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PGA’s Mobile Device Policies a Bit At Odds With Tourney’s Online Promotions

August 9, 2012 by

The golf hasn’t started yet but as we look through the spectator guide for the PGA Championship we ran across the mobile device policy, which seems pretty sound. Turn your phone to vibrate, you can check data and send messages, just no picture-taking during the golf. And certainly no video. Otherwise you will be asked to surrender your device, which you can then pick up later you naughty online phone user, you.

Of course, this rule will apparently NOT apply to PGA staffers, since the championship is making a big deal of its social media coolness this weekend in Kiawah. The tournament even has an Instagram page and will be hosting some fun Viddy videos, probably shot on phones. Just not on fan phones. So, yes, the PGA Championship is into social media. Just not any social media created by, you know, people.

Scrolling down a bit on the user guide we see that the PGA is suggesting that folks leave distracting items at home like dogs and milk crates, as well as iPods and iPads. But the news release for the tournament’s digital coverage notes that a lot of items will be designed to take advantage of the iPad:

Optimized for iPad – the official PGA Championship site and PGA Championship LIVE will be optimized for the iPad. The site and video player will take advantage of the iPad’s large, multi-touch display to provide fans an enriched viewing experience.

Seems like with the inevitable rain delays, an iPad could be a handy thing to have out there on the island. So don’t bring it. But if you do, enjoy the iPad optimization.

Our favorite bit from the user guide, however, has nothing to do with digital — unless it’s the digits on your hands that you save by not being utterly stupid:

DANGER FROM WILDLIFE
Please do not disturb or feed alligators, snakes or other
natural wildlife while on the grounds of the Ocean Course.
Use caution when walking in areas near ponds and tall grasses.

I’d watch out for Tigers too. They tend to attract big crowds, and will turn on anyone using a camera phone to record their brush with greatness.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Golf, iPad, iPhone, PGA, Startup, Viddy, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , ,

Watching Golf this Week: The PGA Championship

August 9, 2012 by

Good news first: The 94th running of the PGA Championship will have a boatload of online and viewing options, and all kinds of web-enabled goodies to allow you to enjoy the year’s last major from the comfort of your desk, laptop, or iPhone or iPad. (Here’s the link to live video.) The bad news? It may not wrap up until Monday given the probability of thunderstorms likely to hit the Island Course in Kiawah, South Carolina. At least during the inevitable rain delays, you will have all kinds of diversions like the PGA’s new Social Caddy page to let you watch Twitter streams of players and caddies waiting out the rain.

A quick note on the online stuff — though we had written before that the PGA Tour and Turner Sports were parting ways, the relationship between Turner and the PGA Championship is a different beast — and as such Turner will be pulling out all the stops with TNT coverage Thursday, Friday and before CBS on the weekends, and a whole bunch of good website stuff, including lots of photos and videos.

Several things that we are going to look closely at for the live online video (which starts at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on Thursday and Friday) are the multiple camera views and featured groups that Turner says we’ll be able to follow online. We were disappointed at the U.S. Open’s somewhat limited online options, so let’s see if Turner can do better at the PGA. So far, the Masters is still far and away the online king of majors. We are heavily disappointed that the PGA app is iPhone only — c’mon folks, there are a heckuva lot of Android phones out there. Bad form to not have an Android app ready. Like in gymnastics, we’re taking a full point deduction there.

As for the actual golf… once again it really is all about Tiger, and whether or not he can get the job done at a major. Kiawah really doesn’t suit his perfectionist game — weirdo target golf — but when he is on, he really is the Usain Bolt of golf. I think it’s good to note here that had he not three-putted on that disaster bunker hole and not gone over the green on the par-3, Tiger would be your defending British Open champion. Just saying, the guy didn’t have anything near his “A” game and he still almost took the jug. He’s still the rock lock on my ESPN Fantasy team, but behind him I see… maybe Jason Dufner? An incredibly consistent year and good performances in the majors. Like last year, he could be standing near the end while others are falling.

Who else? I like Dustin Johnson’s ability but fear that Dustin is his own biggest enemy. At least there are no sand-trap rules for Johnson to worry about. Unlike the PGA two years ago where there were bunkers everywhere, there is a lot of sand at Kiawah but… according to some weird rule none of the sand is a bunker. So expect to see a lot of guys grounding their clubs, and a million calls to the PGA offices to follow. Watch the video and learn why it’s not a problem.

Finally my dark horse pick: Someone who historically plays well in South Carolina coastal courses, someone who has been surprisingly sharp at times this year… while he puts together his Ryder Cup team. That’s right, I am giving some love to the Captain, DLIII, Davis Love the Thirdly, to find another rainbow and win a second major in the gloaming of his career. I watched Love for a hole at Olympic during the Open, and his game seemed anything but old, striping a 2-iron off the tee and outhitting a younger playing partner who went 3-wood. Nice. In reality Love will probably be on the sidelines Saturday and Sunday, watching to see if Phil Mickelson can give him a reason to make him a captain’s pick for the Ryder roster. Enough Olympics already. Let’s get this war by the shore started.

Here’s where to follow the action:

94th PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE
Thursday, Aug. 9 — TNT, 1 p.m. — 7 p.m.
Friday, Aug. 10 — TNT, 1 p.m. — 7 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 11 — TNT, 11 a.m. — 2 p.m. — 7 p.m.; CBS, 2 p.m. — 7 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 12 — TNT, 11 a.m. — 2 p.m. — 7 p.m.; CBS, 2 p.m. — 7 p.m.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite)
Coverage starts at 12 p.m. Thursday & Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

ONLINE
As we said above, there is going to be a lot of online video, including marquee groups, par 3 coverage and press conferences. HERE IS THE LIVE VIDEO PAGE.

PGA SHOT TRACKER
No Shot Tracker this week.

FACEBOOK PAGE
If it looks like the beach, it’s the PGA Facebook page for Kiawah.

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW

HASHTAG FOR THE PGA IS: #PGAChamp

Geoff Shackelford — well known golf writer. If you’re not following Geoff you are missing the online boat.
Golf Channel — official Golf Channel feed
@PGATOUR — official PGA Twitter feed
@StephanieWei — great golf writer who is a Twitter fiend. Who won’t be going back to Akron anytime soon.
Doug Ferguson is the lead golf writer for AP. Good Twitter insights that often aren’t part of your wire-service lead.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
You’re kidding, right? Like you haven’t heard of the Island Course. Or seen numerous recaps of The War by the Shore. Well here is the official page, knock yourself out.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST YEAR?
Keegan “long putter” Bradley. Outlasting our man Duf.

FEDEX CUP LEADERS
1. Tiger Woods, 2,204 points
2. Zach Johnson, 2,018
3. Jason Dufner, 1,983
4. Hunter Mahan, 1,739
5. Bubba Watson, 1,712

See the full standings for the FedEx Cup points list.

WORLD GOLF RANKINGS
1. Luke Donald; 2. Tiger Woods; 3. Rory McIlroy; 4. Lee Westwood; 5. Webb Simpson.
See the official World Golf Ranking list.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, CBS Sports, Golf, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, PGA, Tiger Woods, TNT, Turner Sports, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

PGA Goes Big With Social Media at Golf’s Final Major

August 8, 2012 by

Screen grab of the PGA's Social Caddy page. Credit: PGA

We’ll have a separate Watching Golf this Week post tomorrow with all the details as usual, but I think it’s worth taking a quick look today at how the PGA is going big with social media for the year’s last major, the PGA Championship, which starts tomorrow.

Aside from the usual flurry of tweets and posts from the tour, it appears that the PGA is leaving no social media stone unturned this week. Starting with something they are calling the Social Caddy — a catch-all portal page with a bunch of links to things like Twitter streams and Instagram photos — the tour also has people roaming around grabbing fun, pointless little Viddy videos like this near-worthless “inside” meetup with World No. 1 Luke Donald.

There’s other stuff too, like assigning a writer to capture the predictions of fans from the PGA’s Facebook page. Pretty neat. But I’m not sure where I stand on the whole Social Caddy page idea — one thing I hear from a lot of people is that they are at the social media exhaustion level, and the idea of having to monitor or join one more place to share is not very appealing. But that may just be the media/golf insider thing. It may very well be that there are a lot of golf fans who are new to things like Twitter and need a helping hand to find Twitter handles for players, golf writers and other interesting folks who might have something worthwhile to say. (It looks like a lot of self-promoters and golf advertisers have found the PGA’s “fans” column on the Social Caddy Twitter feed so I am not sure how worthwhile that stream will be going forward)

So far it also looks like most of the “social” content is being generated by PGA.com types, which can be amusing (there is a Viddy clip of someone standing at the back of the driving range, challenging players to hit him) but will probably get stale soon. It would be much better if the PGA’s Instagram page, for example, had Instagram pix from the players themselves — as we’ve learned from Kevin Love and the Olympics some of that real-insider stuff can be pretty good and bring us a lot closer to the athletes than ever before.

Though golfers are notorious for being cell phone addicts — like Rickie Fowler, who tweets from his private plane — I also seem to see that most of them shut down the streams when the tournament starts. And it’s really not so hard to assemble your own golfing social caddy, by just finding and following people who are interesting in your main Twitter feed. And, I am guessing a lot of this effort is going to be lost anyway due to the atttention conflict with the last weekend of the Olympics. But when it comes to social media, clearly the PGA is trying hard.

Filed Under: Facebook, Golf, PGA, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Startup, Turner Sports, Twitter, Viddy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

New Antenna Design Helps AT&T Improve Stadium, Event Cell Coverage

August 7, 2012 by

When it comes to cellular phone innovation, the things that immediately come to mind are the highly advertised advancements, like 4G networks and the latest handsets. But AT&T has turned to the often overlooked cell-tower antenna to find an innovative way to help improve cellular reception in crowded public places, like big outdoor events and sports stadiums.

According to an AT&T blog post as well as an interview with some of the team members behind the innovation, Ma Bell has found a way to significantly improve cellular reception in crowded spaces by by building a new antenna that splits a regular signal into five separate “beams.” By splitting one spectral signal into several smaller but more focused ones, AT&T says it can gain approximately a 5x increase throughput from each antenna, a big necessary jump when confronted by crowds of tens of thousands of smartphone users.

Without getting too deep into the physics, the multi-beam approach is roughly the equivalent of adding four new cell towers, without the added expense of having to site, install and maintain new antenna placements. Though there is a tradeoff of having a narrower range of coverage (since the multi-beam signals are smaller in geographic footprint than those from traditional antennas) that isn’t a problem inside stadiums or at events, where phone users don’t move too much. AT&T has produced a cartoony video that kind of explains the advancements, albeit in a great-for-AT&T way (see end of post for the video).

According to AT&T folks we talked to the antenna was developed jointly by AT&T and a “boutique” antenna manufacturer AT&T declined to identify. The need for a better-performing antenna came out of AT&T’s challenges of bringing cellular service to the crowds at the Coachella music festival in Southern California, an event that can attract up to 85,000 fans each day.

Though we don’t have a geekout photo to share with you, the AT&T folks we talked to said the antennas are already being rolled out to numerous big-event venues, including NFL stadiums in Nashville and Minneapolis, collegiate stadiums in Hawaii and North Carolina, as well as golf and tennis events. The antenna seems to be a valuable part of AT&T’s ongoing arsenal of tricks to improve wireless coverage overall, which includes DAS installations as well as expanded Wi-Fi. For cell users at big events, any and all advancements are welcome.

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

Watching Golf this Week: WGC Bridgestone Invitational (and Reno-Tahoe Open)

August 2, 2012 by

It’s going to be hard to get excited about golf this weekend, even with a World Golf Championship event taking place. With Olympics track and field starting and the PGA just a week away, even having all the big names out for a WGC event isn’t going to move the needle a lot. Even if there is good golf everyone knows we’ll forget the WGC winner on Monday.

On the other hand if you are getting tired of NBC’s tape delayed Olympics, the WGC does give you all the biggies — including is-he-back Tiger Woods, who has won at the Firestone CC outside Akron a bunch of times, and so far this year Tiger has done well on tracks he’s historically liked. So even though Ernie, Phil, Bubba and everyone else except Webb “having a baby” Simpson is going to be there, Tiger is the guy to beat, at least until Sunday. Ouch! Defending champ Adam Scott will also be there, trying to tell everyone he’s over his British Open collapse. Not bloody likely, but so far Scott has won a lot of admiration for how well he’s handled defeat. Maybe Akron will get him back on track for Kiawah.

Good news for TV viewers there will be bonus Golf Channel coverage, not just 2 p.m. to 6 p.m today and Friday, but also the noon-to-1:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. CBS will take over on the weekend from 2-6 p.m., all times Eastern. And in case you want even MORE golf — and who doesn’t — there’s the Reno-Tahoe Open this weekend, for all the guys who didn’t make it into the WGC. Like NBC’s Olympics the Reno show will be on late, 6:30 p.m. start times on Golf Channel (7 p.m. on Sunday). Just for kicks, the Reno-Tahoe Open will use the Stableford scoring system, which is about as confusing as the Russian gymnastic judges. Showing my age with that joke. No live video online anywhere this weekend, but Shot Tracker should be in action at the WGC.

Here’s where to follow the action:

WGC BRIDGESTONE INVITATIONAL

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE
Thursday, Aug. 2 — Golf Channel, 2 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Friday, Aug. 3 — Golf Channel, 2 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 4 — Golf Channel, 12 p.m. — 1:30 p.m.; CBS, 2 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 5 — Golf Channel, 12 p.m. — 1:30 p.m.; CBS, 2 p.m. — 6 p.m.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite)
12 p.m. — 6 p.m. every day

ONLINE
No Live@ video this week — the PGA’s live online video doesn’t return until the Barclays in late August, so you will need to get your online fix from…

PGA SHOT TRACKER
If all you want is shots and distances (which can be addicting) get your fix via Shot Tracker.

FACEBOOK PAGE
Only the best on the globe are invited… but the rest of us can click over to the WGC Bridgestone’s Facebook page.

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW
Can’t find one for the WGC but the Reno-Tahoe Open is on Twitter.
Geoff Shackelford — well known golf writer. If you’re not following Geoff you are missing the online boat.
Golf Channel — official Golf Channel feed
@PGATOUR — official PGA Twitter feed
@StephanieWei — great golf writer who is a Twitter fiend.
Doug Ferguson is the lead golf writer for AP. Good Twitter insights that often aren’t part of your wire-service lead.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
Here’s the WGC page on the Firestone CC South Course. Clickable walk-through available.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST YEAR?
Adam Scott.

RENO-TAHOE OPEN

TV COVERAGE
Thursday, Aug. 2 — Golf Channel, 6:30 p.m. — 8:30 p.m.
Friday, Aug. 3 — Golf Channel, 6:30 p.m. — 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 4 — Golf Channel, 6:30 p.m. — 9 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 5 — Golf Channel, 7 p.m. — 9 p.m.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
We were just in Tahoe last week and I can guarantee you there ain’t any snow-capped mountains to be seen. Pretty hot and dry there. But the Montreux Country Club looks cool. Plus it’s at altitude, so maybe we’ll see some 400-yard drives.

FACEBOOK PAGE
The Reno-Tahoe Foundation’s page will get you there if it’s Facebook you want.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST YEAR?
Scott “just won again last week” Piercy.

FEDEX CUP LEADERS
1. Tiger Woods, 2,132 points
2. Zach Johnson, 1,988
3. Jason Dufner, 1,888
4. Hunter Mahan, 1,725
5. Bubba Watson, 1,662

See the full standings for the FedEx Cup points list.

WORLD GOLF RANKINGS
1. Luke Donald; 2. Tiger Woods; 3. Rory McIlroy; 4. Lee Westwood; 5. Webb Simpson.
See the official World Golf Ranking list.

Filed Under: CBS Sports, Golf, Golf Channel, PGA, Tiger Woods Tagged With: , , , , ,

Wednesday Wi-Fi Whispers: Olympic Road Race was a Missed Wi-Fi Opportunity

August 1, 2012 by

We’re still scratching our heads here at Mobile Sports Report over the apparent lack of infrastructure planning that led to cellular congestion problems during last weekend’s Olympic men’s cycling road race. Our big, unanswered question: Why didn’t organizers put a temporary Wi-Fi network in place to handle the totally expected wireless traffic?

It can’t be a surprise anymore to anyone that people in general and sports fans in particular are going to be big users of mobile devices at events. Cycling races, especially loop-course races like the Olympics, are probably going to be at the top tier when it comes to mobile data usage since people typically sit in one place along the course to see the riders as they come by every lap — and then spend a lot of time waiting in between.

These days, that waiting is filled with mobile device use and it was a huge miss to not turn the Olympic race into some kind of Wi-Fi endeavor that could have benefitted multiple parties, including the fans. That organizers didn’t do something like install one of the mobile Wi-Fi networks our friends at Xirrus set up during the Tour de France seems to be a huge error, like Michael Phelps forgetting how to finish a butterfly race.

Why didn’t Cisco, which issued several press releases before the Olympics touting its role in helping with the IT infrastructure of the games, push to make the road race a commercial for its sports services? It’s not my marketing budget to spend, but I think Cisco could have done a really cool job by putting in a Wi-Fi network, having digital displays all around the course so that fans could see the action away from where they were sitting, and maybe have an app (like the cool Tour Tracker app) that people could download to stay abreast of the action on their phones and tablets.

Instead — we are left with a lot of finger-pointing, companies saying it wasn’t their problem, blah, blah, blah. The fact that a big crowd was going to be at the race and that it would want to use mobile devices wasn’t a last-minute secret. Big event organizers everywhere should learn from the Olympic failure and think ahead to see if there isn’t a Wi-Fi opportunity that can produce a positive outcome for all involved.

Ruckus Gets London Wi-Fi Gig

More Wi-Fi London news — the folks at Ruckus have won a contract to supply outdoor Wi-Fi antennas in London for operator Telefonika U.K.’s O2, which according to Light Reading have already been appearing on lampposts. Though it’s not a stadium win, it is another vote for Ruckus’ architecture.

Filed Under: Cisco, Olympics, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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