You are here: Home / Archives for NFL

Mobile Sports Report Friday Grab Bag: 3D at MLB Playoffs — New Galaxy Note Coming

September 28, 2012 by

Is Google adding ads to Maps?
WebProNews is reporting that Google appears to be preparing to monetize its Maps app. The company has applied for a patent for Online Map Advertising. It looks as if this will allow the company to insert ads directly into the maps that you are viewing.

However on the plus side it looks like it might just be targeted at third party sites that use the maps as part of an effort to show people where their place of business is and they might include an ad in the space.

Also Google has said that contrary to rumors it has not submitted a new maps app to Apple for approval in its App Store. However the company is not ruling out doing so in the future.

Did the Lingerie Football League help settle NFL Ref strike?
Seattle fans are pointing to the team’s last second, replacement referee assisted, win over Green Bay as the straw that broke the camel’s back and forced the NFL to settle with the regular referees, who will be manning the field this weekend.

However a funny piece in Deadspin about the officials from the Lingerie Football League notes that it has a tougher standard for its referees that the NFL did for its replacements. The logic behind this was that apparently the LFL fired some refs for incompetence and they ended up doing NFL games as replacements. True or not it is pretty funny.

Are HTC and Nokia the next patent litigants’?
DigiTimes is reporting that Nokia and HTC may be about to meet each other in a court over potential patent issues. The problem appears to be that the Windows Phone 8 that each company has released bears a great deal of similarity to the one its rival introduced.

The article states that Nokia has already lodged a complaint with HTC over the belief that HTC has copied the design of Nokia’s Lumina 820 for HTC’s Windows Phone 8x offering.


Toys “R” Us sued over tablet
The battle for tablet supremacy has apparently spilled over into the toy aisle as Fuhu is suing Toys “R” Us for coping Fuhu’s Nabi tablet and using the technology in the recently released Tabeo. The suit claims that the two companies also had a deal signed in October 2011 under which Toys “R” Us had agreed to distribute the Nabi and to promote the product.

Fuhu is claiming that the product was not adequately advertised or promoted and that Toys “R” Us deliberately tanked the product in favor of its own Mateo that was then under development.

MySpace trying for resurgence
An interesting piece in Gizmag reports that MySpace, once the power in social media but a backwater since the emergence of Facebook a few years back, is currently undergoing a major redesign and I seeking to reestablish itself.

The site will have a much more visual look from the previews shown and it will have a new interface, in part influenced by the emergence of tablets. One interesting feature will be your ability to import all of your Facebook contacts.

Samsung’s next generation Galaxy Note out next month?
There is going to be a major Samsung event in New York on Oct. 24th, according to a press release that Samsung Mobile has sent out to the press. While the company has been mum on what it will be unveiling at the event, the rumor mill seems to think that it knows.

The answer is the next generation Samsung Galaxy Note, the Galaxy Note 2. The hybrid smartphone tablet has already been unveiled in South Korea and has been expected to be released in the States soon.

TBS to add 3D imagery to baseball playoffs
TBS has said that it will be adding “3D hologram imagery’ to its playoff broadcasts this fall. It will use the technology to illustrate different pitch grips and to show how the pitch will work. It will also be used to show pressure points, release points and ball rotation.

I guess using real live pitchers to show the same thing would be too complicated. While I think that this could be interesting I also am afraid that it will cause the station to miss a number of live pitches. The channel will also be tripling the number of super slo motion cameras that it uses compared to a regular season game.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Facebook, Google, HTC, iOS 6, Lawsuit, Major League Baseball, NFL, Nokia, TBS, The Big Lead Tagged With: , , , , , ,

NFL Launches ‘Thursday Night Xtra’ App, Still a Work in Progress

September 28, 2012 by

In what has to qualify as one of the most low-key introductions of a major sports app, the NFL has quietly launched something called Thursday Night Football Xtra, an app meant to be a “second screen” feature for your mobile device while you watch the Thursday night games on the NFL Network channel. The new app is sponsored by State Farm; you find it by clicking on the small “Xtra” chevron in the middle of this page.

Just so there’s no confusion, the app does NOT allow for live mobile viewing of Thursday night games — for that you need a Verizon cell phone and the $5 per month premium version of the NFL Mobile app. The Xtra app, which went live last week and which we checked out this Thursday night, promises to provide live sideline reports, game info and trivia, and predict-the-play contests where registered users can win points, for what we are guessing is some prize-redemption package.

There’s a little bit of a trek to find the app, since if you are on an iOS platform you will find it inside the NFL ’12 app; Android users and Verizon users need to find a separate TNF Xtra app, but it was easy to find in the Play Store. Since there’s no official press release out yet we don’t have all the details, but it seems pretty straightforward, and is an attempt by the league to bring its own smack talk/fan games interactivity app to the table. However, the league’s app follows a whole bunch of independent entities that are already up and running, though to the NFL’s credit there is already a version for both Android and iOS. Many of the new apps from smaller operations are still iPhone-only, a problem for roughly half the world’s smartphone users.

In our limited test run — right now let me say some of the problems may be due to my personal device, a Verizon 4G LTE Samsung Stratosphere, which has been acting hinky lately, requiring Tier-2 service calls to Verizon if you know what I mean. When you open the app the main screen says something about “Stay Tuned” which if you only saw that screen you might think the thing isn’t connected; instead what it means is that you are between actions, which may be a predictive contest, a bit of trivia or info, or a sideline report from the game. From our limited interaction it seems like these things just pop up at random, which I guess is OK if you are simultaneously watching the game.

A swipe to the right pulls up a Facebook-powered comments page, which we could read, but weren’t able to log in to. A swipe to the left from the main screen brought up what looked like a Twitter login page, but after we entered our Twitter account info all we got was a white screen of death (see picture). The middle-screen interactive stuff looked like the best bet anyway, though it might help to know what we are winning points for. Also, when the app launched it asked which team I was a fan of, with no “neither” option for this Chicago Bears follower on the night that Baltimore played Cleveland.

We’ll give this one another run next Thursday — if you get a chance to check it out (apparently the tablet version has even more bells and whistles) let us know what you think. I am not sure how independent app developers feel about the league getting into the apps business — seems like it’s a little bit of a poach into the territory of folks who might help promote the league — but I guess it is also a signal that the NFL isn’t going to miss a chance to engage its audience. (Some screen pix below)

A picture of the Thursday Night Football Xtra app, showing a game info tidbit. Credit: MSR

The Xtra app showing a pretty standard Facebook comment stream. We couldn't log in.

A tweet from the field! "It's raining." Not great sideline reportage but hey. It's early.

What we got when we tried to log in via Twitter. The white screen of death! May be a problem with our phone and not the app. We need... wait for it... a REPLACEMENT PHONE

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, Facebook, iOS, NFL, NFL Network, Twitter

iPad now on Duke’s hard court

September 25, 2012 by

Duke University’s men’s basketball team is the latest college sports team to adopt a tablet as a major training tool as the school revealed this week that it was going to eliminate notebooks and move over to Apple’s iPad.

The school will be providing the latest version of the iPad with a 64GB storage capacity and players will have a range of information ranging from the static such as schedules and scouting reports, to live video of the teams’ plays as well as those of rivals and scouting reports. Also included will be tracking software and the ability to wipe the memory if they are stolen or lost.

Tablets are gaining ever increasing acceptance across a wide spectrum of usage models and sports, often viewed as so old school that it is still considering the typewriter, has actually been at the forefront of adoption.

There are at least eight NFL teams that have moved away from paper notebooks and onto iPads including the Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins and the Baltimore Ravens. MLB and the NBA have also been quick to follow suit.

Colleges have seen what their professional brethren are doing and have also started to adopt the technology. At the start of this season Stanford University adopted the iPad for its football players. Ohio State announced earlier this year that it was going to outfit all of its student athletes with iPads over the next two years. Other schools moving in this direction include Syracuse and the University of Colorado.

The one constant I am seeing is that almost all of the schools and pro teams are using Apple’s iPad as the tablet of choice and that is a great PR boost for the company (not that they really need it), but if rivals want to get high profile positioning of their tablets they might be well rewarded by going after some teams. I guess we might see this change a bit when the Windows 8 tablets come out next month, but then again maybe not.

Filed Under: Apple, Basketball, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, Duke University, iOS, iPad, Major League Baseball, Microsoft, NBA Game Time, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, NFL, PlayerLync, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , ,

The Night the NFL’s Replacement Refs Blew Up Twitter

September 24, 2012 by

At 9:24 p.m. Pacific time Monday night, here is what is trending on Twitter: One promoted stream, followed by: #MNF, Roger Goodell, Packers, XFL, #MyExTaughtMe, #ThingsBetterThanReplacementRefs, Vince McMahon, Mike McCarthy, Hail Mary. If you didn’t watch the end of Monday Night Football Twitter can tell you all about it: I don’t even need to hear from Twitter PR that tonight will be the most-tweeted night ever, as every single NFL fan, follower and participant calls for Roger Goodell’s head and his decision to keep real refs out and replacement refs in.

It wasn’t just the single game-ending call that stunk like skunk. There were numerous calls either way, including an egregious offensive pass interference call that went the other way, keeping Seattle’s game-ending drive alive. We’ll embed some choice tweets here but may not get any more since we are betting the Twitter server farms are nearing code red or whatever thing they use to warn of meltdown. If nothing else, Twitter can thank Goodell for probably cementing their IPO. Twitter may be changing sports, but tonight sports is changing Twitter. Or at the very least blowing it to smithereens.

Filed Under: ESPN, Monday Night Football, NFL, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , ,

Wednesday Wi-Fi Whispers: Panthers (and Fans) Love Their New Wi-Fi Network

September 19, 2012 by

Panthers President Danny Morrison

When it comes to in-stadium wireless networks, most NFL teams and their fans are still looking to the future as to when high-speed Internet access will be available. Not so the Carolina Panthers, whose stadium sports what is arguably one of the NFL’s best Wi-Fi networks, with more than 460 access points providing free wireless access to every seat in Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium.

Mobile Sports Report got a call from Panthers president Danny Morrison last week, and the head cat in Charlotte couldn’t be prouder of the network bringing bandwidth to Panthers fans, a deployment done through a partnership between the team and telco giant AT&T. According to Morrison the Panthers started talking with AT&T about an in-stadium network after seeing what AT&T helped build at Cowboys Stadium for the Super Bowl in February of 2011.

“We entered into a partnership [with AT&T] and did a soft launch last season,” Morrison said. After testing and tweaking (including a full-bore tryout at a Kenny Chesney concert in June) Morrison said the network was ready to go this season, along with a new team app designed by YinzCam, a relatively unknown Pittsburgh firm that has quietly become the stone cold leader in NFL and sports-team app development. [Editor’s note: Look for a YinzCam profile soon!]

“The app is fantastic, you can grab all kinds of video from the [game production] truck, different replay angles, everything,” Morrison said. Even though we asked politely, Morrison didn’t disclose the terms of the network-building deal between the team and AT&T, other than to call it an “excellent partnership.”

Though the stadium also has an upgraded Distributed Antenna System (DAS) to help with straight cellular connectivity, the Wi-Fi network is the star of the show, and according to Morrison it’s all there to increase the enjoyment of the ticketholder. When we asked him if the network was put in perhaps to help drive revenue — sell more concessions, help with team operations like ticketing — he said all that matters right now is making fans’ phones work better so they can enjoy the unique experience of a live gameday that much more.

“When fans go to games, they want to send pictures to their friends, and see data from other games,” Morrison said. “That’s the world we live in. But there’s nothing like the experience of being inside the bowl at an NFL game. If you can add to that experience, it bodes well.”

Cisco Scores at Barclays Center

This is a late update (we just saw the press release blog) but it is good news for Cisco’s Sports connectivity group, a big win for the stadium Wi-Fi and digital signage biz at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. We are on the horn to Cisco folks and will try to get a more in-depth interview for next week’s column so stay tuned.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, DAS, NFL, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Mobile Sports Report Grab Bag: New Tablets from ZTE & Huawei and MNF Flop

September 14, 2012 by

Toys 'R' Us Tabeo

Tired of losing your pricey iPad to your kids and then they yell when you try and take it back? Well Toys “R” Us has stepped in with a product that just might save the day with its Tabeo offering. A 7-inch tablet that runs the Android operating system will be available in stores Oct. 21, but will start shipping Oct. 1.

The $149.99 device will feature 4GB of storage that is expandable to 32GB, but the big plus for parents is that it will come with more than 50 books, games and educational apps preloaded including such popular ones as Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja. The Tabeo is now available for preorder.

Chinese vendors ZTE & Huawei catching tablet fever?
DigiTimes is reporting that both Huawei Technologies and ZTE have both shown a good deal of interest in entering the tablet space. The move is seen as an effort to expand their respective footprints globally as well as take advantage of the huge Chinese market.

First Monday Night Football game of season a flop with fans
The first MNF games have come and gone, and thank goodness if you were forced to watch them. Apparently not that many did as Sports Media Watch reports that the opening game, a Ravens blowout of the Bengals only managed an 8.1 rating.

Monday Night Football

The season opener, shown on ESPN, was down 21% from last year when the Patriots and Dolphins played and down 23% from the Jets vs. Ravens in 2010. It was the lowest rated MNF broadcast by ESPN since it took over broadcast duties of the iconic show in 2007.

However just a few days later the NFL Network, with a much better matchup with the Packers vs. Bears, received the highest rating in its short history. However its numbers, at 6.3, are hurt because it still is not carried anywhere near as much by cable operators as ESPN.

Analysts predict 58 million iPhone sales in 2012
The iPhone orders only start today after the introduction earlier this week with the first phones expected to ship next week but analysts are predicting a tsunami of sales for Apple’s iPhone 5 smartphone in 2012.

According to a survey done by Bloomberg and reported in Mashable the consensus from analysts is 58 million sold this year and FBR Capital Market analyst Craig Berger is predicting 250 million over the life of the device.

Is Samsung’s LTE threat an issue still?
Samsung mentioned that if Apple included LTE in its iPhone 5 there was a high likelihood of Samsung suing Apple. Samsung owns a huge number of patents in this area and has a healthy business in the LTE area that is spate from the smartphone business.

Now so far Samsung has not acted but it might just be that the company is looking at the technology that is used in Apple’s LTE offering to make sure that it has it right. We could always hope that maybe the two are actually talking and can settle things out of court.

Samsung & MLB partner on contest
Speaking of Samsung the company has entered into a contest with Major League Baseball called Photo Hunt. It is a pretty basic game, one I think even I would have a decent chance at. Every week MLB, at @MLB, will tweet out a Samsung Photo Hunt item using the hash tag #SamsungMLB.

All a user has to do is take a picture of the item and share it with @MLB. Winners will get a Samsung S III phone and two free tickets to a game of their favorite team.

Kindle opens to lukewarm reviews
I was impressed by what I saw during the Kindle HD press conference last week, but reviewers with hands-on experience with the device have been less than complimentary. Some seems to be valid complaints, such as the speed apps load and a few issues with software.

Some of the complaints appear to be, well it is not an iPad, and that really is Amazon’s fault for proclaiming it the best tablet in the market. I still like it, but it is obviously what Amazon said it was at its introduction: a device that opens up other Amazon services to customers. It seems to me to make a product like that (in hindsight) that there will be features that are not included that a general purpose tablet user might want.

USA Today to look like iPad?
I have not been down to the local newsstand but it appears that USA Today will be sporting a new look starting this morning. The paper, which in many ways revolutionized the way papers look and how much space they devote to a story, is now taking on a sleeker appearance.

The paper took a lesson from the Web and how many sites present information. It will also feature input from social media users, including comments from Twitter and Facebook. Its web page will function more like an iPad, according to a piece in the New York Times.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, ABC, Amazon, Android, Apple, ESPN, Facebook, Gannett, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Major League Baseball, Mashable, Monday Night Football, NFL, NFL Network, Samsung, Smartphone, Tablets, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »