Why did Olympics streaming soar, and broadcast TV fail? Podcast episode No. 7 explores why online sports is winning

The drop in prime-time TV viewership for the recent Rio Olympics was a bit of a head-scratcher for many, especially in light of the soaring numbers for online viewership of the same games on various streaming outlets. In the STADIUM TECH REPORT PODCAST episode 7, hosts Phil Harvey and Paul Kapustka explore and explain why this shift from scripted to live happened, and what it means for all types of live sports content going forward. Give it a listen now!

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST:

Here is the link to the podcast on iTunes!

Twitter to stream NFL Thursday night games to all platforms, including smartphones

Screen Shot 2016-04-05 at 11.00.55 AMThe big news from the NFL today was a deal signed with Twitter, under which Twitter will get to stream live NFL Thursday Night games online to any connected device, including smartphones. To us, that last bit is the most interesting part of the deal since it breaks the previous stronghold held by Verizon Wireless and its NFL Mobile deal, under which Verizon was previously the sole provider of live NFL action to smartphones.

While many NFL games have been streamed by various entities online — including recent years’ playoff games, the Super Bowl and Monday Night Football — for most of those “broadcasts” you could only watch on a phone-type device if you were a Verizon customer and used the NFL Mobile app. The only exception we know of for U.S. fans was the extra-price DirecTV Sunday Ticket package, which also allowed for mobile viewing; but for free online action, you could typically only watch on a PC, connected TV or a tablet — smartphones were the exclusive domain of Verizon.

Under the Twitter deal, fans who are Twitter users will be able to watch Thursday night games free of any other charge, on tablets, PCs, connected TVs and smartphones, according to a release today from the NFL and Twitter. In addition to live action, the league and Twitter promise pre-game extras like Periscope broadcasts from teams and players, meaning you will get low-quality jittery interviews instead of professionally produced material. But we jest. The Periscope broadcasts could be cool, especially if they are on the field where fans never really get to be.

The Twitter deal follows on the heels of last season’s Yahoo-streamed game, which attracted 15.2 million viewers. It will be interesting to see what the numbers are for Twitter this year, since the Thursday night games will be available on regular TV from both NBC and CBS, which have five games each, as well as on the NFL Network, which will simulcast all games on Thursday nights.

NBC will live-stream Super Bowl online for tablets, computers; Verizon NFL Mobile will carry for smartphones

Screen shot 2015-01-20 at 10.37.03 AMIf for some reason you are banned from the living room couch for the Super Bowl, NBC has you covered — the network will be streaming the game live online, along with hours of pregame, postgame and halftime festivities — for anyone with an Internet connection and a laptop, PC or tablet.

According to a press release sent out Monday NBC said it will also not require viewers to have a qualifying cable or satellite contract to view the game, thereby eliminating the often annoying login process that accompanies many other online live sports streaming activities. You will, of course, be subject to multiple NBC advertisements but hey — a small price to pay for the convenience of being able to watch the game online.

(Mobile Sports Report is old enough to remember Super Bowl parties where we rented extra TV sets for the bathrooms and the kitchen; now you can just use in-house Wi-Fi and a tablet or laptop, perhaps with a splash guard.)

On the cellular side, if you are stuck somewhere and want to watch on your phone, the only option is having a Verizon contract and using the NFL Mobile app. If you are a More Everything customer the live viewing of the game is free, if not you must pay a $5 monthly charge for the one day in February that you will need premium access. (Pro tip for Verizon customers — don’t forget to cancel that premium access charge the day after the game, since Verizon will happily charge you $5 a month all summer long even though there are no NFL games during that time.)

It’s an easy guess so we will predict right now that this year’s Super Bowl will set new online records for most Internet viewers — without fail this has happened every year since the networks and the league started making the game available online. According to the NBC folks the online stream will have some handy extras, like the DVR feature that lets you scroll back to important plays, as well as additional camera angles and in-game stats.

Now our next dream is for the Shield and its broadcasters to follow ESPN’s lead on the college championships and provide online “Megacast” options for alternate announcers. A man can hope.

Golf Channel scores with Ryder Cup digital broadcasts

Given the time differences between Scotland and the United States, making all the Ryder Cup coverage available live online or via a mobile app seemed like a smart move for the Golf Channel and its parent NBC. Now that the stats are in the numbers back up the move, with Golf Channel claiming record unique visitors and video starts for both its online and mobile-app platforms.

In a press release NBC Sports said Golf Channel Digital had “its best week ever across all digital metrics” during the Sept. 22-28 Ryder Cup week. According to NBC, for the week Golfchannel.com attracted 2.16 million unique visitors, a 325 percent increase from the Ryder Cup week in 2010 and a 75 percent increase from 2012, with 16.2 million page views. The website also recorded 1.3 million video starts, respective increases of 438 percent and 173 percent over 2010 and 2012.

On the mobile side the Golf Channel mobile app racked up more than 10.4 million page views, which according to NBC was a gain of 93 percent over usage from 2012. The mobile platform this year also had more than 267,000 video starts, which NBC said was up 81 percent over 2012.

Let’s hope the PGA takes the numbers to heart and increases mobile/digital coverage of all Tour events, especially during Thursday-Friday competition days when many golf fans are more likely to be in front of a PC than a TV. Golf Channel’s Ryder Cup numbers are just a sign that we’ll watch online or on mobile devices. Tee it up, PGA!

Watching golf this week: Ryder Cup online at Golf Channel, NBC

Screen Shot 2014-09-24 at 10.34.55 AMAre you ready for late-night or early morning golf online? That’s what fans in the U.S. will be watching in potentially large numbers this weekend as the Ryder Cup takes place in Gleneagles, Scotland. With live coverage starting Friday at 2:30 a.m. Eastern time (that’s 11:30 p.m. Thursday for us west coaster types) it’s a good bet many golf fans will be tuning in online, using headsets so they don’t wake up the rest of the house with the TV.

All the action will be streamed live by Golf Channel and NBC, through their Golf Live Extra and NBC Sports Live Extra services. Depending on the day and time you may need to bounce between the two outlets, a small hassle but an OK price to pay to get to see the intriguing competition live. You will need to have an authorized cable account to view the live feed, though it looks like they are giving fans a 30-minute grace period of free viewing before you have to log in with your cable account. You will also be able to see the live action via the Golf Channel/NBC apps for iOS and Android devices.

Especially interesting to us is the addition of something Golf Channel is calling its Alternate Shot coverage, which is basically a different set of analysts and announcers led by the entertaining David Feherty. Feherty, a former player who is often the most engaging voice on any broadcast these days, has a unique style and fun sense of humor, which fans of his excellent interview show Feherty know well. Like past experiments with college football that offer announcer choices, we are glad to see the trend spreading to other sports, and expect Feherty — who played in the 1991 Ryder Cup and is extremely passionate about the event — to do a bang-up job.

Of course, the competition will also be shown on TV, and if you want a good place to find a lot of information easily the Golf Channel’s Ryder Cup hub is a fine place to start.

Mobile technology and the Tour de France: Good, bad, ugly, cool — and you still need to pay NBC to watch it live online

Ever wanted to know what the Tour de France looks like from right in the middle of the pack? You now can see what it looks like for yourself, thanks to some on-bike cameras being used on a trial basis at this year’s race. Here is a link to a clip from Stage 1 that shows what it’s like to see a crash happen right in front of you. Great stuff, the kind of smart use of mobile technology that we’ve been waiting for since GoPro cameras hit the scene.

(For some reason it looks like the TdF is making some of these videos private, so watch them while you can. We also agree with what some commenters have been saying — what’s with the cheesy overdubbed music? Just use cycling action noise, please… thanks)

Of course, with technology advancements come things both good and bad, and if there is a crisis-about-to-happen trend it’s the proliferation of fans alongside the Tour de France trying to snap selfies with the racers in the background. Look, we get it: You are at a bucket-list type event, you spent hours by the side of the road waiting for the too-brief minute or two of action… so hell yeah, you’re going to snap a selfie to show everyone else how cool and important you are! Superb!

(VeloNews also has a report on the problem.)

The only problem is, over the last couple years, it’s become pretty obvious to anyone who watches Tour de France coverage on TV that the exuberant fans of old — usually fat old French guys who would sprint alongside the riders, on the steepest inclines where a human running can keep up with a bike for short distances — have now been replaced by a crew of idiots who know nothing about bike racing, but who want to be on TV. Or on the Internet. They dress up, they run in the road, they block the path of cyclists and motorcycles — every day now we hold our breath, hoping like hell there isn’t an incident where a fan takes out a leading rider, or far worse, a cyclist or fan suffers a terrible injury because some idiot was out in the middle of the road. Combine the idiot behavior with the turned-around selfie head not looking at what’s coming and you have a toxic stew. Who will save these jerks from themselves?

I’ve been around big bike races enough to know that there’s really no way of keeping these crowds completely controlled, short of putting up fences like they do for the last 1,000 meters in tour stages. Even then, people lean over the fences and cause crashes. I get it that part of the romance, the excitement of the Tour is the up-close involvement of fans. But these days it seems like it’s 90 percent self-important party clowns lining the roads, and not people who really care or understand the event. So far, it seems like the Tour has done little to try to tone down the on-road crowding. Let’s hope someone figures something out before there’s a race-changing or life-changing incident.

Crowds overwhelming cellular signals again?

This report is somewhat unconfirmed but in watching the NBC coverage live early this morning west coast time we heard one of the on-course reporters saying something about how team cars couldn’t communicate from the front of the pack to the back because they couldn’t get a cell signal — courtesy of the huge amount of fans lining the road for the stage into London. Shades of the Olympic road race! Guess they still haven’t figured out how to handle cellular crowds in the UK countryside.

TourTracker partners with CyclingNews: Best of both worlds!

Screen shot of TourTracker TdF app

Screen shot of TourTracker TdF app

We are also happy to see that our favorite live-action tour-following app, TourTracker, is now finally available for Tour de France coverage thanks to a partnership with CyclingNews. We’re happy for founder Allan Padgett and TourTracker… the best way to follow the biggest race in a mobile fashion. Unfortunately, the TourTracker app won’t have live video coverage — for that you still need to pay NBC extra, to the tune of $4.99 a day or $29.99 for the whole race. For mobile access only it looks like the charge is $14.99; not sure if there is also a per-viewing charge as well as a charge for the app.

How do we feel about NBC milking cycling fans for chump change? It wouldn’t be so bad if you could ensure that Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen were the only commentators heard, but from my short viewing stint today it appears that NBC has loaded up the announcer roster with those “other guys” that people generally can’t stand. My suggestion to Phil and Paul — hold some classes in the offseason to train the next generation of announcers! Please!

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