button embedded in some tweets.

Comcast has said that the streaming video will be available for phones and tablets as well as connected televisions.

While in the short term this is a great fan of Olympic sports, the bigger picture is even better. With a great number of sports broadcasts now handled by regional and national cable networks their ability to broadcast to remote mobile devices is very important.

Comcast has said that it is using this opportunity to both familiarize its customers with these capabilities and as a test bed to see what works well with its established customer base. Hopefully it can start branching out with other sports, but of course that will take some doing for the major ones that already have some sort of streaming services in place, at least for NFL and MLB broadcasts.

Filed Under: Apps, Comcast, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, NBC Sports, NFL, Olympics Tagged With: , , ,

Fox: We’re ready for big Super Bowl streaming audience

January 24, 2014 by

While nobody can predict how things like a stadium blackout or a polar vortex might affect the broadcast of an event like the Super Bowl, executives at Fox are doing all they can to prepare to make sure this year’s online coverage of the NFL’s championship game goes off as well as possible.

With viewership expected to exceed last year’s total of 3 million unique online viewers, the live stream of Super Bowl XLVIII will be available on iPads in the Fox Sports Go app and via a browser at FoxSportsGo.com. The online feed will be available free to anyone with an Internet connection starting at 12 a.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 2, and will also include access to a Spanish-language broadcast.

But remember: The live streaming from Fox is only available for desktops or laptops, or via an iPad using the FoxSportsGo app. Because of NFL rights contracts, to watch the game live on a smartphone you need to be a Verizon customer and have the $5 per month premium version of the NFL Mobile app installed.

No matter which platform you choose to use, as always the Super Bowl should be a compelling story, even if that tale is something other than the game between the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks. Super Bowl XLVIII is scheduled to start around 6:30 p.m. ET from MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where snow and cold may be part of the equation.

“It should be interesting, with [possible] weather in New Jersey,” said Clark Pierce, senior vice president of mobile and advanced platforms for Fox Sports, in a phone interview earlier this week. “We’re ready for traffic to spike at some moment when something happens, and we get a lot of concurrent users. We’ll see how we do.”

Tablet audience keeps fueling growth

Granted, the online viewer numbers for the Super Bowl are completely dwarfed by the regular TV viewers, which for last year’s game totaled 164 million. But having 4 million unique viewers online is a huge digital audience, and it’s one that Pierce said Fox has been planning for over the past few years.

“We know what CBS did [for streaming] and we know what NBC did,” Pierce said of the networks which had the Super Bowl broadcast the past 2 years. “And we’re working with [content delivery network provider] Akamai, and it’s not their first rodeo. So I think we’re ready for whatever can happen.”

Perhaps the biggest number of online viewers for this year’s Super Bowl will come via Apple iPads, the market leader in the tablet form factor. While Fox has not yet released viewer numbers by device or platform for its restricted streaming of the NFC playoff games, it did say it had a record 2.4 million visitors to its FoxSports.com website on championship Sunday, a 53 percent increase over the previous year. Pierce said increases in digital viewers are partially due to the expanding tablet market, and tablet owners getting more comfortable watching sports on a smaller screen.

“The concept of watching TV on a smaller screen is another year down the road and people are just that much more used to it,” said Pierce, who also said that online viewers may choose tablets over laptops or desktops due to clearer pictures.

“People are getting spoiled by Apple and Android devices with really high screen resolution,” Pierce said.

Streaming delay inevitable

What doesn’t work so well with any live streaming option is trying to use it as a “second screen” alongside a live TV broadcast. Because of the technical necessities of putting a live signal online — which includes mainly taking the TV feed and encoding it to the Internet — delays between “live” TV and the show online can be from 20 seconds to a minute or more, Pierce said.

“It does take time to take a big HD picture and encode it into IP,” Pierce said. “There’s just no way around it.”

In the future, Pierce hopes to help Fox add more features to its online offerings, maybe making them something like what broadcast engineers see in the event production studios, with multiple monitors offering different feeds and live stats. Still, just having a free online broadcast is a huge leap forward from the recent past.

“It’s been exciting to build it, and in the future our team hopes to add more content and features,” Pierce said. “The horizon is pretty exciting.”

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, CBS Sports, Denver Broncos, Fox Sports, iPad, NFL, NFL Mobile, Seattle Seahwaks, Smartphone, Super Bowl, Tablets, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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