Verizon and the NFL: Pals Now, but What About the Future?

NFL commish Roger Goodell at CES. Credit: Paul Kapustka, Mobile Sports Report

On the surface the appearance of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at the Verizon CES keynote was all happiness and light, as chairman Rog traded pleasantries with Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. But if you listened between the lines there was a bit of a disconnect, making us here at MSR wonder how in sync the two current partners will be in the near future.

The two areas where Verizon and the NFL seem headed in different directions are in mobile content delivery and in-stadium wireless networks, two huge matters for both entities. Currently Verizon is the NFL’s exclusive partner for providing mobile access to live NFL games, available only on Verizon devices via the NFLMobile app. Verizon currently can show live games on Thursday nights, Sunday nights and Monday Night Football, as well as the RedZone channel, which shows a lot of live content from games all around the league. Verizon paid something on the order of $700 million for the deal, which is said to expire after next season.

The unexpected appearance of Goodell during McAdam’s speech led us to initially believe there was some renewal announcement in the air — but instead Goodell left without talking about the future of NFL Mobile. Our guess for most of this season is that the NFL wants to take full control of its mobile/digital content offerings and sell them to fans at a steep cost, like Major League Baseball does. The silence in the presence of Verizon’s CEO can’t be good news for the phone carrier.

Likewise, Goodell has said he wants all stadiums in the league to install high-capacity Wi-Fi networks, to better serve fans with mobile content, social media and other connectivity options while they’re at the games. McAdam’s company, unlike its main competitor AT&T, has not made public Wi-Fi a priority and McAdam talked at CES about his hopes to use the company’s new 4G LTE video broadcast tools to help bring fans mobile coverage of events like the Super Bowl. He even made a pass at Goodell, telling the commish on stage that “we’d love to broadcast the big game [Super Bowl] in the 2014 time frame.” Goodell didn’t bite and didn’t comment. That doesn’t sound like much of a deal or even a promise. Akward stuff for a CEO to be floating, in front of thousands of witnesses.

Though we haven’t yet delved fully into how Verizon’s LTE video broadcast technology works, we’re skeptical that it can handle the big traffic demands of a full stadium of mobile users — more than half of whom are likely not Verizon customers and therefore unable to use any Verizon network technologies. Our guess is that the NFL will keep looking to Wi-Fi to solve stadium network issues — leaving Verizon on the sideline.

NFL to Stream Super Bowl Again, This Time with CBS: Playoffs Also on Mobile Via Verizon

Good news for football fans — the Super Bowl will be available online again this year, courtesy of the NFL and the good folks at CBS. It’s the second year in a row the “big game” will be streamed online for free; fans will be able to watch online at either CBSSports.com or the NFL.com sites.

Last year, NBC’s online streaming of the Super Bowl attracted 2.1 million viewers, according to the league. NBC, which did a great job making the Olympics available online this summer, will also stream its broadcasts of the Wildcard Saturday NFL playoff games as well as the Pro Bowl, something I am amazed still happens. (I mean — why not just stream video of the players vacationing in Hawaii instead?)

Verizon, through its exclusive (for now) deal to show live NFL action on mobile devices, will show playoff games live as well, though you need a Verizon phone, a big data plan, and have to pay $5 per month for access to live action via Verizon’s NFLMobile app. If you’re stuck roaming around while the games are going on and have a Verizon phone anyway, it’s worth the small charge.

All in all, more mobile access to content is good — I wonder how many fans will be watching the game online while they’re at the game live? Good thing the Superdome has a good network.

Guest Blog: Pickmoto Players as Good as ESPN Pickers?

Editor’s note: This blog is a series from Pickmoto, a fantasy sports mobile app.

WEEK 12

We’ve put a bullseye on the ESPN “Experts” this season. We’ve dissected who among the dozen is label worthy (Mort, Wickersham) and who is definitely not (Jackson, Ditka, Allen).

This week, instead of comparing ESPNers, let’s take a look at how they fare as a group against another tribe of opinionated NFL fans: the Pickmoto community.

The most interesting games are those with the strongest disagreement. So, we isolated games where each team received 4 to 8 of the 12 ESPNers’ picks. So far, 43 games qualified (8 in Week 12 alone).

For each of those games, we awarded a point to the group with the higher % that correctly picked the winning team. For example, for Redskins v. Cowboys, ESPN scores a point because 7/12 or 58% of ESPNers vs. 51% of Pickmotoers took the ‘Skins.

The final total is ESPN 22, PM 20, Tie 1. It was tied, but the ESPNers inched ahead with a 5 to 3 advantage in Week 12.

If you’ve read this far, then numbers and %s don’t nauseate you. So for the 4 of you left, we’ll continue.

Among the 43 games, there were 9 games with a 20+% difference. PM won 7 to 2. And among the 25 games with a 10+% difference, PM won 14 to 11… Wow you’re still with us!

Ok ok, just one more semi-interesting stat. The Falcons and Steelers had the most wins of the 43 games. Pickmotoers were 4-0-1 in the Falcons wins and 0-4 in the Steelers wins. So, the PM community is savvy to the Falcons and underestimates the Steelers.

We can go on and on slicing the numbers and trotting out slight hypotheses. Bottom line, the “Experts” and the PM community are about equal. The ESPNers have a slight edge if you include all 43 games. The Pickmotoers have an edge in games with the clearest difference of opinion.

Bottom-er line, you guys don’t call yourselves “Experts” so neither should ESPN.

ESPN Experts Leaderboard – Week 12
-Everyone starts with 300 points.

+Seth Wickersham – 743
+Chris Mortensen – 648
+Merrill Hoge – 362
+Adam Schefter – 335
+Ron Jaworski – 332
+Cris Carter – 284
Keyshawn Johnson – 247
Mark Schlereth – 238
Mike Golic – 237
+Tom Jackson – 191
+Mike Ditka – 183
Eric Allen – 71

In Week 12, the strong separated from the weak. All of the Top-6 gained ground. Wickersham and Mort keep climbing. Week after week, they net points with a savvy sprinkling of underdog picks. This week, they went against the grain with the Browns and Jags and those picks accounted for much of their point gains. Wickersham is actually inching closer to the Top 20 Overall on Pickmoto, which is really impressive because he doesn’t use gold pins … and doesn’t even know he’s playing.

Elsewhere, Tom Jackson(!) had the best pick record (12-4) and the best week in points besides Wick and Mort. Note the backhanded exclamation point.

Eric Allen dropped closer still to 0. It’ll be close, but if he keeps picking the Cardinals and Eagles to win football games, he’ll get there.

Pickmoto is fun, quick, easy competition. It recreates the fantasy sports experience on mobile. Its first game for the 2012 NFL season is free for iPhone and iPad. Its second game for the NBA season just hit the AppStore.

Pickmoto asks the most basic question in sports – which teams will win. It’s pick’em with a twist: there’s a crowdsourced scoring system that rewards correct picks based on their popularity – the less popular, the more points.

Guest Blog: Pickmoto Tracks the ESPN NFL Experts

Editor’s note: This blog is a series from Pickmoto, a fantasy sports mobile app.

WEEK 11

As you might expect in a week in which Favorites nearly ran the table, the ESPNers shined. None were as perfect as 33 Pickmotoers, but Golic, Jaws, Schlereth, and Carter came close, only whiffing on the Rams. And Hoge, Mort, Wickersham, Jackson, and Ditka were right behind with 1 wrong pick on top of the Rams. Even Allen went 10-3 and gained a point.

Schefter and Johnson were the only two who lost ground. But they were also the only two who picked the underdog Panthers, a near hit, which would have been enough to flip their Week 11 fortunes to positive.

Naturally, we feel compelled to claw back some of the credit we just dispensed. Besides the Panthers, the morning games nearly gave us 4 other big upsets. The Jags, Browns, and Lions were all winning heading into the 4th Quarter and the Cardinals were tied. Not one ESPNer picked any of them. Ultimately, they were right, but what turned out to be a stellar week almost fell apart early Sunday. Considering what heavy underdogs they were, we actually would have respected wrong picks more.

Finally, glad to hear that Ditka is doing better.

ESPN Experts Leaderboard – Week 11
-Everyone starts with 300 points.

+Seth Wickersham – 694
+Chris Mortensen – 616
+Merrill Hoge – 340
Adam Schefter – 319
+Ron Jaworski – 310
Keyshawn Johnson – 275
+Mike Golic – 263
+Mark Schlereth – 249
+Cris Carter – 223
+Mike Ditka – 175
+Tom Jackson – 145
+Eric Allen – 84

Pickmoto is fun, quick, easy competition. It recreates the fantasy sports experience on mobile. Its first game for the 2012 NFL season is free for iPhone and iPad. Its second game for the NBA season just hit the AppStore.

Pickmoto asks the most basic question in sports – which teams will win. It’s pick’em with a twist: there’s a crowdsourced scoring system that rewards correct picks based on their popularity – the less popular, the more points.

Guest Blog: Pickmoto Tracks the ESPN NFL Pickers

Editor’s note: This blog is a series from Pickmoto, a fantasy sports mobile app.

WEEK 10

Wickersham and Mortensen keep on climbing. Wickersham has gained points in 9!!! of 10 weeks and Mort has in 8 of 10. As the leaderboard illustrates, they are in a tier of their own – the Experts of the “Experts”. They didn’t take any big upsets in Week 10. Just smart, sound picking. Mort was one of only (surprisingly) two ESPNers who took the Vikings over the Lions. That’s the sort of pick that really impresses us: two fairly evenly-matched teams and Mort correctly picked the less popular, less sexy Vikings.

Merrill Hoge was the week’s big winner as he was the lone man to correctly take the Bengals over the Giants. That was quite a pick: the Bengals, who hadn’t really beaten anyone of note this year, took down the defending Super Bowl Champs. And it wasn’t even close.

On the other end of the spectrum, again, was Eric Allen. He managed to go 6-8 even though he basically just took favorites. The only underdog he took – the Chargers – was the typical misguided pick of someone not paying attention. Despite big names at QB, TE and a “genius” offensive head coach, the Chargers are much worse than their reputation. And the Bucs have quietly been very good since their bye week. We like Eric Allen as a commentator. But as a prognosticator? If he dips below 0 in our scoring, we’ll be calling for relegation from the Experts picks page.

ESPN Experts Leaderboard – Week 10
-Everyone starts with 300 points.

+Seth Wickersham – 673
+Chris Mortensen – 594
+Adam Schefter – 325
+Merrill Hoge – 320
Keyshawn Johnson – 302
Ron Jaworski – 276
Mike Golic – 229
+Mark Schlereth – 215
Cris Carter – 203
+Mike Ditka – 171
+Tom Jackson – 130
Eric Allen – 83

Pickmoto is fun, quick, easy competition. It recreates the fantasy sports experience on mobile. Its first game for the 2012 NFL season is free for iPhone and iPad. Its second game for the NBA season just hit the AppStore.

Pickmoto asks the most basic question in sports – which teams will win. It’s pick’em with a twist: there’s a crowdsourced scoring system that rewards correct picks based on their popularity – the less popular, the more points.

Guest Blog: Pickmoto Rates the ESPN NFL Experts, Week 9

Editor’s note: This blog is a series from Pickmoto, a fantasy sports mobile app.

Week 9 featured four games that the ESPNers split evenly on: Dolphins-Colts, Bucs-Raiders, Steelers-Giants, and Eagles-Saints. It’s these close calls, these coin tosses that should offer the best opportunity for prognosticators to demonstrate superior insight.

And by that measure, Ron Jaworski was the top Expert Week 9. Actually, by any metric he was. He went 12-2 total, 4-0 in the close calls, and gained 43 points on our Pickmoto scoring system. Jaworski’s only misses were the Cowboys and RGIII over Cam, which all dozen had backwards.

Of course, The Colts and Steelers baaaaaaaarely won. But we’re not talking knuckles scraping the endzone or replacement ref fiascos. Jaws went a legitimate 4-0. He’s now closing in on the magic 300, the number a beagle should get if he made picks every week.
Elsewhere, the top 2 and bottom 2 put some distance between themselves and 300. Wickersham usually picks a big upset, but smartly passed this week. Mort went out a ledge with the Browns and Jaguars, but was strong enough with his other picks to still take home a positive number.

At the other end of things, Allen and Jackson both went 10-4, but their wins came in low point value games, so they fell even further behind. Allen, we like because of his work in the Bay Area. Jackson, we’ve been tuning out for years and now we have empirical proof why we should continue.

ESPN Experts Leaderboard – Week 9
-Everyone starts with 300 points.

+Seth Wickersham – 668
+Chris Mortensen – 576
Keyshawn Johnson – 333
Adam Schefter – 320
+Ron Jaworski – 279
Merrill Hoge – 277
+Mike Golic – 229
+Cris Carter – 226
+Mark Schlereth – 208
+Mike Ditka – 166
Eric Allen – 142
Tom Jackson – 125

Pickmoto is fun, quick, easy competition. It recreates the fantasy sports experience on mobile. Its first game for the 2012 NFL season is free for iPhone and iPad. Its second game for the NBA season just hit the AppStore.

Pickmoto asks the most basic question in sports – which teams will win. It’s pick’em with a twist: there’s a crowdsourced scoring system that rewards correct picks based on their popularity – the less popular, the more points.