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49ers Embrace Social Media In Deal With Yahoo

June 18, 2013 by

yahoofan

Have you ever dreamed of seeing your name, or at least your picture, up in lights for all to see? Well for 49er fans, and I guess any fan that attends games at the new 49er Levi’s Stadium that has become a possibility due to a deal between the team and Yahoo.

Yahoo has signed on with the team as the team and stadium’s “exclusive online sports content, social networking, and photo and video sharing partner” which is quite a mouthful. The terms of the 10 year deal have not been announced, or even reliably leaked.

Part of the deal will enable fans to appear on the big screen, that is the stadium big screen. Fans that take photos can upload them to Flikr during the game, which just happens to be a Yahoo property, and there is the possibility that they will be displayed on the big screen.

Fans can use specific booths that will be situated around the stadium’s concourse to upload the photos into the 49ers Flikr photo gallery, from which selections will be displayed at the game. Yahoo will also have the ability to tout its Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football.

The deal enables the company to name the lounge in the stadium’s suites and its adjacent viewing platforms the Fantasy Football Lounge. But the deal is more than just static naming- the 49ers said that they intend to integrate Yahoo and its properties into its broadcast and digital media.

It is not surprising that the 49ers have gone out and signed a deal with a major Internet player; expect to see this as the trend of the future as fans increasingly use smartphones and tablets to upload imagery and comments from sporting events, a trend that has been growing at a tremendous rate for the past few years.

With the increased adoption of social media at stadiums will also come the increasing need for better networking and communications technology. Anybody that has tried to get online at a sporting event knows the long delays that can entail, even when the mobile device shows that the signal is strong.

MLB has already signed a deal with Qualcomm to develop and implement a fan to help solve this issue. The San Francisco Giants, which planned for these issues from the start of AT&T Park, have still had to continually upgrade the stadiums’ capacity as users’ demands increased.

Filed Under: Apps, AT&T, Baseball, Major League Baseball, San Francisco Giants, Social Media, Social Media Data, Sports Social Media, Wi-Fi, Yahoo Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Watching Golf this Week: The Memorial, AKA Playing at Jack’s House

May 30, 2013 by

Memorial golf Did you miss us golf fans? Yes, MSR’s weekly how to watch golf primer took a couple weeks off. No big deal, we just got busy and hey, we’re just like the top golfers sometimes — can’t be at every stop!

But we digress. On to the golf, at the Memorial which, thanks to its “ownership” by uber golf legend Jack Nicklaus this weekend gets mini-major status — kind of like, say, an NFL Divisional playoff game. Or round 2 of the NHL playoffs. However you categorize it, all the big names are in Ohio this weekend, though after watching Rory McIlroy struggle on Thursday he probably ain’t going to be there for Saturday or Sunday.

Defending champ Tiger Woods? A 1-under on Thursday is just fine, even though it puts him 6 back of early leader Charl Schwartzel. Remember, Tiger does well on courses he likes (Torrey Pines, Bay Hill) and he’s won here five times before. So if he’s within three or four on Sunday, we still like his chances.

Are you feeling the U.S. Open yet? Two weeks away and we are already getting ready for Marion. It was cool to watch the Golf Channel replay of the 1971 playoff between Nicklaus and Lee Trevino — just loving to see all the new cool stuff GC is doing, including putting all its shows online. What a surprise, but not to us! Golf people love their online coverage, and Golf Channel is showing how smart it is by adding live online simulcasts and now studio shows too.

More coming soon about online golf, and about AT&T’s new method of bringing cellular coverage to golf events — but not right now. Still busy with other stuff so enjoy the Memorial this weekend, especially online where there is more coverage than you think Broadcast is on CBS.

THE MEMORIAL

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE
Friday, May 31 — Golf Channel, 2:30 p.m. — 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, June 1 — Golf Channel, 12:30 p.m. — 2:30 p.m.; CBS, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Sunday, June 2 — Golf Channel, 12 p.m. — 2 p.m.; CBS, 2:30 p.m. — 6 p.m.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite)
12 p.m. — 6 p.m., Thursday-Sunday. The live broadcasts are also available to subscribers on the SiriusXM Internet Radio App and online at SiriusXM.com.

NEW! PGA TOUR RADIO!
This a better deal for those not living in the U.S., because it’s free internationally. Inside the U.S. you will pay (due to rights fees) $1.99 per event or $9.99 for the whole year. Gives you the CBS feed, audio version. Click here for more info and payment plans for your area.

ONLINE
The PGA’s Live@ is back! The Memorial gets full “major-like” treatment, with simulcast coverage, featured groups and more. Thankfully the PGA has put all your options on this page so click there and see what’s online, live.

PGA SHOT TRACKER
Get another online fix via Shot Tracker.

FACEBOOK PAGE
Here’s The Memorial Facebook page.

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW

The Memorial Twitter feed.
Geoff Shackelford — well known golf writer. If you’re not following Geoff you are missing the online boat.
Golf Channel — official Golf Channel feed
@PGATOUR — official PGA Twitter feed
@StephanieWei — great golf writer who is a Twitter fiend. Now leading the Wei (hah!) with Google+ Hangouts during most tourneys.
Doug Ferguson is the lead golf writer for AP. Good Twitter insights that often aren’t part of your wire-service lead.
Matt Ginella is a former Golf Digest writer now at Golf Channel. Your guide to the best golf course reviews, evar. Plus great columnist-type commentary on a regular basis.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
Muirfield Village Golf Club — designed by Jack for tournament play. Here’s the tourney site course page, which looks plain but has a lot of interactivity if you click around, video flybys and multiple hole vantage points. The Nicklaus design company page has some stunning photos as well.

LOCAL FLAVOR
The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch has things pretty well nailed down with a special Memorial site. Interactive course map, video, features, it’s all here. Hurray for newspapers.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST YEAR?
Tiger Woods. Or do you not remember this shot?

Filed Under: AT&T, CBS Sports, Golf, Golf Channel, PGA, Tiger Woods Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Unhappy iPad Users? Is Facebook Home Dead Already?

May 10, 2013 by

Will Microsoft buy Barnes & Noble’s Nook Business?
The rumor has once again emerged that Microsoft is looking at buying Barnes & Noble’s Nook business unit, a unit that Microsoft has already invested $300 million. TechCrunch is now reporting that it has internal documents that show that indeed the software giant is pondering such a move.

The cost is approximately $1 billion, which would also include Nook Media and related digital business operations. The documents show that Barnes & Noble is considering discontinuing its Android-based tablets next year.

Apple Patents invisible buttons
As smartphone users seemingly are demanding additional functionality with each new release of their favorite handset product designers are faced with the classic issue of form or functionality. Now Apple has patented a technology that seems to solve the issue by enabling fully functioning buttons and sliders that are not visible.

If you are wondering how you would use invisible items, they are not always hidden from the eye, but would appear when you motion towards them, according to a piece on them in Geek Newsletter.

Is Facebook’s Home burning down?
A few weeks ago amid a great deal of hype Facebook offered its latest and greatest mobile offering, Facebook Home. If you missed the announcement it was the debut of a smartphone, and a related app for owners of alternative Android devices, which made Facebook your smartphone start screen.

The HTC First was the first smartphone to come with the technology as standard and it was available from AT&T for $99. It has been apparently been met by a universal shrug of the shoulders by users, which had led AT&T to drop the price of the phone a bit, to 99 cents! Salon gives a good look at how far and fast this technology has dropped.

Amazon to offer smartphone with 3D display?
The Wall Street Journal is reporting (via C/Net) that Amazon is working on a pair of smartphones and that one of the two will have a 3D capability that will enable hologram like images. However the article made clear that the smartphones might never see the loght of day.

Amazon is increasingly delving into the hardware space starting with its popular Kindle tablet. While the rest is rumor, so far, it sounds like a set top box and the aforementioned smartphones are also in the works.

Google Glass takes another hit.
In case you missed the send up on Saturday Night Live you can look here but real world resistance to Google Glass technology is also continuing to rise. A nice piece in the New York Times outlines some of the major Pros and Cons of the technology.

We have always wondered how Las Vegas would deal with the glasses, and the NYT is of the opinion they will be banned, an opinion backed by Caesars Entertainment statement that they would be prohibited. However it is estimated that the glasses could generate upwards to $#500 billion for Google.

Bill Gates chimes in on iPad
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates recently spoke with CNBC and said that iPad users are frustrated with the lack of keyboard and because there is no Microsoft Office app for that platform that they will migrate to PC Tablets.

As can be noted in the Guardian’s coverage of his statements so Apple has sold an estimated 141 million iPads to unhappy users while the happy Microsoft Surface users have already swarmed the stores for an estimated 2 million units. Of course the Surface is still relatively new so we will see what the future brings.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, AT&T, Barnes & Noble, Facebook, Google, HTC, iPad, Microsoft, Nook, Smartphone, Surface, Tablets, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , , ,

WSJ: ESPN Thinking About Paying for Your Mobile Sports Jones

May 9, 2013 by

You have to fight your way around the paywalls to read it, but the Wall Street Journal had a story today about ESPN talking to wireless providers about paying part of the fees for people who watch sports via cellular connections. There’s nobody on record, but when the WSJ uses the familiar “according to people familiar with the matter” dodge you know that somebody wanted this story to get out.

For the carriers, this is a kind of a holy grail thing — if ESPN starts subsidizing watching sports via cellular, you can bet that AT&T and Verizon will step up their marketing machines to sell tablets and smartphones. I’m imagining a future where you pay something like $50 a month, which gets you live NFL games and a free iPad to boot. Think you’d sign up tomorrow?

Why would such an arrangement be valuable to ESPN? With more mobile users, the worldwide leader could jack up the fees it charges advertisers since it would have incredible amounts of granular user info, right down to where the user is watching. And I’d bet you wouldn’t be able to watch any other channel on that subsidized device. But then again — would you care?

Net neutrality worries aside, it will be interesting to see if this deal comes to fruition. With Verizon’s exclusive cell phone rights deal with the NFL coming up for renewal next year, it’s the right time for something new to happen. We’ll stay tuned.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, ESPN, NFL, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Watching Golf this Week: The Masters, AKA Tiger’s Revival

April 11, 2013 by

masters skedLet’s get the basics out of the way first. You want to know when to watch the Masters, right? It’s easy. TV coverage Thursday and Friday is on ESPN, 3 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Eastern time, both days. On the weekend it’s CBS, 3 to 7 p.m. Saturday, 2 to 7 p.m. Sunday.

Online: You can’t go wrong. We have already said we think the Masters coverage is not just the best in golf, but the best online coverage of any event, anywhere. We have CBS and IBM and AT&T to thank, but mostly it’s because the Masters calls its own shots. So they’re not concerned whether or not online will take away from TV ratings. Like the Honey Badger, the Masters doesn’t give a you know what.

CBSSports and the Masters sites will both show live video, and you can even watch the ESPN coverage simulcast on WatchESPN. Here are some handy links:

HERE IS THE MAIN MASTERS COVERAGE LINK.

HERE IS THE MAIN CBS MASTERS PAGE.

HERE IS THE CBSSPORTS LIVE ONLINE COVERAGE PAGE.

If all else fails, go to the Masters.com page, find the mobile device apps for iPad, iPhone or Android and download. You know the drill. Be thankful that the Masters is the best, bar none, sports event for sports fan viewing. We are talking minimum commercials, multiple alternate views online, experienced crews who aren’t doing this for the first time… there is the occasional weirdness like the Butler Cabin stuff but unless this is your first time watching you have already embraced all that as part of the Masters lore and lure. So on to the actual tournament preview:

It’s Tiger’s to lose.

If you look at it from a purely unemotional standpoint — so far this season Woods has been destroying the fields on courses he knows well. Torrey Pines. Bay Hill. Augusta is another one of those multiple-win places, where he announced his plans to not just win but to posterize the rest of the Tour, back in 1997. If you watched that tournament, like millions of us did, it changed you as a golf fan.

Even as Woods struggled the past few years, he was surprisingly competitive at Augusta: Since his last green jacket in 2005, here is how Tiger has finished: 3rd, 2nd, 2nd, 6th, 4th, 4th, and then 40th last year. Those results are a career for most of the stiffs on Tour; so now that Tiger is back in form (especially on the greens) how can he not win?

In terms of work ethic, physicality, smarts — he has the whole package, something nobody else has. What is missing… is the mojo.

Majors are all about psychological pressure. What Woods showed last year is that he is susceptible to it. He didn’t use to, but now — he cracks. He’s the closer who can’t close anymore, Mariano Rivera without the cut fastball. He fooled us all, even the best: Sports Illustrated’s Alan Shipnuck, best golf beat writer out there, wrote this after the first round of the U.S. Open and probably still regrets it.

What Shipnuck thought — what we all thought — is that the Tiger of old had returned. On Thursday it looked like Woods had it wired again, like he was the GOAT. Then on Saturday he looked like a club member, complete with the hospital shoes. Timid. Afraid. The same thing happened at the British Open — on Sunday there was Woods trying to play smart golf while Ernie Els smoothed his way to the kind of major Tiger used to clear off the table. And then at the PGA the whole golf world ran into the Rory McIlroy buzzsaw, which is awesome to see whenever it flits into focus.

Rory, Phil, or some unknown ready to rise up like Bubba Watson or Charl Schwartzel… there are a hell of a lot of good golfers on Tour now, with what looks like a much higher level of overall play than when Tiger broke in back in the ’90s. And the hype on golf has ramped up too, making all the tournaments that aren’t majors a beta release.

Golf fans and even casual sports fans get it — the Masters is one of the times of the year we need to pay attention, and we will. Majors are about history. Lore. They are player-defining moments. For many of us, there is no doubt that Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer to ever play the game. But until he gets past Jack Nicklaus’ 18 major wins, Tiger knows he can’t legitimately make that claim himself. Nicklaus, as great a student of the game as any, publicly says Tiger can beat his total. Then he adds: But he’s got to go out and win them.

And that’s what a lot of golf fans want to see. They want to witness the greatest, at the top of his game. I think that second chapter starts this weekend — I can see Woods blowing everyone away, just like in 1997. The intimidation factor is creeping back in, and if he gets 4-5 strokes clear by the weekend Shipnuck can go back to his early close-out predictions. But I could also see it going the way of Jim Harbaugh play-calling at the goal line in the Super Bowl… Tiger pressing too hard, staying close but never getting in a groove, and someone who doesn’t feel pressure, like… Jason Dufner? … emerging from the pack.

Enough talk. Fore, gentlemen.

THE MASTERS

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE

Thursday, April 11 — ESPN, 3 p.m. — 7:30 p.m.
Friday, April 12 — ESPN, 3 p.m. — 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, April 13 — CBS, 3 p.m. — 7 p.m.
Sunday, April 14 — CBS, 2 p.m. — 7 p.m.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite)
2 p.m. — 6 p.m., Thursday-Sunday
Sirius will also have several feature shows. Check this schedule for more.

Masters.com
There will be a live streaming radio report on the Masters.com site.

ONLINE
Full live video coverage at Masters.com and CBSSports.com. Different cameras start at different times each day, so… check the schedule to see when they go live. Right now tentative start times for Thursday are: Amen Corner camera, 10:45 a.m.; Holes 15 & 16, 11:45 a.m.; Featured Groups 1 & 2, 12:00 p.m.

ESPN: The Worldwide Leader will be at the Masters in force, with its live coverage Thursday and Friday, and more online coverage goodies. Here is ESPN’s Championship Central link. This is also a good place to check for live ESPN online coverage, via ESPN3 or the WatchESPN app for mobile devices.

Golf.com is going Masters overboard, with more content than you could possibly read. But the Sports Illustrated group of writers hanging out there may be the best covering the game right now.

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW
Dan Jenkins — golf’s Shakespeare. From Texas. Hope he is on form for the Masters. If you don’t know who he is, hit Google. And buy a few books.
Geoff Shackelford — well known golf writer is slinging Masters lore and great links.
Golf Channel — official Golf Channel feed
@PGATOUR — official PGA Twitter feed
@StephanieWei — great golf writer who is a Twitter fiend

LOCAL FLAVOR
The Augusta Chronicle knows how to play the biggest event of the year. A good bookmark.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
Here’s an incredible service: The Masters course page has video flyovers of each hole. I think I will only spend about 80 hours on this page alone.

Want to check out the historic clubhouse? Sports Illustrated’s Golf.com has a video that takes you inside.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST YEAR?
The man who hates publicity who has been so overexposed I would bet that just about every Golf Digest reader could go out to the pines at #11 and replay Bubba’s hook shot to win it. Well maybe not. But Bubba Watson sure did know how to win his first major. Props.

Filed Under: AT&T, CBS Sports, ESPN, Golf, PGA, The Masters, Tiger Woods, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Major League Baseball teams with Qualcomm to Boost Ballpark Wireless Service

April 10, 2013 by

mlb

MLB, like all major sports, and for that matter any large venue for sports or entertainment, seems to always have a connectivity problem but unlike many others which seem to have patchwork solutions MLB is actively addressing the issue.

The league’s Advanced Media arm (MLBAM) has teamed with wireless equipment developer Qualcomm in a multiyear effort that will first seek to survey the needs of mobile fans and then look at developing a plan to implement the mobile network technology needed to meet those needs.

They are entering a very fast moving space, where it is still hard to predict what the growth and demand will look like. You need only look at some of the numbers that Baseball has provided to see this. Two years ago fans were primarily looking for downstream data flow, that is downloading e-mails checking voicemail.

That has change so that now the primary need is for upstream connectivity, so that twitter, Facebook updates, Instagram photos and a host of other social media needs can be served. Also these types of files are often much larger than the simple text messages downloaded two years earlier. However the growth has been strong for data flowing in both directions, a 50% increase in downstream and a 300% increase in upstream per year over the last two years.

MLB in fact helps create demand for wireless in its parks. It has a range of apps that allow fans to do everything from find images of themselves in the stands as well as post that type of photo to upgrading your seats while at a game.

The range of services now at ballparks range considerably, and even after this effort is over will still have a good deal of variance since it appears that not all teams will be participating.

The deal is a first for Qualcomm in that in the past it has never had a direct relationship with a sports league. Its Engineering Group will provide in-ballpark assessments of select parks and develop a comprehensive plan for wireless access that will include Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G services. The effort is expected to take two years.

It will be interesting to see if the experts can accurately foretell the future and if the installations will meet with future needs. The San Francisco Giants’ AT&T Park is continually undergoing enhancements and growing pains as fans mobile usage continues to grow. But at least during the recent World Series it held up, while Comercia Park’s network collapsed under the strain of social commenting at games.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, Baseball, Cisco, Facebook, Instagram, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, Social Media, Sports Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,
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