Sports imPULSE

How Can I Watch Hockey On The Web?

Now I like sports as much as the next guy or girl, but there are some folks and you know who you are, that absolutely cannot live without having access to a steady fix of hockey games, either on TV or on the web.  For you rabid hockey fans the National Hockey League has created GameCenter Live -- the League's Web- and subscription-based service that provides coverage of out-of-market games on a nightly basis.  You don't just watch a game (or four of them, at the same time); you follow real-time stats, shot analysis, dial up video highlight clips and chat with fans around the world.

There's plenty that dazzles the eye on GameCenter Live, but its most important aspect is something less observable and more implicit: that the way games are being presented on NHL.com today could be the groundwork for how they're presented on television in the future.

The NHL has streamed games online for the last few seasons. In the past, they were an online component of Center Ice, the League's successful subscription service on cable and satellite.

GameCenter Live is a next generation upgrade that has transformed the digital viewing experience. Fans have the ability to watch up to four games at once. The audio options range from television calls to radio voices. There are detailed real-time stats, including ice time. Text-based play-by-play is offered, with on-demand video highlights of goals. A rather addictive shot-tracker allows the viewer to assess the quality of offensive chances. Finally, the GameCenter chat allows for running commentary from around the world, although much of it is reduced to trash talk.

This immersive experience has produced some blockbuster numbers for the NHL, which reports that subscriptions for GameCenter Live are 231 percent up from last year.

We have yet to see if the total immersion experience is the wave of the future for television, but for now, it's definitely changing the way puckheads are able to experience hockey on the Web; even if the flow of information can be delightfully overwhelming.

3-D Rising To Must See Level

Last week, In 82 theaters across the country, rabid fans and curious techno-geeks donned 3-D glasses and watched college football jump out at them during the Florida/Oklahoma BCS Championship game.

This was in-your-face, live-action football, a prelude to what many are betting is the next wave in sports entertainment.

Today, live 3-D sports playing to theatergoers is a testing ground. It is a prelude to 3-D screens at sports bars, and eventually, 3-D TV sets in your home. Industry predictions are it could happen in five years.  Three-D is the next great innovation in sports broadcasting, HD (high definition) is merely a steppingstone on the way to 3-D.

Three-dimensional images are more than a century old, but 3-D has made huge advances in recent years through the application of digital technology. Digital techniques allow near-perfect synchronization of left- and right-eye images, which gives viewers the perception of depth. That's a quality missing from even the sharpest high-definition screens.

How does it work?

• The image is produced by two separate cameras (inset) or by a high-tech camera with two lenses spaced about as far apart as a person's eyes.

• The signal is sent to a specially equipped receiver, and then the signal is projected onto a screen.

• Viewers wear polarized glasses that filter light so each eye sees exactly what the camera saw originally.

• In the recent football broadcasts, the signals were converted to 2-D before being sent via satellite to movie theaters, where a special device converted them back to 3-D.

Now I understand real, live action within football games, but what will the cheerleaders look like?

2nd Major Live Sports Event in 3-D

FedEx BCS National Championship to air in 35 states

Following up on the successful 3D event of the NFL's Thursday Night Football game a couple of weeks ago, Cinedigm announced that in conjunction with Sony, Fox Sports and 3ailty Digital, it will be bringing it's 2nd major sports events to digitally enabled theaters within it's national network. 

On Thursday, Jan. 8, Cinedigm will carry the FedEx BCS National Championship Game between the University of Florida and the University of Oklahoma

This is kind of a big deal.  We are seeing the transition of how people are using movie theaters.  For the first time, tens of thousands of sports fans will have the opportunity to experience a one-time sports event, live in 3-D.  As a new venue and service offering, this is a win-win, providing new revenue streams to teams and teh media food chain, new sponsorship opportunities and additional entertainment options for fans.

How does it work?

Cinedigm selects and contracts with separate companies who capture the events in 3-D and configure the live programming -- which is then transmitted to its satellite network after wihich it is transmits a super-sharp 3-D signal to a combination of digital cinema systems deployed to participating theatres.

So, will it be Florida or Oklahoma?

Art Imitating (or Creating) Life

EA SPORTS World: Manning to Harrison

There is no way Marvin Harrison would ever celebrate like this, ever.

We found this video on EA Sportsworld.  Obviously, the creator put his/her own spin on Marvin's TD celebration.  However, this video is a great example of the next wave of virtual reality. 

Games like this turn fans into players, and producers. Fans don't necessarily need the actual games or the players as much as they used to. Or do they? Although playing with the licensed team trademarks, and the actual players we know does make things more interesting.

Where do you think this is going? Will younger fans lose interest in the actual games and choose instead to play their own games? Or will the video game and the actual game create synergy, such that the total fan engagement is larger than the sum of its parts?

NFL Games Going Wireless

 In the era of massive plasma television sets, marketers at Sprint are banking on football fans to seek out a significantly smaller viewing experience.

Last night, for the first time, a National Football League game -- the Cleveland Browns vs. the Denver Broncos -- was broadcast on Sprint mobile phones as part of the wireless company's exclusive partnership with the league.

Over the next seven weeks, Sprint will phone-cast the eight games that are televised solely on the NFL Network, the league's cable channel. The planned phone-casts are part of Sprint's NFL Mobile Live package, which is available on most Sprint handsets. For the past three seasons, the NFL has struggled to persuade major cable operators to include its channel in their basic programming packages.

For the NFL, the Sprint phone-casts are part of a series of experiments with digital media aimed at discerning how fans will consume football in the future. NBC Universal conducted similar experiments this summer, showing highlights and a handful of events from the Beijing Olympics on mobile phones.

With the significant technical improvements of mobile devices and the popularity of 3G devices like the iPhone, the NFL will be looking to see how they can leverage their content in new digital media avenues.  This is an interesting first step. 

Another Election Day Victory - Tech Companies Win White Space

As we had previously mentioned, a battle has been brewing regarding the unlicensed spectrum, known as White Space.  On election day, Google and several other tech companies won the battle.  In an Election Day meeting, the FCC approved the unlicensed use of “white spaces” spectrum newly freed up as a result of TV broadcasters going from analog to digital broadcasts. Google has long been leading the lobbying effort to turn this spectrum into a sort of WiFi2.0. Telecom companies, sports leagues and the Sports Video Group opposed opening up the spectrum, claiming that it would interfere with wireless headsets and other devices that use nearby licensed airwaves.

Google argued that the interference argument was bunk, and the FCC agreed. Although the FCC is requiring more testing before “white spaces” devices will be approved.

This is a big win not just for Google, but for the entire tech industry. Just as WiFi changed the way we connect to the Internet in our homes and offices, the “white spaces” spectrum could be used for longer-range wireless broadband connections. The wireless carriers are right to feel threatened.

Colleges Moving To Live Event Streaming

Much like a giant communications company, North Carolina A&T is bundling an Internet package. The university's Webcasting of its home football games intends to offer a service to its constituency and real-life work experience to its students.

North Carolina A&T is using this football season as a free trial run for what it hopes will be a subscription-based model of live-event video streams. If the logistics progress, a schedule could be firmed up as soon as the upcoming basketball season.

Students operate the cameras, oversee graphics and ensure that the university's servers can handle the traffic and the fans and alumni get to watch the games over the internet.  A win-win. (pun intended)

Other colleges have begun to offer webcast steams and this service may really take hold, especially as fans alumni are spread out all over the country, or even the world.  What will this mean for CSTV?