Sports Social Media

Turner, March Madness app ready for NCAA tournament

February 27, 2014 by Greg Quick 1 Comment

March Madness, one of the sports world’s iconic events is on the horizon and no doubt fans are already plotting out strategies to get out of the office or school to watch their favorite team attempt to advance in its bracket. However thanks to Turner Sports there is an alternative.

It has released NCAA March Madness Live, an app that will provide portable access to all of the games in the tournament, with a total of 150 hours available during the event. Even better the app will now be supported by three platforms, Apple’s iOS, Android and for the first time Microsoft as well. Now fans can use a smartphone or tablet as a second screen if at a bar or as a primary device if at work.

To use the app a fan and watch all of the matchups that will be broadcast on TNT, TBS, and truTV a fan needs to log in with their TV service provider information. Games will also be available online at various sites, including This year, NCAA March Madness Live will launch from more platforms than ever before including the NCAA March Madness page, CBS Sports, and Bleacher Report. There is no registration required for games on CBS. The app will also provide a temporary preview period giving fans access to live game streaming before login is required.

The app, Developed in partnership with the NCAA, Turner Sports and CBS Sports is a follow up to previous years’ offerings but it has made several major enhancements to the app since last year, aside from the Microsoft support.

Of importance to the fans of bracketology and seeing if they are winning in their office pool the app has a new interface that has been designed for work with the smaller screens that smartphones feature as well with the slightly larger screens on tablets. It allows users to go directly from this feature to a live game and includes broadcast times and schedules. It also has additional view modes for brackets.

The heart of the app might be the GameCenter, one of the features that has been redesigned. It is the central [point to find which games are currently live streaming as well as pre-game matchup analysis, live in-game stats, key social moments and fan chat.

To complement the enhanced features in the bracket area there is the almost obligatory bracket for fans, this one entitled Capitol One NCAA March Madness Bracket Challenge. The app developers have enhanced its social media functionality as well as supporting computers as well as smartphones and tablets. It allows for the formation of groups, sharing brackets and chat via Facebook.

There is also a general chat forum called the Coke Zero NCAA March Madness Social Arena that enables fans t converse about games and other events as well as follow game tweets, post and view Instagram photos and Vine videos. Fans can participate in the social commentary by using the hashtag #marchmadness.

Understanding that some fans might want to set up schedules to just see specific matchups the app now includes a TV Schedule that helps with planning. This feature can be accessed from various other features such as game schedule or bracket and provides the round, date, time and network for each game. Also new this year is a Tournament News feature that provides news and updates as well as highlights, recaps and additional information each day.

Following the broadcasting of all of the just concluded Winter Olympic events online by NBC hopefully this is the wave of the future. While MLB enables fans to watch a huge number of games either online or on their television via a subscription model the NBA and NFL trail well behind it.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, CBS Sports, Facebook, Instagram, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Microsoft, NBA, NBC Sports, NCAA Hoops, NFL, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Sports Social Media Data, Tablets, TBS, TNT, truTV, Turner Sports, Windows 8 Tagged With: CBS Sports, Live sports via mobile, March Madness, NCAA Basketball, TBS, TNT, truTV, Turner Sports

Latest version of Fanatic sports app has enhanced features

February 27, 2014 by Greg Quick Leave a Comment

The Fanatic sports app, from the same named company has some simple tools and an easy to use interface but its purpose is even more basic; it is designed to unite fans who are seeking sporting experiences with similar minded fans. However even simple ideas can be improved on, and that is what the company has done with its latest release.

The idea makes a lot of sense, particularly for people who travel a great deal and find themselves in a strange city yet want to watch their favorite team. You simply access the app, available for both Apple iOS and Android devices, and find a local sports bar that is highly rated for supporting a specific team so that you can watch in a comfortable atmosphere rather than having to worry about if your allegiance could create backlash from rival fans.

The company has built on this base and added or enhanced a number of features that most fans probably want such as the ability to organize a viewing party at a venue using social media.

The addition of a Live Score feature addresses a shortfall in the original program. Fans do not just want to know the score of the game they’re watching, and it always seems that the moment you look at the television the scores have finish scrolling and you miss the numbers for other favorite teams that might be playing simultaneously.

The news feed has been improved with a more robust and filtered feed that helps eliminate the chaff from the wheat. It has a private chat feature that enables chat before, during and after the event and includes a push notification so that you can quickly respond to comments.

Its core service, to find favorite team bars in different cities has gained an improved search function as fans using the app have increased the number of bars that are rated as well as expanded the geographical reach of the program.

The app can find bars for a wide number of sports and leagues including the NFL, NBA, NCAA, MLB, NHL and MLS, along with the top European soccer leagues, including the English Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Serie A and the UEFA Champions League, and the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, FIFA, iOS, Major League Baseball, MLS, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, NFL, NHL, Soccer, Social Media, Sports Bars, Sports Social Media Tagged With: Android and iPhone applications for sports, Fanatic, MLB, NCAA, NFL, NHL, Sports Apps

Analytics and big data of prime interest to stadium networks

February 6, 2014 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Editor’s note: Please welcome guest poster R. Scott Raynovich, editor of the Rayno Report, which has just launched a free in-depth report on networking, analytics and big data. Read on for Rayno’s take on the value of intelligent analytics, and take advantage of his new free report. — PK

By R. Scott Raynovich, Rayno Report

You can’t throw a stone on the Internet without hitting some big data. But what’s interesting about big data, and its cousin, analytics, is that the technology has hundreds of applications in hundreds of markets, from digital marketing to security. And there’s a huge, untapped market that is unfolding in networking, including in-stadium and on-campus networks.

People are talking about Software-Defined Networking (SDN), and of course, everybody’s favorite, Network Function Virtualization. The discussion around many of these technologies is about commoditization and reduced cost of hardware. But that’s actually not where the value is created: The value is going to be created in opening up of the system and allowing for a lot more exchange of data and information and intelligent analytics.

Extreme Networks has made a smart move, I believe, by focusing on this with its recent partnership with the NFL. Extreme talks about the business use cases for analytics, such as analyzing what your customers are doing, monitoring performance, and overall, providing a better product. If you look at the logic of it, it’s this that networking vendors have as much data and information as anybody, because it passes through their pipes.

Analytics and the data center: a natural marriage

I recently completed an early study in this, which is included in a new report: Analytics and the Software-Defined Data Center. My research indicates that a new crop of technology is emerging that could tie together storage, computing, and networking, by providing cutting-edge measurement and analysis that allows managers to gain more insight into what’s going on in data centers and networks, and eventually automate their management.

See Extreme’s fancy graphic below on the Super Bowl. This just scratches the surface. What it shows, if anything, is how much information and analysis can be extracted from just about any network application. Imagine the data flowing through a ecommerce data center, or a digital media service. Businesses now have instant access to everything everybody is doing. Or how do some of the largest Websites in the world monitoring their networks for security breaches?

The answer is mostly in measurement and analytics technologies.

What’s interesting is that we’ve just started using this concept to make our networks and data-centers systems and more self-reliant. There is a long way to go, and you will start hearing more about this in the coming months.

(Source: Extreme Networks)

Filed Under: NFL, Social Media Data, Sports Social Media, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: big data, data center, data warehouse, Extreme Networks, Mobile Sports Report, network analytics, NFL, R. Scott Raynovich, Rayno Report, Sports CRM, stadium networks, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl

NBC continues to ratchet up digital access to Winter Olympics

January 9, 2014 by Greg Quick 2 Comments

We reported earlier on NBC’s plans to provide online coverage of all 15 sports during the upcoming Winter Olympics that start Feb. 6 but the network has announced additional features that will likely thrill many online viewers.

So on top of the already announced 1,000 hours of coverage that the network will be live streaming also comes a host of digital-only programming that it will also make available to verified cable, satellite and telco customers.

While NBC has live-streamed Olympic events in the past this is a new feature that the network has never tried before. There will be three main features of the new programming. The program, which will generally stream from 7 a.m. – 3 p.m. ET will be available as an exclusive video channel on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports Live Extra app.

It will focus on the most popular events of the day, and not as a general news service, more on that later. It will be showing events live such as the ice hockey games and various skiing events. There is also a dedicated Twitter handle for fans that enjoy following it from that angle: @NBC_GoldZone.

The second piece of on-line programming is called Olympic Ice. As you can imagine it will cover all of the Olympic Ice Skating events and news, but as a review broadcast. The 30-minute program will also be available on both NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports Live Extra app and will start broadcasting each evening at 5:30 p.m. ET on most days, from Feb. 7-21.

The final program is a general news effort entitled Olympic News Desk Updates that plans to stream update cover the course of each day as well as provide breaking news and highlights after each event.

I believe that the additional streaming programs, as well as the previously announced programming, will be met as a very welcome addition to this and hopefully future Olympic broadcasts. One of the joys of an event, even when you are not present, is to see it as it occurs, or to catch news and analysis of the event after it has just concluded. Most will want to watch events that they enjoy at home on big screen tvs even after they know the final score anyway, I suspect.

If you are wondering how to get verified to watch on-line it is very simple

In order to get verified simply:
1. Go to NBCOlympics.com/LiveExtra
2. Click the “Verify Now” button
3. Select your cable, satellite or telco provider
4. Enter the username and password that corresponds with your account
5. Upon verification of your subscription to an Olympics-eligible package, you will be signed in throughout the Games on that device.
It would make sense to do so early since NBC expects that it will have the most devices verified to view the Sochi Olympics for any sporting event ever, most likely dwarfing the 9.9 million devices that were verified for the recent London Olympic Games. You can verify for multiple devices, but must go through the process for each device.

Filed Under: Apps, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NBC Sports, Olympics, Skiing, Sports Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: NBC, Sochi, Winter Olympics

Friday Grab Bag: ESPN adds more SEC programming for 2014

December 20, 2013 by Greg Quick 1 Comment

Not enough SEC Football? ESPN has you covered
ESPN’s top markets for its college football broadcasts are all in SEC football’s heartland and apparently the powers that be at the sports broadcasting giant believe that you can never have too much of a good thing. (Apparently they have never sat by an unwatched plate of fudge.)

So with the kickoff of next season’s NCAA football viewers can expect “SEC Nation” according to SI, a two-hour program that will run from 10 to noon EST as the main component in its SEC Network. It will cover other sports aside from football, which is news to the rest of us that SEC schools

Facebook buys SportsStream
A month ago we mentioned that Facebook was looking to increase its profile in the sports markets in part with a partnership with sports analytics company SportsStream. Well according to TechCrunch it likes SportsStream so much it purchased it.

The move I designed to help it fend off rival social media companies such as Twitter that are increasingly becoming to the go to sites for up to the second news and gossip. Terms of the deal were not revealed.

Are those Twitter numbers real?
Good news! If you have 61 followers on Twitter you are a median poster and if your number has reached 1,000 active users then you, my friend, are in the 96th percentile. Since it seems like there are millions on Twitter what exactly does this mean?

Well according to Oreilly.com it means that the huge percentage of activity is much smaller than it appears. One interesting outtake from the article is that fake posters and infrequent ones often have huge followings.

Will Android fragmentation continue?
Ever wonder how many types of Android operating systems and devices are out there? How about Apple iOS? Well A recent Forbes article points out that there are currently 4,700 different types of devices using the two operating systems.

Now you can probably list the Apple devices off the top of your head, but the dizzying array of Android has caused concern for developers for some time, and the article points out that as long as it stays heavily fragmented it will benefit Apple.

Worst Announcers in the NFL
Some poor soul at SportsonEarth charted announcers for a series of NFL games in order to find out which ones used the most, and the fewest, clichés, leaps of faiths and illogical statements during a broadcast.

I am assuming that author is not now committed and I think most will agree with the general results, although people always have their favorites to dislike-I know that I certainly do.

5 Bars Inside now inside Anaheim Stadium
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have announced that 5 Bars Inside is the official distributed Antennae system (DAS) and Wi-Fi provider for the team and that the stadium will get a makeover so that fans have solid connectivity.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, DAS, ESPN, Facebook, iOS, Los ANgeles Angeles of Anaheim, Monday Night Football, NCAA Football, NFL, SEC, Social Media Data, Sports Social Media, Sports Social Media Data, Twitter Tagged With: Android, Apple, ESPN, Facebook, iOS, NCAA, NFL, SEC, SportsonEarth, Twitter

Bluefields app helps organize amateur sports leagues

December 11, 2013 by Greg Quick Leave a Comment

Running a team sport can be a nightmare even in this age of instant communications as parents and players often call at the last second because they are at the wrong venue, have the incorrect day in their calendar or a host of other reasons that might cause issues.

Anybody that has run a youth soccer team or league, or a little league event understands the issues all too clearly-it is like trying to heard cats and even the parents appear to lose the ability to think and plan clearly.

However just as a number of apps have emerged to help with almost any aspect of your life from upgrading your seat at a sporting event to selecting the correct wine while out to dinner there are now emerging a number of apps for sports leagues.

One that just came to our attention is Bluefields, a simple app that is designed to serve as a team management platform, a one stop shop for players, parents and coaches. It provides a single place for all of the pertinent information that a team, league or player needs to know.

It allows a user to send emails and texts to an entire team to set up practices, has a shared calendar to check on future dates and when a game is added or deleted all players can be informed at once. Also the app can be used as a tool for an entire league.

It comes with a database to store all players contact information and can be used to follow team results. A key feature for the memory challenged is that it has automatic reminders for parents and players of events and any event that is updated or changed that information is automatically sent as well.

So if you are just now starting on planning for next season it might be very well worth your while, to say nothing of your peace of mind, to take a look at the app and see if it fits your needs. Then all you have to do is remind people to install it.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Little League World Series, Smartphone, Soccer, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Sports Social Media Data Tagged With: App, Bluefields, Mobile

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