The 40th Ryder Cup competition doesn’t officially begin until Friday (with practice rounds beginning Wednesday), but that gives you ample time to get yourself up to date on this iteration of the bi-annual golf competition. It’s an exciting event for the avid golf fan, the fan that only watches majors and even those desperate for some old-fashioned national pride. Here’s what you need to know to keep tabs on the event through your computer or mobile device.

Pre-Event

Some simple Googling can give you all the Ryder Cup previews your heart desires. There’s no shortage of opinion on who will win, which player will shine or which player needs to step up for their team. If you’re just looking for basic info on the event, the Ryder Cup’s official web page will give you everything you need to know. You can download the official program, get the schedule of events, and take virtual tours of all the holes at Gleneagles. The tours of the holes are a nice touch, but be ready for some VERY annoying ads before EVERY video flyover. In my experience, most ads actually last longer than the hole previews themselves which, you know, is super dumb. It’s a real bummer, but the hole tours are still nice if you want to get an idea of how players will be tackling the course this week. The official site also offers a lot of news in both print and video form, if you just can’t get enough Ryder Cup info.

Golf Channel is providing a boatload of coverage throughout the week, starting with previews and analysis and moving on to practice round coverage starting Wednesday. If you can’t be near your TV, you can follow along via Golf Live Extra, Golf Channel’s streaming service. You do need to provide your TV carrier credentials, so it’s not available for cord-cutters. But TV subscribers who receive Golf Channel can stream coverage live on their computers, iOS or Android devices.

During the Event

Competition begins Friday, so if you want to follow along while at work in the morning, the Ryder Cup is offering live streaming on their web site.  If you’re on the go (or work somewhere with a less-than-favorable browsing policy), you can rely on the complementary iOS and Android apps for your live video needs. You can use these apps all weekend, of course, so you’ll never have to miss out on the action. The apps can also provide live scoring updates, so you can still know how the teams are doing even if you can’t be glued to your device.

If you’ll be near a TV over the weekend, both Golf Channel and NBC will have you covered, as they are broadcasting the entire event for the first time ever. The event is in Scotland, so you’ll need to stay up late or get up early to catch all the coverage. You soccer fans should be used to this by now. Full TV listings can be found here.

From what I can tell, no TV subscription is necessary to follow along on the Ryder Cup video stream and apps, so even if you don’t get Golf Channel, you should still be able to see live video when you require it. So set those alarms, pre-program those coffee makers, and get ready for an exciting three days of international competition as golf returns to the motherland. Just don’t blame us if you’re really groggy come Monday morning.

(Header photo via Jim Epler)

The smartphone app Snapchat may seem like it should only appeal to over-sharing tweens and dirty little dirty birds, but the company’s higher-ups are hoping that they can gain further traction with sports, leagues and athletes (pause for Brett Favre jokes) with a recent hire.

According to TechCrunch, Snapchat has recently swooped in and stolen Nike’s global director of digital, Eric Toda. Toda brings experience in social media, licensing, and content syndication, among others. Snapchat is most likely hoping to leverage Toda’s skills into cultivating partnerships in the sports world — to help teams and leagues better engage with fans.

This is all possible with Snapchat’s Our Stories feature. Users have the ability to add snaps to their own individual accounts, allowing their friends to view a 24-hour collection of all they wished to share. Our Stories brings in a bigger sense of community, allowing users to add their content to an event-based story that anyone could see. The recent 2014 World Cup was one such event, and fans could post images and video to that stream from the stands in Brazil or their own living rooms.

If Snapchat can work deals with sports entities, the Our Stories feature could widen to include individual games, playoff rounds/tournaments, or just be a place for fans of a certain team to post all their team-related pictures and videos. Fans could post scenes from their seats at the NCAA basketball tournament, videos from the Super Bowl, or clips of them cheering for their team during Game 7 of the World Series for the whole world to see.

Though it’s easy to speculate, exactly what Toda’s roll at Snapchat will be remains to be seen. But Snapchat would be a modern and fairly unobtrusive way for teams to create and cultivate fan engagement. Snapchat has moved on from naughty pics into big time corporate involvement. Sports seems like a logical next step, and it appears to be one Snapchat is trying to take.

(Header photo via Maurizio Pesce)

It appears 2K Sports’s NHL video game franchise is returning to life via the mobile sphere (h/t Polygon). With an undated title (simply: NHL 2K) it will be 2K’s first NHL game since NHL 2K11. While there is merit to the question “How terrible will the game be?” given that the rival game, so to speak, has been a wasteland of missing features, I think the enduring question is: What future lies ahead for sim sports games on mobile platforms?

And more generally: Are mobile devices becoming viable platforms for simulation sports game?

Madden NFL Mobile (Metascore 66) and the mobile edition for NBA 2K14 (Metascore 59) have shown (by their graphics) that mobile platforms are viable outlets for graphical demands of the simulation video games, but also (by their relatively weak reviews) that mobile platforms need more than just pared down or freemium versions of the platform games.

The mobile platform, to me, seems ripe for a renter model of video game use — a model many companies seem keen on using given the proliferation of MMORPGs over the last decade. Imagine paying — let’s be user-friendly — $5 a month to play an actively updated (with fresh rosters and occasional bigger patches and upgrades) version of MLB The Show. No upfront cost, just $5 a month — tacked onto your phone bill or your XBOX Live / PS Plus bill. You can play it on your mobile device, your home console, your computer. You can save your games to the cloud so your franchise is constantly developing whether you’re on the bus to work, in the bathroom at work, at home, thinking about work, and so on.

Brian Mazique and 2K Sports exec Chris Snyder discuss the new game.

I’m not talking about a freemium game. Because freemium games are not really cut out for simulation gaming and are also kinda the devil. Instead it would be a good game that, over the course of a year, would cost $60, but not expire come the end the season.

This model seems like a win-win to me. I can test out a game for just $5 (or, heck maybe $10) and if I love it, I will never have to buy a replacement and I will have it across all platforms simultaneously. I firmly believe this is what fans of simulation sports games want. Meanwhile, the gaming industry will get a steady income stream for his gold coin pool.

Of course, I could be wrong — maybe no one has an interest in pairing a controller with their iPad or Nexus phone; maybe no one else wants franchise mode in something that has a battery life; maybe there’s no better way to do it than it’s being done now — but maybe it’s time for a developer to find out. And maybe NHL 2K is the first step in that new direction?

(Header illustration via Bradley Woodrum)

Golf can be a really cool thing to watch live. You get to be outdoors, see beautiful landscapes, and get closer to the athletes than probably any sport (save for those crazy-expensive courtside NBA tickets). Seeing golf live can also be a bit of a hassle. There’s so much ground to be covered that it becomes quite easy to lose your way or spend a good deal of time searching for a concession stand, a restroom, or even the way back to your car.

There is also the feeling that you are always missing something. You may be following a certain pairing or a favorite player, but except for the occasional scoreboard sighting, it can be difficult to know what else is going on on the course. The best action might be happening 800 yards away from you.

In partnership with SAP, the Solheim Cup is looking to change these problems, by using smartphone apps to help fans get around the course and know more about the game. Fans who make the trip to Germany for the event in 2015 will be able to use their smartphones to find their way around the course, as well as find the latest scores, stats and standings from the competition. SAP is planning on instituting live streaming as well, so fans won’t have to trek across the course to see how a certain player or pairing is doing. The app will also provide live traffic and parking updates to help prevent congestion coming to and from the course, and will also offer integration with SAP’s ride-sharing app TwoGo.

This is a great step for golf. As they are already seeing a good-sized drop in event attendance, any reason to keep fans engaged is a good one for the sport. Giving spectators the ability to follow along with all the action of the event without having to log miles on their feet will help ensure fan morale and should cut down on foot traffic. An easy way for observers to find the nearest restroom or beverage stand without aimlessly wandering about should also help keep people happy. We don’t know the participants of the Solheim Cup yet, but it should bring some great competition for viewers all over the world to see. Thanks to some help from SAP, it should bring a good deal of enjoyment for the event goers as well.

(Header photo via Keith Allison)

When the San Francisco officially opened it’s new stadium on September 14th, they also opened one of the most technologically advanced stadiums in professional football. Levi’s Stadium is a connected facility through and through. One of the biggest perks for fans was the 600 Wi-Fi access points strewn throughout the stadium. Many were hidden under the actual seats, promising good connectivity even when sitting and watching the game. This allowed fans to both use the Levi’s Stadium proprietary app — allowing fans to order food to be delivered to their seats, amongst other things — and do all the necessary status updates and photo sharing that come hand-in-hand with attending a sporting event.

Well, fans certainly put that wireless network through its paces on Sunday. The stadium’s network reportedly pushed 3.3 Terabytes worth of data that day, beating a record held by MetLife Stadium during Super Bowl XLVIII. For reference, the maximum size of a photo upload allowed by Facebook is 25 MB. That equates to 1.32 million max-size photo uploads. The traffic total doesn’t come only from photos, obviously. In fact, a good deal came from video offered by the stadium’s own app.

When fans aren’t using the Levi’s Stadium app to order beer and food, they can also leverage it to watch replay video right on their devices. The 49ers said that fans watched 7,800 replays on Sunday. Considering the feature didn’t really work until the second half, those are some pretty impressive numbers.

For the most part, Levi’s Stadium’s data test went pretty smoothly on Sunday. As the 49ers work the bugs out, they will hopefully serve as a blueprint for future stadiums, as fans’ needs (or desires, at least) to view and upload content is only going to continue to grow.

(Header photo via Matthew Roth)

Are you the person people bring to bar trivia just for your sports knowledge? Can you recite a pivotal game of your favorite team’s history, play by play? Are you just a weirdo that likes sports facts? If so, newly-launched sit SuperFansCompete might be for you.

SuperFansCompete does trivia a little differently. First, it pits fans of one team against fans of another, and it’s all based on the schedule of actual NFL teams. For instance, the Tennessee Titans visit the Cincinnati Bengals in week 3. Therefor, on SuperFansCompete, fans of the Titans will be competing against fans of the Bengals.

The look of the game is not unlike the gamecasts one might find on ESPN or CBS. But instead of watching a real-life drive, players answer trivia questions in a quest to push their team down the virtual field.

The distance of a play depends on the level of difficulty. Easy questions get you a few yards. A flea-flicker play brings on a much harder question. String together enough correct answers, and you can find yourself in the end zone or with a field goal. Things like downs and a play clock also add pressure to the game. SuperFansCompete lay out all the rules on their site.

SuperFansCompete is still in beta, but it is free to play at the moment. As of this writing, there have been no announcements of prizes of any kind, though flexing trivia muscles — especially against opposing fans — might be enough to bring people to the site.

(Header image via nathanmac87)

Part of the problem with the new ability to track so much sports data revolves around what to actually do with it. Which datasets are the wheat, which are the chaff? Even baseball, a sport that has been collecting ostensibly the same numbers for a century, still has dissension in the ranks when it comes to deciding which numbers actually matter. Add in the element of team play (multiple players passing and shooting at once), and it becomes even more difficult for sports like basketball and hockey. Soccer runs into the same trouble as well, though a group called the Qatar Computing Research Institute thinks they may have made some progress.

The group is using a technique called network theory to dissect passing patterns of all the major clubs. As it happens, many of the clubs use the same handful of styles or variations thereof. Barcelona, however, is using a totally different strategy. Known as tiki-taka, the approach focuses on fast, short passes and fast-paced play instead of more traditional, formation-based strategies.

The idea of passing analytics is not new to the world of soccer. There have been studies about field positioning, pass length, etc. But the institute’s new approach looks relational passing — how players are passing to each other — to see if patterns emerge. This is where Barcelona throws everyone else a curve. You can read a breakdown here, and the full study here.

This is a great example of the kind of data we thought un-trackable just a few years ago being brought to light. We always had numbers about goals and penalties and maybe even tackles, but data about styles, techniques and actual gameplay is on a whole other level. And as tracking and computing get better, there should be more research like this coming. What the Qatar Computing Research Institute found is impressive, but it’s most likely a mere sampling of what’s to come.

(Header photo via Börkur Sigurbjörnsson)

Daily fantasy sports site FanDuel, fresh off their recent cash influx, ran into a bit of a problem on Sunday. Mainly, a whole host of fantasy players were unable to access the web site or mobile app to enter new contests or update current rosters. About 30 minutes before the 1 pm ET kick-offs, an important window for fantasy as this is usually when teams announce active and inactive players, FanDuel began performing poorly, with slow load times and spotty page loads. Eventually, the site degraded to the point of unusability. With only a few minutes before some teams kicked off — at which point rosters would lock — this left many people high and dry with unentered contests, unwanted rosters, and even injured players destined to gain zero points.

There was, shall we say, a fair deal of unhappiness among fans. A simple search of Twitter can tell you as much. And some of it was, in fact, justified. Many of FanDuel’s games cost money to play, and they run high-stakes tournaments like the World Fantasy Football Championships. When so much is on the line, the ability to change a roster in the final minutes is a necessity.

At the time, FanDuel did not seem to be responding to concerns on Twitter, but did offer one concession about a half hour after the opening kickoffs.

So sorry to all impacted by site issues. If you want your 1pm entries fully canceled & refunded please contact support@fanduel.com by 2pm ET

— FanDuel (@FanDuel) September 14, 2014

This gave users about 30 minutes to request a refund, assuming said users even saw the singular tweet.

Fantasy sports is becoming an ever-growing business. But, as FanDuel found out, a bigger user base can create bigger problems down the road.

Madden 15, the latest version of Madden franchise has been out for about three weeks now. Though it’s easy for the honeymoon period to wear off during that time, there has been one significant draw that keeps me playing it: defense. In particular the new tackling mechanics and options. Factor in the new block shedding and defense in Madden has gone from somewhat boring to something awesome.
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When the next-gen gaming consoles were announced, there was anticipation as to which recurring sports games would make the jump. EA Sports’ Madden franchise did, as expected. So did the NBA 2K series. Some franchises decided to wait a year, as coding for a totally new platform provided some obstacles and barriers that would adversely affect the next series of games.

EA’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour series (they’ve since dropped the Tiger Woods part) was one of the latter. This is what they did during the one-year hiatus from new consoles:

The game is a long way from release, and there aren’t even any demos yet, but it certainly looks like the PGA game is attempting to step up to the challenge of improved consoles. PGA Tour’s cousin in the EA world, NHL 15, took a decidedly different approach.

Players of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions might not notice much of a difference, but XBOX One and PS4 games certainly have. As it happens, NHL 15 has stripped many features from the next-gen version of the game. This has caused quite a stir amongst fans.

Some of the biggest omissions are the GM Connected mode, Online Team Play, and the EA Sports Hockey League. A comprehensive list can be found on Canada.com’s review of the game. Gamers can still play their friends online in a one-on-one style where each player controllers his/her own team, but the ability for a group of friends to play on the same team (each as their own individual player) is now missing for new systems. The GM Connected feature, which allows friends to compete against each other in all aspects of the sports (scouting, minor-league development, free agent signing) as well as playing the actual games is also missing. There are plans to patch some of the missing features in the future, but not all.

On the flip side, NHL 15 has been lauded for the gameplay on newer consoles. While I have only logged a few hours, I can echo that statement. The on-ice play is pretty fantastic, and genuinely a lot of fun. The addition of the NBC Sports presentation of games (now with Doc Emrick!) is also a nice touch and adds to the realism.

Whether gameplay alone is enough to counter such glaring omissions has yet to be seen. No sales figures have been reported as of yet. If the showing from casual fans — those that really only want to play against friends online or in a season as one team — is strong, then perhaps EA won’t take a huge hit. But from the reports circling around blogs and review sites, it seems as if the hardcore players will skip this version or buy it for the 360 or PS4 PS3. When popular features are stripped away, fancy graphics and snappy physics engines can only take a game so far.

(Header image via BagoGames)