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Fanatic App Tells Out of Town Fans Where to Go

August 20, 2013 by

tN_133400_Fanatic social logo

Have you ever traveled to a distant city and been forced to miss watching your favorite team play because you did not want to watch the game in a sports bar filled with hostile fans? Well Fanatic has developed an app that helps like minded fans find each other and enjoy a game together.

The company is actually delivering its second iteration of the app, it first hit the market with a version that only supported iOS digital mobile devices late last January and now has expanded into the Android space as well.

The concept is very simply. A fan of a team, or league, can search for the top venues to watch that team in a specific city. So a Bears fan in Charlotte could seek out a bar that caters to fans that root for the team. Rankings will rise and fall as Fanatic users recommend sites for other fans. It recommends specific venues nearby based on a user’s location, sports interests and the team ranking of those venues.

It feature top venues for a wide range of leagues including NCAA football and basketball, the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS, along with the top European soccer leagues, including the English Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Serie A and the UEFA Champions League.

The company is currently developing a system that will have specific rewards for users. You will earn points for usage for such things as checking in and at some future time they will be redeemable for specific prizes.

This seems like a very good mixture of social media and sports, and as any fan that has been in a different city and wanted to watch their home team knows, some bars are hostile to out of town fans and some cater to them, the difficulty is finding them.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Barclays English Premier League, Baseball, Basketball, BCS, Fanatic Fans, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Major League Baseball, NBA, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, NFL, NHL, Soccer, The Ligue de Football Professionnel Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

ESPN introduces Major Revamp to WatchESPN App

August 19, 2013 by

watch

WatchESPN, the mobile app for iPads, iPhones and iPod touch from the sports broadcasting giant has be upgraded with a host of new and enhanced features as the company provide mobile access to a number of its channels including to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3 and ESPN Goal Line/Buzzer Beater.

Among the additions is access to ESPN3 for college students and military personnel via on-campus (.edu) and on-base (.mil) Wi-Fi network. Also new is ESPN on ABC, providing access to live programming on ESPN on ABC events and will redirected users to the WATCH ABC App for access to that content

For the iPad it has added Live Toolbar, a feature that has the ability to shows stats and scores without opening an additional digital stream. It has three components in the form of tabs that reside at the bottom of the screen.

The first is on called Live TV Lineup that is just what it says, an interactive guide to all of the programming that is available on the network. The second is called Scores, and is designed to not only provide the scores that a fan might be seeking but allow them to gather pregame info on sporting events with a feature in Scores that is called Pre-Game View. The Live View function shows cores of events that are currently on-going and Post-Game View for the wrap up.

The third tab is called Top Video and is an on-demand feature that provides up-to-date news, analysis and highlights. This can be used in split screen mode so that you can continue watching an event at the same time.

The WatchESPN App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch or at www.AppStore.com/WatchESPN. It should be noted that you can only use the app if you also get ESPN as part of a cable broadcast package from one of its broadcast partners.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, ESPN, ESPN3, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Tablet Rumors Galore

August 16, 2013 by

With Apple, Samsung and others either preparing new tablets Amazon is also preparing a new set of releases.

As it does so it needs to rid itself of older inventory and so has cut the prices on existing models with the current generation Kindle Fire HD now starting at $159.


Samsung Smartwatch due next month?
With the changing of the leaves that herald the coming of fall, also so do the increased number of rumors about hi-tech products that are slated for the back to school market. The latest is that Samsung may beat the field to market with its smartwatch, delivered Sept. 4.

The news comes to us from Asia One, who are forwarding a tip from Sammobile, claim that Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch will make its first public appearance at the Samsung Unpacked Episode 2 event that starts on that day. Stay tuned.

LG Tablet in the works
Speaking of third hand rumors here is a report that a new tablet is about to emerge from LG that will be called the LG G Pad. It is expected to be in a 8.3-inch form factor that will feature a 1920 x 1200 display.

Other supposed details include a quad-core microprocessor, 2GB of memory and that is about it so far. Since no ship date was rumored we may see more details prior to a release.

Fox Sports 1 starts tomorrow
We mentioned it last week but it bears repeating that the latest rival to ESPN, Fox Sports 1, will start Saturday. It is expected to be available in 90 million homes on launch.

A piece at Sports on Earth really told the tale. It does not matter if the channel is more or less intellectual than ESPN, what will determine its success will be the number and quality of its live sports offerings.

Archos GamePad spotted via FCC filing
TechRadar is reporting that Archos looks to be refreshing its GamePad dedicated tablet device with a second generation offering ahead of what looks like a deluge this fall in similar products from a host of rivals.

Its first generation offering came out at the start of the year and now will have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support in the latest offering. Expect to see a number of other dedicated pads from the likes of Amazon and others available soon as well.

BlackBerry up for sale?
BlackBerry’s board has formed a special committee that will be tasked with looking at strategic alternatives for the company’s future, including how to boost sales of its flagship Blackberry 10 smartphone.

It will look at the possibility of selling the company or try to enter into strategic partnerships or joint ventures with other companies.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, BlackBerry, ESPN, Fox Sports, Samsung Tagged With: , , , , ,

Sportsmanias.com Gains Funding: Rolls Out New Team-Focused App

August 15, 2013 by

spots

Sports news aggregator startup Sportsmanias has raised $1 million in venture funding as it seeks to expand its reach by providing a new team-focused sports app that will enable users to track hard news about their favorite teams by focusing on news and reports from team beat writers.

The recent $1 million investment has come from Mas Equity Partners, which is led by founder Jorge Mas, who also serves as Chairman of the Board of MasTec, a $4 billion infrastructure engineering and construction company based in Coral Gables, Fla.

Sportsmanias.com, founded just last fall, has an existing web site and app that serves as a news aggregator for all major US sports including NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and the NCAA. In addition it covers a wide variety of domestic and international soccer news, teams and leagues. The news feed that a user gets can be customized to meet their sporting preferences. The company was founded by the mother/son team of Aymara Del Aguila, an advertising executive and son Vicente J. Fernandez, a student-athlete and sports writer at the University of Chicago.

Now the company has enhanced its presence in the mobile digital world with an updated free app for both iOS and Android powered devices. The Team News app will focus on providing news that has been originated by beat writers that regularly cover the team, rather than just culling all news stories that are generated about a team across the nation, often from sources that do not have direct contact and coverage of the team.

The app does not just exclusively provide beat reporter news on a specific team. It also provides team and player tweets. Two interesting features are the Rumor Filter, which collects league and team-specific rumors from top rumor sites, and a Video Filter, which aggregates footage from YouTube and Twitter.

These features have the ability to data mine rumors and videos in real time so that a fan can be up-to-date on what is going on as well as what is suspected to be about to happen. Other new features for the app include a scoreboard to follow ongoing games, and keyword search capabilities.

The company said that it currently is getting 500,000 unique visitors to its web site monthly and that with the new features and capabilities of its app it expects that it will see a strong jump to 1.5 million monthly visitors by year end.

The upgrades look to be a very good move by the company because increasingly flexibility and customization are now becoming standard in sports apps. The rumor and video filters are solid features that will help them create separation from many of the current apps that are now available, as many as just text based, and any rumors tend to be generated in house. However the need for these features, particularly video is obvious and others are headed in this direction.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Basketball, English Premier Soccer League, FIFA, Golf, iOS, Live sports via mobile, Major League Baseball, MLS, NBA, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, NFL, NHL, Soccer, Sports Social Media Data, Startup, Tablets, YouTube Tagged With: , , , , , ,

CBS Sports App Finally Supports Video, Tablets

August 14, 2013 by

cbssp

CBS Sports has updated its app (v.6.0) and brings much needed new features including tablet support as well as live video which will be added to its existing sports scores, stats and other information that it had previously supplied.

The old version of CBS Sports’ app could be viewed as a sort of dinosaur, apparently designed at a time when its developers believed that all a user needed on a mobile device was access to a web site for the information that they were seeking.

The addition of live sports video really was a necessity since there are other options, usually specific to one sport such as MLB At Bat that already offer sports highlights. Also by adding tablet support it reaches a huge new audience that surveys show often use a tablet when watching sports for additional information.

The live video will cover the PGA tour, NCAA basketball, and SEC football with additional on-demand options. You can also get personalized push notifications and it includes both CBS branded commentary and news content but also has the ability to add a Twitter feed focused on a favorite team that will include outside reporters, news services and fan commentary.

Aside from these additions the app still includes a huge range of other information that sports fans seek such as scores and stats from Pro and college football, MLB, NBA and NCAA hoops, NHL, PGA, NASCAR, F1 and a wide range of soccer including (Premier League, MLS, Champions League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, Europa League, Ligue 1, Scottish Premier, Dutch Eredivisie, Mexican Primera, Brazilian Serie A, and Argentina Primera.

There will also be special features regarding major sporting events such as the NFL draft and a number of CBS Sports programming will be available such as Jim Rome’s show.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Barclays English Premier League, Baseball, Basketball, CBS Sports, FIFA, Golf, Live sports via mobile, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, NFL, NHL, Soccer, The Ligue de Football Professionnel Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Viewers flock to on-air and digital PGA Championship broadcasts

August 13, 2013 by

turnersp

The Turner Sports decision to present an aggressive online presence for the PGA Championship as well as strong over the air coverage resulted in strong results as the event sees big growth in viewership in both areas.

The over the air broadcast of the 2013 PGA Championship from the Oak Hill Country Club East Course in Pittsford, N.Y., shown on TNT received the network’s highest rating for the event in 3 years with an average of 1.6 million viewers, up 54% from last year. It had an average of 1.2 U.S. house hold rating, a 50% increase from last year.

Probably as no surprise most of the top regions in terms of viewership are also hot golfing destinations and all rated much higher than the national average. They were markets for all four rounds of coverage on TNT were Las Vegas (2.7), West Palm Beach (2.6), Columbus (2.4), Greenville, S.C. (2.4) and Orlando (2.3).

While the broadcast numbers were strong, the digital numbers were even stronger, showing that there is a large market that wants to experience sporting events but often cannot get away to view them on television.

The PGA.Com umbrella that handles both mobile and broadband streaming delivery was up 69% during the Championship and live streaming hours across platforms are up 85% compared with 2012.

Filed Under: Apps, Contests, Golf, Nielsen Ratings, PGA, TNT, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , ,
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