Bleacher Report adds Group Interaction Feature to Team Stream App

September 5, 2012 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

The popular Team Stream app from sports site Bleacher Report is getting more interactive, with the release of a new version that adds the ability for people to share their sports-team preferences with friends. Available initially only for the iPhone version of Team Stream, the “groups” feature will let fans share not only news but opinions with each other, bringing Team Stream into the field of smack-talk/interactive sports apps like PlayUp and others.

Bleacher Report, which was recently acquired by Turner Sports for approximately $180 million, claims to have 1 million users of its Team Stream app, which brings a constant “stream” of sports news, opinions, tweets and other content from the Web and organizes it by team for easy consumption. By adding an interactive feature Bleacher Report is seeking to keep fans embedded in Team Stream longer, instead of having to leave it to share opinions or news with friends who share the same team interests.

Fan interaction is hardly a new feature on the web, as sharing opinions and sports news seems to be one of the bigger things happening on Twitter these days. And standalone apps like PlayUp have already found big crowds of fans who want to set up or join sports-specific, game-specific or team-specific “rooms” or other online gathering places to interact. Team Stream, which has been focused on providing news and other content, is coming at the sharing equation from another direction, but one that seems to make sense as sharing apps like PlayUp have recently started adding news feeds to their feature set.

“We’ve found that most sports fans have small but distinct groups of friends they talk to about their favorite sports or teams, but still lack a simple way of sharing and reacting to news with them,” said David Finocchio, Chief Content and Product Officer at Bleacher Report, in a press release. “This version of Team Stream fills that void by providing a more efficient way for fans to quickly share the latest on their teams with the right group of friends and then react together.”

According to Bleacher Report, the new feature allows users to “easily add their friends to a group and share their favorite stories with them. Friends can open the group, read the shared stories and easily reply to the group all from their phones.” From an outside perspective the feature might also act as a good recruiting tool for B/R, allowing current Team Stream users to introduce the app to friends who might not have heard of it before. According to Bleacher Report the new 2.0 version of the Team Stream app will be developed for the Android and iPad versions of the app sometime in the future, but is only available now for the iPhone.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, bleacherreport, iPhone, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Turner Sports Tagged With: Bleacher Report, iPhone, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, Team Stream, Turner Sports

Watching Golf this Week: The PGA Championship

August 9, 2012 by Paul Kapustka 1 Comment

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: Island Course, Kiawah, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, PGA, PGA Championship, Tiger Woods, TNT, Turner Sports, Twitter

Bleacher Report Sold to Turner Sports

August 6, 2012 by Greg Quick Leave a Comment

The rich get richer as Turner Broadcasting Systems has purchased Bleacher Report, a six year old sports news web site in a deal that has been estimated at being valued between $170 million and $200 million according to Forbes. Bleacher Report was founded in 2006 by four friends, Bryan Goldberg, Dave Finocchio, Zander Freund and Dave Nemetz. Three are still at the company but Freund left in 2009.

Turner said that it will use Bleacher Report as an additional outlet for its sports programming including highlight videos and breaking news. Turner has a vast spread of sports content and this will enabled to expand the scope of fans that it can reach.

Looking at different analytic tools shows that the site gets approximately 10 million unique viewers a month, although the total number of visitors including repeat, is significantly higher. Combine that with the other Turner properties that include the web sites for the NBA, NCAA and the PGA as well as a relationship with NASCAR as well means more potential upside for Bleacher Report.

Forbes points out that the new viewers that the deal brings in will nicely replace an almost identical number that it lost when Sports Illustrated bolted for a new corporate parent to host its web pages. Bleacher Report is also attractive because of its reach to mobile device users; according to the company thanks to innovations like its Team Stream app (which aggregates sports content from all over, not just from B/R writers) it was getting more than 40 percent of its audience through a mobile connection, a number that has likely since grown.

The merging of print and broadcast media with on-line and digital is getting more common it seems. The recent announcement of the creation of Sports on Earth site by Major League Baseball Advanced Media and USA Today being a very recent example of this trend.

Filed Under: bleacherreport, Major League Baseball, Sports Illustrated, Turner Sports, USA Today Tagged With: Bleacher Report, Turner Sports

PGA Tour to Part Ways with Turner, Manage its Own Digital Properties

June 26, 2012 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

We’ve seen this movie before, when the NFL started taking control of its own content and starting the NFL Network. Now golf’s big professional tour, the PGA Tour, has announced plans to completely take over production of its own digital properties, ending a relationship it had with Turner Sports since 2006.

It’s perhaps a small surprise that golf’s biggest operator should want more control, since by its own account digital consumption of content is growing fast with no top in sight. And Mobile Sports Report readers already know that the PGA is planning to expand its live video options in 2013, with full simulcasts of broadcast TV available to the mobile, digital audience.

Paul Johnson, PGA TOUR Senior Vice President of Strategic Development, Digital Media and Entertainment, put it simply in the PGA’s press release:

“With the speed in which the digital landscape is changing, we feel it is important to control all aspects of the business directly,” Johnson added. “This does not reflect upon Turner, which has done a wonderful job and has been a great partner; it is about our overall strategy regarding our fans, players, sponsors and other stakeholders, and our desire to control those elements directly out into the future.”

The PGA and Turner, in our view, have done a pretty impressive job innovating, with cool online apps like Shot Tracker, which is due for an upgrade as well in 2013, maybe even getting to mobile platforms.

The real question, as golf writer Geoff Shackelford asks, is whether or not digital coverage will be better or worse in 2013. Is it a rebuilding year, or will the talent in Ponte Vedra Beach perform like LeBron? We, along with lots of other digital golf enthusiasts, will be watching.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Golf, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, PGA, Turner Sports Tagged With: Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, PGA, Shot Tracker, Turner Sports

Thanks, TNT, for the Boss Alert Screen

March 15, 2012 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Gotta admit — the folks at TNT have a little bit of humor skills. I like the “Boss Coming? DRAMATIC PAUSE” button which appears when you are watching NCAA Hoops online.

It gives you a mock spreadsheet which upon close review isn’t fooling anyone:

Of course, I am not sure whose employer even cares anymore. At MSR, having games on or watching on mobile platforms is “work.” And this morning I stopped by the offices of Bleacher Report, where there are something like 27 flat screens and today there was a food truck and cold beer.

But thanks TNT, for those folks who still have a misguided overlord overlooking their shoulder.

Filed Under: bleacherreport, NCAA Hoops, TNT Tagged With: NCAA Hoops, Turner Sports

Fans Must Pay $3.99 to Watch NCAA Hoops via Mobile Devices

February 16, 2012 by Paul Kapustka 2 Comments

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and now there’s no such thing as free access to the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament for mobile devices. According to an extremely unclear press release and FAQ released today, it appears you will have to pay $3.99 for access to the games via the March Madness application, whether you are using it on a PC or on a mobile platform, including Apple iPhones and iPads as well as Android-based devices.

Since it’s early and we haven’t had coffee yet this post might have later corrections but for right now here’s how it apparently breaks down: If you want to watch the games for free you have to go to the broadcasters websites. According to the press release you won’t be charged for the Turner-broadcast games if you can validate that you have a cable TV plan that includes the Turner Networks TBS, TNT and truTV. We are guessing that most people with a standards sports cable package will be covered, but you might need to check your plan. And right now there is no info on how that validation will happen. CBS says it will show all its broadcast games on CBSSports.com for free.

But if you want to use a mobile device to watch games online via the March Madness application, which includes a lot of bracket info and other goodies, the free lunch is over. It’ll cost you a one-time fee of $3.99, after which you will get a logon to use over any other device or platform you want. Apparently there is some messiness involved with using Android devices, and I am sure this won’t be the last post we do on the subject since the press release and FAQ look like they were also written without coffee or at least a decent proofreader.

If you want to try to avoid the $3.99 fee there is apparently some promotion coming next week involving Coke Zero where they will grant some folks free access, probably for surrendering your email address and your first-born child. Our quick prediction is that this news will cause howls of pain from the general hoops-loving public, who will start to wonder about government inquiries into the NCAA and its business practices. Maybe it’s time for coffee. And a search through the couch cushions for $3.99.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, CBS Sports, iPad, iPhone, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, TNT, truTV, Turner Sports Tagged With: Android, Apple, Apps, CBS, NCAA Football, Turner Sports

Watching Golf this Week: The PGA Championship

94th PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

Bleacher Report Sold to Turner Sports

PGA Tour to Part Ways with Turner, Manage its Own Digital Properties

Thanks, TNT, for the Boss Alert Screen

Fans Must Pay $3.99 to Watch NCAA Hoops via Mobile Devices

Sign up for our Email Newsletter

Search the MSR Site

e-reports