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Football (The US Version) Applying for Olympic Recognition?

July 30, 2012 by

I caught an interesting piece in ProFootballTalk that said that the International Federation of American Football (IFAF) was applying for Olympic recognition and looking to promote the game on the international stage at some point.

According to a piece at NFL.Com the application will be looked at next year and the article compared how the US once dominated basketball and now others have caught up. Really it often seems that the loss 2004 had other issues that cause the defeat and ultimate disappointing bronze.

I had never really considered football as a sport that fit well in the Olympics format, or one that would do well if selected, and that is not because of the possibility that it is not accepted by other nations. Rather the problem is that it seems to me that with all of the qualifying rounds and matches (assuming they do it like soccer), the sport would continue on from the end of the NFL season until the start of the Olympics.

Then once the Olympics started they would have to play a number of games within a two week period, unless they had already weeded out all of the teams but the final four. That just seems like it would not do for the players with the much higher risk that would entail.

Yet there is a much larger body of people playing football around the world that I had imagined as well. In perusing the IFAF web site I was astounded to see how many national federations there was in the organization. With 62 on six continents it is spread from Kuwait to Uruguay to New Zealand with Europe having by far the most nations represented.

They have an 19 and under league, a women’s league and a seniors league, and have played for at least four championships, one played every four years and the next one scheduled for play in Sweden in 2015.

Apparently football was played once as a spectator sport in the Olympics, back in 1932 at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles seniors from three schools, California, Stanford and USC played a set against seniors from three schools from the East Coast, Harvard, Yale and Princeton. The West won 7-6.

While I have seen many people complain that one reason that the Olympics would never accept football is because of US domination and point to the dropping of baseball as an example, I think that reasoning is at least in part misguided.

Major League Baseball is never going to stop playing for several weeks in the middle of the season to allow its players to go to the games. The lost revenue, the impact on playoff games and a host of other issues would make that move a terrible idea.

If you look at the last 5 Olympics that allowed baseball, the US won the gold once, in 2000, along with two bronze medals while Cuba has won three gold medals and South Korea one. Without the top athletes, which it does not look like they will get, the US probably would not be considered the favorite if other nations managed to get their top people in.

Much the same logic can be applied to the NFL’s reaction. Lose players for a number of weeks at the start of training camp? Well they actually did that last year, and I am pretty sure that no one is happy with that or wants to repeat it.

The only way I could see the US participate is if they took one of the other leagues, the reborn USFL or the UFL and used the championship team from that league. While an all star team might make more sense to some it seems to me that a team that has already played a season together has a better chance of shining in an event such as this.

Filed Under: Baseball, IFAF, Major League Baseball, NFL, NFL Network, Olympics, UFL, USFL Tagged With: , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Kindle Rumors, Odd Olympic Facts

July 27, 2012 by

Every Olympics you see some piece about the sports that have come and gone for the games, baseball and shooting live pigeons being two that readily come to mind. However there is something much more fundamental about the games that has changed a great deal as well, mainly how you get your information.

Everybody on the Internet must know by now that this is the most social media Olympics in history (also the 1st?), but think about past games and how you got the news and how they were broadcast. A nice piece in Mashable and accompanying infographic lays it out quite well.

The first modern Olympics, in 1896 had carrier pigeons, first radio broadcasts in 1924, first live telecasts in 1936 but worldwide broadcasts had to wait until 1960. The Internet hit way back in 1996! In my opinion one of the best things is that you can now get all of the games not just the ones that the studios decide I want to see, and no tape delays!

Speaking of Pigeons — get a load of these Guinea Pigs
Ok, this rates as the dumb post of the week but it just cracked me up. It is just a series of six photos that show a set of guinea pigs competing in a number of Olympic events in London. So let the real games begin!

Record iPad sales not enough for Apple to meet expectations
Apple’s revenue for the past quarter and forecast for the current one did not meet with analysts’ expectations despite selling 17 million iPads during the quarter, up 84% compared to the same quarter a year ago and up 44% from the previous quarter. It sold 26 million iPhones, down 26% from the previous quarter.

The company did manage to have $35 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 22% from a year ago and had $8.8 billion in net profit, up 22% from the previous year. Apple plans to update its MacBook line this quarter, release a new Mac operating system and a new iOS later this fall.

Bucs bailing on iPads
The NFL seemed like the next conquest for Apple’s iPad but now a report from JoeBucsFan.com, as relayed by ProFootballTalk, makes it look like one team is backing away from the tablets. Tampa Bay is reportedly discontinuing the use of the tablets to its players according to the blog.

It seems that players were forgetting to charge them, did not update them automatically and the team could not be sure that players were using them. I wonder how they can be sure that the players are reading the 500+ page binders they issue each week?

Elemental streams Olympics
If you are watching the Summer Olympics in London on line, you can give thanks, at least in part, to Elemental Technologies. A product from the company, Elemental Alive, is the backbone to the live streams that will be seen worldwide.

While we have mentioned that NBC will be live streaming all of the events from the Olympics live in the US, it should be noted that the BBC will also be streaming the games to much of the rest of the world, and both rely on Element’s technology to send the video to computers, phones and tablets. That is quite an accomplishment for a company still in startup stage.

Apple, Motorola Mobility both appeal dismissal of patent infringement case
Well here is one thing that the two companies can agree on; both have appealed (separately) the decision from last month by a U.S. federal judge to dismiss their patent infringement case. The case was thrown out ‘with prejudice’ by Judge Richard Posner, who ruled that they could not resubmit the lawsuit.

The case has been ongoing for some time and had increasingly been drawing the ire of the judge, along with the overall US patent system. He has dismissed expert testimony and honed down the number of issues involved in previous ruling prior to his dismissal of the case.

Seattle pushing for new NBA team
After losing the Supersonics, its NBA team a few years ago, Seattle looks to be trying to be back in the mix for a team. The King County Council is about to vote on a proposal that is now in front of it regarding building a new arena, the lack of which was a core cause in losing its last team.

The proposal, from investor Chris Hansen would call for a $490 million new facility with private equity paying $290 million and the rest from bonds by the city and county that would be paid for by arena generated taxes and fees. The issue must also be passed by the Seattle City Council. No word on where the team is going to come from.

Kindle rumors galore
It seems with Google’s entrant into the 7-inch tablet space with its well received Nexus 7 and the possibility of an Apple product in the same space has cause a rise in the rumor mill about future Amazon Kindles to combat the new rivals.

Tom’s Hardware is reporting that the current Kindle’s may see a 15% drop in price, to around $150 as it prepares its new ones for market. The new ones may be here as soon as next week, according to SiliconAngle, which reports that a pair of tablets, a new 7-inch as well as its first 10-inch may be released as early as the 31st of July.

Filed Under: Amazon, Apple, iPad, Kindle, Mashable, Motorola, NBA, NFL, ProFootballTalk Tagged With: , , ,

Are you Watching this Weekend’s Arena Football Playoffs?

July 25, 2012 by

The Arena Football League playoffs start this week with some returning powerhouses and new up-and-comers as the league continues to make a nice recovery after being left for dead a few years back when it ceased operations.

I have a number of friends that deride the league as bush league but in the few games I have attended I really enjoyed myself. It features very high scoring and continuous action. The short field and odd rules really make it a great viewing spectacle, especially in person where it is an inexpensive yet fun time.

For the first round of playoffs, which will see games played on July 27 and 28 there will be eight games, two apiece in each conference. In the National Conference the San Antonio Talons, founded this year, against the Utah Blades in one set while the other will feature the Arizona Rattlers against the San Jose SaberCats, one of the oldest established teams in the league.

Over on the American Conference side the first week matchups will include the Philadelphia Soul against the New Orleans VooDoo and in the other match there will be the Jacksonville Sharks against the Georgia Force.

The winners from both conferences will meet the following weekend for the conference championships and the week after that is the Avitae ArenaBowl XXV to be held in New Orleans with a 10:30 pm ET kickoff. So New Orleans could have a home field advantage if it manages to win out. Some games will be broadcast on the NFL Network while others will be available online at www.ustream.tv.

Just for those that do not know, the AFL was founded in 1987 and played until the economic downturn of 2007 forced it to dissolve. It was reformed in 2010 and has been playing since with 17 teams in two conferences of two divisions each. The season is 20 weeks long with two bye weeks.

What makes it interesting to me is the field. It is 85 feet wide, 50 yards long and has a 3-yard end zone. Eight players per team and they have four downs to move the ball at least 10 yards. Scoring is a bit wide open with six points for a touchdown with one point for a conversion by place kick, two points for a conversion by drop kick and two points for successful run or pass after a touchdown.

Three points for a field goal by placement or four points for a field goal by drop kick. Missed kicks can be returned by the opposition and a safety is two points. Interesting note is that the AFL is the second longest running football league in the United States, after of course the National Football League.

Filed Under: Arena Football League, NFL, NFL Network Tagged With: , ,

Wednesday Wi-Fi Whispers: Niners-Brocade News, Coming Soon

July 18, 2012 by

Welcome to “Wednesday Wi-Fi Whispers,” our clever title for a new rumors and news snippets column debuting… right about now. The idea here is to keep this a bit more informal than our regular, solid news coverage, to give a home to those whispers of things we hear that might be happening in the world of stadium Wi-Fi. First up is the yet-to-come formal announcement of the stadium-technology partnership between the San Francisco 49ers and networking gear supplier Brocade.

Brocade and the Niners: It’s all about 802.11ac

When the Niners finally broke ground on their new stadium that is being built in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara, just north of San Jose) back in April, team president Jed York let loose with a tweet that all but announced which Silicon Valley company would get the prized stadium-technology deal. In a bit of a surprise, it wasn’t Cisco Systems, the 900-pound gorilla of networking, whose main corporate campus is seriously “just down the block” from the Niners’ new digs.

If you don’t know Brocade that just means you don’t follow networking technology. Having covered this company in my previous tech-writing lives I was surprised since I thought of Brocade as a core/backbone gear provider, and not a company that had products for things like Wi-Fi access. Silly me. With not a lot of digging I discovered that Brocade had signed a partnership with Motorola several years back and now in fact was heavily into Wi-Fi access points, the key technology in any stadium build.

And though Brocade hasn’t yet commented officially on the Niners deal — a formal press conference is apparently just around the corner — we did speak recently with David Hunt, a senior technical marketing engineer at Brocade, who said that among other innovations you can look to see Wi-Fi gear with the new 802.11ac protocol (which provides much higher throughput than current technology) when the Niners’ stadium is ready. Hunt said that Brocade is already assuming that data loads when the new stadium opens in 2014 will eclipse what is being used now, so look for all kinds of new gear and smart-networking designs to ensure that what will probably be the world’s most wired crowds will stay wirelessly connected.

Cisco, which has an entire building at its nearby HQ that is decked out like a sports bar (as part of its Connected Stadium marketing push) must be smarting a bit to have lost the Niners deal to its smaller neighbor Brocade, whose HQ is also just around the corner from the new site. But in the end Cisco will probably sign up a lot more stadium customers, since Brocade is likely to do the Niners’ arena as kind of a “see what we can do” deal rather than part of a big strategy to go after stadiums. Still, it’s not a bad place to showcase your stuff if you are trying to sell to enterprise technology buyers. Those people spend a lot of time — and money — in Silicon Valley already. Stay tuned to MSR for more when the formal announcement is made. The wait is probably not gonna be long.

Will Time Warner Cable surf from the beaches to the stadiums?

In a cool side-gig thing we did last week we got to hear about how Time Warner Cable has brought Wi-Fi to the beaches in Southern California — according to Rob Cerbone, VP of wireless product management at TWC, the beach Wi-Fi uses solar-powered ACs mounted on lifeguard stands to bring web surfing to the shore.

(By the way, I am shameless about seeing how many times I can milk that web surfing/real surfing line. Twice now, and I’m probably not done yet.)

As we cornered Cerbone after his panel talk we asked the obvious MSR question — if you could bring Wi-Fi to the beach, when can we expect to see TWC bringing Wi-Fi to stadiums? Seems like a natural fit, given the content TWC likes to send over its cables. The official word from Cerbone: No comment. But the body language seemed to say, you might hear something soon. Since TWC plans to have more than 10,000 wireless access points deployed in LA by the end of the year — should be interesting to see where some of them end up. There are a lot of beaches, but more malls… and stadiums.

SEAT Conference — who’s going?

Here’s a free plug for the SEAT 2012 conference, which takes place in Boston the first week of August. With this agenda it looks like a place for MSR and our industry leading stadium Wi-Fi coverage and analysis. We are working on finding a way to get there… if we can, we will see you there.

Is your stadium unwired? Let us know!

Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance. No! Now is the time on Wednesday Whispers when we profile a stadium that has Wi-Fi… but since this is the first time out there are no profiles and we are sad. Is your place “unwired?” Drop us a line and let us know. It could be the start of a grand tour… MSR visits the country’s unwired stadiums! Preferably, with a hot dog and beer in hand. Until next week… stay unwired, my friends.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Cisco, DAS, NFL, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Norman Sas, Inventor of Electric Football, Stops Vibrating

July 9, 2012 by

Norman Sas, one of the giants of football home games died late last month at age 87. No he did not invent EA Sports’ Madden NFL or even Tecmo Bowl, instead he was the man behind Electric Football. Unfamiliar with Electric Football? You are showing your age, or lack thereof. Prior to the modern video games there was Electric Football.

The game was around for a few decades before it gained a tie-in with the NFL, which allowed it to use team colors and logos in 1967 and then sales soared for more than a decade, until the advent of electronic versions slowed sales a great deal.

A quick recap of how the game is played. It had a marked football field and two teams of players. When lined up the game was turned on and the board vibrated, sending payers to and fro across the board, sometimes as you wanted them to go and often, at least when I played, into a jumbled mass in the center of the field. There is a quarterback that can actually throw the ball, another skill I never mastered.

However there are obviously some people much better at the game than I as there appear to be several leagues past and present that have competed for bragging rights. Of course the game is still available, and according to this article, it has sold 40 million copies since its invention in 1948. Now available from Miggle Toys the game can be had on Amazon for around $60.

Filed Under: Electric Football, Humor, NFL Tagged With:

WSJ: NFL Scrambling to Add Digital Access so Fans Stay in Seats

June 30, 2012 by

In more than one story we have noted the main reason for pro teams putting wireless networks into stadiums: The possibility that fans will skip buying tickets if the at-game experience has poor connectivity.

In a story Friday from the Wall Street Journal it’s apparent that even the most popular sport in the country — the National Football League — is feeling the pressure to add to the digital experience, because the number of fans who come to the games is dropping. According to the story, the NFL — which is already on record saying it wants to put Wi-Fi in all stadiums — is considering a host of additional digital-access moves, including expanded in-stadium video replays for mobile devices and lightening up on its ridiculous (our opinion) TV blackout rules.

The money quote from the story, which can probably be applied to any major sport these days:

With declines in ticket sales each of the past five years, average game attendance is down 4.5% since 2007, while broadcast and online viewership is soaring. The NFL is worried that its couch-potato options—both on television and on mobile devices—have become good enough that many fans don’t see the point of attending an actual game.

“The at-home experience has gotten better and cheaper, while the in-stadium experience feels like it hasn’t,” said Eric Grubman, the NFL’s executive vice president of ventures and business operations. “That’s a trend that we’ve got to do something about.”

Filed Under: Apps, iPad, iPhone, NFL, NFL Mobile, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , ,
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