Tag Archives: sports

Improve your swing with video iPod

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Baseball players are using their iPods to do their pregame video studies. According to a story by Jayson Stark at ESPN.com, Astros pitcher Jason Jennings thinks his iPod turned his whole season around. Stark predicts: “One of these days you’ll see a pitcher take a walk behind the mound during a key at-bat, pull out his iPod and take a quick video-refresher course before launching the big pitch of the night. Heck, if NFL quarterbacks can get plays radioed right into their helmets, why not?” [Thanks, Barb]

Unrelated sports note: I’m guessing I might be one of the few people on the planet that has NO idea which two teams are playing in Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Rose Bowl announcer talking about bloggers?

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TV on in the background. Last couple of minutes of the Rose Bowl. I thought I heard the announcers say something about “the bloggers will be out” if Michigan loses. Did I hear that correctly?

I have no doubt there are a shit-load of fan blogs for every college and pro team, so I’m not sure why I would be surprised the subject would be mentioned in the broadcast. Can any of you sports fans enlighten me on this? Have bloggers become enough of a factor they get mentioned in such high-profile broadcasts?

Ivy League Long Tail

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The company I work for owns (leases?) the multi-media marketing rights for some of the largest collegiate athletic programs in the country. So this story in USA TODAY about smaller colleges and conferences turning to the web to to deliver football and other sports, jumped out at me.

“Northern Arizona offered webcasts of home football games last year. Using the four cameras already set up to provide replays on the stadium scoreboard, the school added audio from their radio broadcasts along with continually updated statistics. Fans will be able to choose which team’s audio feed to which to listen. Games will be archived and can be downloaded to portable devices like Apple Computer’s iPod.

This fall, ESPN’s new online channel, ESPN 360, will show 30 football games, 10 of them, involving teams such as Virginia Tech, Purdue, Miami and Minnesota exclusively on that website. The site, available to about 6 million homes, will also have such features as chat rooms, statistics and online polls.

The schools don’t see the Web replacing television. Major conferences make millions of dollars from their football and basketball television contracts, but many also plan to webcast other sports, such as volleyball or swimming.

 

The Big Ten Conference announced plans this summer create its own cable channel for minor sports. The Big Ten Channel also will be available through the Internet, iPods, cellphones and other technologies.”


Note to Learfield Senior Management: Read The Long Tail to understand why and how this is happening and what it might mean for those of us at the “head.”

Blogging the NFL Draft

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The NFL Draft is under way and that’s a big deal in Green Bay, Wisconsin (home of the Packers). And all other NFL cities, for that matter. Bill Scott is the sports director for the Wisconsin Radio Network (one of Learfield’s state radio networks) and has been covering the the draft for 16 years. This year he’s blogging it.

In previous years we’ve put a live audio feed up on our satellite channel so Bill could do reports. And we’ve streamed the audio on WRN.com. But the physical setting and the timing just didn’t lend itself to this kind of coverage. Now Bill has his laptop and wifi so he’s blogging. I assume other media are doing the same.

I’ve posted on this subject countless times but still find myself a little amazed that blogging might be the best way to cover and event like this. Would live audio/video be better? Well, it would be good. But if you missed it, you missed it. The blog posts will be up there until we pull it down.

This is a first for Bill so it’ll be interesting to get his thoughts on this. Watch this space.

Fans: Yea! Radio stations: Boo!

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The St. Louis Cardinals plan to offer 50,000 fans a free radio that can pick up the broadcasts via XM Radio – which carries all major league games via satellite transmission. The catch is that to get the radio, a six-month subscription for the service must be purchased – and that sells for about $13 a month. The move is being made to try to appease those who have lost access to the broadcasts because of the club’s move from KMOX (1120 AM) to KTRS (550 AM) as its flagship station. KTRS’ signal has a much smaller reach at night, when most of the games are played, than does KMOX. [STL Today via XM Ben]

Lance Armstrong to come out of retirement?

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Lance Armstrong says he could come out of retirement to try for an eighth straight Tour de France victory.

“I’m thinking it’s the best way to piss [the French] off. I’m not willing to put a percentage on the chances but I will no longer rule it out.”

Armstrong believes he is the target of a “witch hunt” by the French media. French sports daily L’Equipe reported in August that urine samples taken from Armstrong during his first Tour victory in 1999 tested positive for the banned substance EPO.

Steve Spurrier Podcast

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New South Carolina Head Football Coach Steve Spurrier has the highest SEC winning percentage in history. And he is –I am told by those that know– something of rock star among big-name football coaches. Our company produces the Gamecock football broadcasts and the weekly call-in show, featuring Spurrier and the the play-by-play guy. Tomorrow night is the first show and in addition to airing on a bunch of SC radio stations…and streaming at Yahoo! Broadcast… we’ve set up a podcast feed. There has been almost zero publicity on this but I’ve got a feeling fans will find this quickly. Thursday nights from 7:05 – 8:00 p.m. EDT

Juiced

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I’m not a baseball fan. I haven’t been to a dozen games in my life. So I don’t care if Rafael Palmeiro or any other baseball star took performance enhancing drugs. The question that keeps nagging at me is, do baseball fans really care? Do team owners and league officials really care? Can we all agree that everyone on the inside had to know this was going on? But all those home runs put asses in the seats.

Is there really all that much difference between Professional Wrestling and Major League Baseball? (Gasp!) “How can you even make that comparison,” said Barb. “Baseball is The American Pastime!” Maybe. But lots of folks watch wrestling and NASCAR races. Do those fans ask or care if the stars are juiced up in some way? Naah. They just want a show. And isn’t that what most baseball fans really want, too. A good show. Everyone has to act a little outraged about the recent scandal because it makes it harder to get all misty-eyed when they play Take Me Out to the Ballgame or Talkin’ Baseball. It’s like cheating spouses. Everyone says they want to know, but they really don’t.

Here’s the Good News: Baseball will be just fine. Fans will continue to flock to see the home run stars. We’ll come up with some kind of plausible deniability, just like Rafael Palmeiro. (Maybe we’re all on steroids and just don’t know it.)

I don’t follow college sports either but have to wonder if young athletes are emulating their big league heros. In 2003, the Center for Disease Control surveyed 15,000 high school athletes, with six percent admitting they tried steroid pills or shots at some point in the last 12 months. The same study showed a doubling of steroid usage by teenagers between 1991 and 2003.

So what the fuck do you want us to do, Steve?! Stop going/watching/listening to baseball games because some small percentage of players are cheating? Nope. Don’t care what you do. Like I said, I don’t have a dog in this fight? Just saying –from here– professional sports (NHL, NFL, MLB, BFD, PDQ, etc) looks a lot like the Roman Coliseum.

Would the gladiators have taken steriods if it meant the difference between first and second place? Oh yeah. (Hand me that needle, dude.)