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Friday Grab Bag: Everest site of new wing suit record attempt

February 7, 2014 by

If imitation is the highest form of flattery then Felix Baumgartner, the man who jumped from space, must be very flattered that his action is being imitated by climber Joby Ogwyn who will do a similar stunt, this time from the top of the world’s highest peak.

If all goes as planned the Discovery Channel will be broadcasting the feat on live TV this May as it covers the last stage of Ogwyn’s climb and subsequent jump. It is expected to cover five miles and feature three stages. It will be covered by 15 cameras including some that are mounted in the wing suit.

Tim Tebow to be face of A-11 League?
There is a new spring pro football league forming called the A-11 FL that is planning on starting to play this year with first games slated for May. Initially the league will have eight teams at its formation that will span cities across the United

Now there are reports that one of the teams, not surprisingly based in Tampa, is looking to give Tim Tebow a shot at redemption by selecting him as its quarterback. A league official said that Tebow would become the face of the league.

New Thursday & Saturday NFL games this year
If you had CBS as the station that would win the bidding war for new Thursday Night Football games step up and accept your prize! The channel will be airing eight games this upcoming season, which will be simulcast with the NFL Network broadcast. The NFL Network will also exclusively show eight late season games.

Then there is the expansion to Saturday, where the league will show two games on Dec. 20, Week 16 of the season and after all of the bye weeks have passed for the teams. The kickoff times and teams are still being determined.

1904 Olympics must have been something
While the current Olympics in Sochi are getting a good deal of grief prior to the opening ceremony you have to wonder what people would be saying if the games imitated on that took place over 100 years ago?

The Smithsonian has an interesting piece on the games that took place in 1904 in St Louis, Mo. and specifically on the top event, the Marathon. One feature was that they intentionally allowed the athletes to become dehydrated during the run to see what effect that would have.

Baseball Corporate Sponsors: A History
It appears that all but eight stadiums in MLB have a corporate sponsor, and with the Texas Rangers selling the naming rights to Globe Life and Accident Insurance Co. there are now only nine without an extended title that just rolls off of your tongue.

Yet just 20 years ago, according to the Consumerist, there was only one that had a sponsor name while most were simply named for their location and one, San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium, was even named after a sports writer of all things. Take a look at how some of the names have undergone change in the last two decades.

Filed Under: Athlete to Follow, Baseball, CBS Sports, Contests, Live sports via mobile, Major League Baseball, Monday Night Football, NFL, NFL Network, Olympics, Outdoor Activities, Red Bull, Tim Tebow, USFL, World Wingsuit League Tagged With: , , , , , ,

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: , , , , ,

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: , , ,

Sportsmanias.com updates website, enhances Twitter feed

January 22, 2014 by

sportsman

Real time sports news aggregator Sportsmanias.com has extended its feature set with a redesign that has several additional features including one that will enable a fan to follow the Twitter feed from beat reporters on both sides of a rivalry.

While currently a fan can have a Twitter stream that includes two or more beat reporters Sportsmanias has gone a step further and enables a fan to have them run side by side, enabling them to run as dual streams so that there is no need to sort the wheat from the chaff.

This is just one of the improvements from the startup that was founded just last year and so far has raised $1 million in venture funding. It has both website and app that serves as a news aggregator for all major U.S. 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 down to individual teams, along with players’ twitter and social media feeds.

The company allows fans to follow sports events in different fashions. If they are in attendance at the sporting event they can use the Sportsmanias News Feed App to follow along to the action both in front of them as well as elsewhere while at home they can use the dual tweet feature to explain what might be obvious to fans at the events but not ones that are limited to what the broadcaster is showing.

The overall look and feel of the web site has been simplified in the latest redesign; along with faster load times so that there is as little lag between events and updates as possible. The site now has simplified graphics and easier, more intuitive navigation capabilities. It has also enhanced its rumor section.

Filed Under: Apps, Athlete to Follow, Baseball, Basketball, Fantasy Sports, Golf, Major League Baseball, NBA, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, NFL, NHL Tagged With: , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: ESPN pushing its World Cup coverage

January 17, 2014 by

ESPN is expecting to see growing interest in the upcoming World Cup in terms of audience numbers, and is working to fan the flames with strong pre-tournament coverage prior to the 2014 games, the last it will be broadcasting for some time, having lost the rights to the 2018 and 2022 tourneys to Fox Sports and Telemundo.

But for now ESPN has been pushing to alert fans that it will have the games and has even spun off its very popular 30 for 30 series to now include Soccer Stories in advance of the games. A benefit for ESPN is that the World Cup time zone in Rio is only one hour ahead of the East Coast and so fans will not be forced to watch tape delayed games or watch matches starting at 3 a.m.. At least in the U.S.

One additional World Cup note from ESPN is that the network hired Gilberto Silva, the Brazilian who helped his team win the World Cup in 2002 and former Dutch star Rudd van Nistelrooy as studio analysts. They will work on pre-match, halftime and post game shows.

Time change for 2022 World Cup?
However the winner of the rights going forward, Fox Sports, may be a bit upset these days by a move coming from the World Cup. The event, which is held in the summer every four years is being moved to the winter for the 2022 games. That is prime NFL time for Fox and while the World Cup is increasingly popular in the U.S. it does not come close to rivaling football, at least not currently.

The reason is obvious — the heat. The games are to be held in Qatar, where temperatures an soar above 120 degrees during June and July when the games are traditionally held. The nation was supposed to build a series of climate controlled arenas to host the event, but there appear to be issues. Still no final decision is expected until next year.

More NFL games on Thursday
It looks like the NFL is shopping additional games to be broadcast on Thursday night, creating a new Thursday night package that would be part existing games and part additional games that the NFL plans to add, despite its recent denials that it was looking to do so.

According to Awful Announcing, the current slate of 13 games, at least the last 2 years, would be expanded to 16 games and then part of that would be offered out to bid. The NFL is looking for approximately $800 million in a 1-year deal. Currently the Thursday Night games are carried by the NFL’s own network.

MLB expands instant replay for 2014
MLB has been slowly expanding its instant replay over the last few years and now it looks like it is going in whole hog with a massive expansion of the program in a move that will also allow stadium scoreboards to show close plays, even when they are not reviewed. I am sure the umpires will love that.

While balls and strikes will continue to be excluded from the replays, which is about all that the new system will exclude as almost everything else will now be reviewable. Hopefully it will not lead to NFL style delays.

Filed Under: Baseball, ESPN, FIFA, Fox Sports, Major League Baseball, NFL, NFL Network, Soccer Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Do new deals show MLBAM set for IPO?

January 15, 2014 by

mlb

When you think of the WWE do you think of baseball? No? How about Sony? How about Whistle Partners- even heard of them? What they all have in common is a connection to Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media arm, a partnership created by all MLB teams that handles its Internet, digital and interactive technology, everything from behind the scenes backroom technology to the latest in games.

If you wonder why this is important consider that MLBAM is estimated to have earned $620 million in 2012, and is rapidly extending its reach into both baseball and non baseball activities. Aside from running the MLB and Minor League Baseball websites it also runs websites for YES Networks, SportsNet NewYork and others. In backroom technology it delivers infrastructure to a variety of entities including Southwest Airlines, CBSSportsline and WatchESPN.

It has recently expanded with a flurry of new deals and announcements in the last few weeks. It now will provide back end infrastructure for Sony when that company delivers its planned cloud-based TV service. It will also be providing the technology that backs the World Wrestling Entertainment’s planned 24/7 streaming network that is expected to launch next month.

It has also entered into a deal with The Whistle, a new sports entertainment network that is targeted at young fans and athletes. MLBAM will be providing technology services and infrastructure support for the network.

rbi

In the area of games it already has one of the most popular apps of all time at the Apple app store with MLB.Com At Bat, and that is just one of a host of games that it has available for fans during the season, and you can now add another to that list, or will be able to soon.

The MLBAM has announced that it will bring back from the dead RBI Baseball, to be called RBI Baseball 14, a game that has not been available for 20 years. Details are not available as yet as to what the latest generation of the game will look like but it is expected to be available for consoles as well as for smartphones and tablets.

We are not even mentioning the programs that MLBAM has set up for baseball that include Facebook, Instagram and other social media or its move to allow fans to upgrade tickets, order food and other activities with mobile devices. These are capabilities that it could also expand on and help other sports leagues deploy for their fans.

What do all of the activities mean? It could be a sign that it is getting all of its ducks in a row prior to making a run at an IPO, according to Forbes and other sources. It is estimated that MLBAM is worth as much as $6 to $8 billion and that with the current hot IPO market MLB could cash in on its media arm, even keeping half to retain control would result in a pretty penny in all of the teams’ owners pockets.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, Baseball, CBS Sports, Facebook, Instagram, iOS, Major League Baseball, MinorLeagueBall.com, Smartphone, Sony, Tablets, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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