Tag Archives: NFL

Get your NFL team as your Android clock widget



The folks over at XDA Developers do great work. If you have ever thought of rooting a phone or searched for a custom ROM then you have almost certainly stumbled across that web site. However, you may not have realized that they also produce custom apps as well. Recently a custom NFL clock widget was unveiled there.

For now, the teams available are Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, New York Jets, Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, acksonville Jaguars, Tennessee Titans, Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs, Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers. In other word, the AFC.

“These HD Clock widgets can be freely sized from 1 x 1 to full screen and work for all Android 4.0+ devices. These Apps cost $.99 USD on my website but as an exclusive to XDA members they are free.”

You can head over to the thread of Ron427 to grab the widgets and view his download and installation instructions. The developer asked for no direct links to be posted, so I will honor the request. You will need to search around for the link, but it isn’t hard to find. There is no word on when the NFC versions will be coming.


Google Search gets Football News, Stats, Standings, and More



It’s almost my favorite time of the year, otherwise know as football season.  And, today Google revealed that all sorts of football information, both NFL and college, is now available right in Google Search

Last week Google began bringing MLB results, but football is America’s number one sport, so it’s nice to see this partnership with ESPN evolve.  The simple announcement from Google came from software engineer Itay Maman and reads as follows:

“Just as the NFL season kicks off and you have your fantasy football league ready to go, you’ll be able to get useful information such as the latest scores, schedules, standings and stats for football-related queries in your search results. Last week, we started showing MLB results in partnership with ESPN and we’re now expanding sports live results to include the NFL. In addition to information on the football league, teams and players, you’ll also have direct links to previews, live streams, updates and game recaps. We hope to add more and more sports information on google.com, so stay tuned. “

You can try it out by doing a Google search.  A simple search for NFL yielded results such as the schedule, fantasy football, news, players, news, and more.  Adding ESPN to the search gives you box scores right in the top your results.  You can see screenshots of both at the bottom of this post.

This is a handy way to get quick information and news without trying to navigate the NFL web site, or an app app on your phone or tablet.  As you saw in the Google announcement, they are promising even more integration is on the way.  So….Are you ready for some football?!

Google NFL search

 

Google NFL ESPN search

NFL Brings Preseason Games to the Internet



nfl preseason live ad

It looks like the NFL, the last bastion of technology-phobia in sports, may be starting to come around.  While they haven’t announced anything regarding regular season games being available online, they did send out an email announcement today that all preseason games will be broadcast live on the internet.  I find it to be a step forward, while also still displaying their lack of understanding of modern media.

On the plus side, the NFL is actually broadcasting games live on the internet – all of them – every single preseason game.  On the negative side, you have to buy them all.  Granted, it’s only $19.99, which is pretty cheap for 32 teams each playing 4 games, but where is the per-game option?  What if I want to watch only the 4 games of my team?  Can we have a per-game price (read $1.99 or there abouts)?

In fairness, at least they are taking this step, and we should be happy with the progress.  And yes, I will pay the $19.99 and probably watch only 4 games.  But, I will also consider it as progress for the sport Americans love more than any other.  Maybe they still have a regular season surprise in store for us.  To subscribe, you can visit NFL Preseason Live.


Is Premium Content Coming to Boxee?



Any questions about where Boxee may be heading could have been answered with the latest user survey.  The questions surround premium content that it seems they are thinking of making available to users.

What kind of premium content?  The best kind – pay-per-view, sports, and premium channels like HBO.  The gist of the survey surrounds what users are willing to pay for this type of content.  They are even floating the idea of NFL games on PPV – in fact, that’s the one listed in the survey.  In terms of premium channels, HBO and Showtime are names.

So, can they pull off actually adding such content?  HBO and Showtime are a possibility, but the NFL seems much more difficult, especially since they have a deal in place with DirecTV for Sunday Ticket.  It’s not out of the question, just a more difficult negotiation.  I have been waiting for this – a pay-per-view game is long overdue.  There’s seriously no reason for anyone to buy EVERY game of EVERY team in order to watch one team’s games.  It’s much more economical to pay for your game than to pay for DirecTV (plus Sunday Ticket).

Here’s hoping……….

 


NFL ’11-Keep Up With the Draft Live



This is a quick review of the NFL ‘11 on the [iPad], which can be used to follow the NFL draft.  On the application there are five tabs, draft live, draft tracker, teams, photos and video. The draft live tab, gives a live update of who been drafted and by what team.. It also tells you who is drafting next and the amount of time on the clock. On a side area there is NFL news headlines and the 2011 weekly schedule. On the draft tracker page you can check the players position, height, weight, college and draft grade. If you click on the player’s name you can get an expert analysis on the player. On the team tab you can choose your favorite team and then look to see what their needs are and picks by round. I would like to tell you how the photo and video pages look however I still can’t get them to come up and it been 2 minutes. Ok the photo page finally came up after about 2 minutes and it a series of pictures from the NFL, nice pictures, I’m wondering if they will update them over time.

Unfortunately the update slowness is not limited to the picture and the video pages. Every page seems to be slow to update It didn’t up the 1st two picks until they were up to the 4th pick on TV. It also keeps going black and saying no Internet Connection when I seem to be having no problem with the connection on any other application. Once it has updated who has been drafted, if I click the player to see details I get the circle of death on the draft tracker screen. In fact right now I am getting that circle on all the screens. I suspect that they were not ready for the amount of people that were going to be hitting the network from the iPad and iPhone.

I would love it if the NFL would follow the lead of the MLB and start streaming games on line and this would be a good application to do it from, once they get the bugs out. Unfortunately based on its history, I doubt they will. There are three more days of the draft the application is free for the lite version and $1.99 for the premium, so it is worth downloading, however if you expect live draft updating you maybe a little disappointed, but once the updates come there is a lot of information available

 


Back With DirecTV…For Now



I canceled, well, actually, “suspended” my DirecTV account after the season finales of Lost and 24.  But, as many of you know, from my previous post about the NFL and Sunday Ticket, I was hoping to stay gone permanently.

I have had no problem watching the few shows that I actually do watch online.  And, with a media center PC sitting in my entertainment rack pumping HDMI video to my TV and SPDIF audio to my 5.1 receiver, the experience has been indistinguishable from DirecTV.  In July, I paid $29.95 to Versus Online and had full coverage of every stage of the Tour de France.  That is the only money I have shelled out for TV since May.

As I said in that previous post, though, the NFL will once again not be showing any games online (other than preseason).  Worse, it seems that this won’t change anytime soon either.

Per Wikipedia: Currently, American satellite provider DIRECTV has exclusive rights to NFL Sunday Ticket in the United States until the contract expires at the end of the 2014-15 season.

Well, the other night I received a call from a friendly DirecTV rep who wanted me to turn my service back on and was willing to make a deal if I would agree.  I inquired about a deal on Sunday Ticket, but he couldn’t offer any more than the standard deal that anyone can get.  Probably I could have held out, asked for more or declined and waited for the next call.  After all, football season is still a month away.  They offered me $5 off per month for the next 6 months.  In 6 months football season will be ending.  For $29.95 I took the family package and I will pay only $24.95.  They also threw in three months free of Showtime, which I doubt I will use.  Of course, in reality I will pay more than $24.95.  There’s the $5 charge for HD service and the $5 charge for DVR service, but I am still paying $5 less than I was last Spring, so it’s not too bad of a deal.

When football ends I will be “suspending” the account again and maybe next football season I will get an even better offer.


The NFL Takes a Baby Step



Not long ago I wrote an article wondering if the NFL would join the media revolution that the other major US sports are already in.

Apparently a couple of recent emails I have received are answering that question and the answer is, well, kind of.

Will they provide a way to purchase games online?  Yes, and No.  Will they provide a way pick and choose what game(s) you want to buy?  No.

This is what they are doing.  First, they are, for the first time ever, providing an online subscription to games.  It’s not A la carte though.  Instead, you have to buy a subscription to all of the games.  And, it’s only for the pre-season.  That’s 50 games for $39.99 and you can sign up here.  And here’s what you will get:

ALL NEW! Watch over 50 preseason games live and on-demand* with enhanced features like Big Play Markers, home and away game radio broadcast*, and multiple-game viewing. Scout for your fantasy team all preseason long and never miss a rookie’s breakout moment or your favorite veteran’s return to the field.

This news was encouraging.  While it didn’t imply that I’d be able to get just my team’s games during the regular season, it did seem to imply that I would at least be able to watch games on my media center PC and not have to resubscribe to my DirecTV service, which I dropped a couple of months ago.

Then I received a second email.  For $99.99 (regularly $129.97) you get the aforementioned pre-season game package and, get ready for it, audio only of regular season games and you can watch video replays of all games, which will be available AFTER the game happens.  Details are here.

Watch over 50 preseason games* in HD with enhanced viewing options. Listen to every NFL team’s official live radio broadcast, wherever you are. Replay every NFL Regular Season game and customize it to your specification – in HD and commercial-free. Enjoy unlimited access to Preseason Live, Audio Pass, and Game Rewind when you buy Game Access.

Well, great.  It’s a step forward, but still far behind the other major sports.  I would guess, at this point, that this is it for the 2010 season.  It’s really not any substitute for their exclusive and pricey DirecTV deal.  And that deal also still requires you to pony up $300.00 for every game – still no team packages for a lesser price.

Basically the NFL still has not learned how to deal with the modern world of online content.  They still don’t realize how much money they are leaving on the table.  How many people could they add to their subscriber list if they added online regular season games?  If they added a team package to their DirecTV Sunday Ticket?  Even the Olympics, that bastion of stodgy, sue-first technophobes, have allowed online broadcast of their events for the past 2 or 3 Olympics.  Maybe 2011 NFL?