Another one of the “Big Five” leagues has made a technological leap, with Italy’s Serie A unanimously approving the implementation of a goal-line system for next season. The options have been narrowed to three possibilities, including the FIFA GoalControl system used at the 2014 World Cup, the HawkEye system used by the Premier League and one unnamed option.

President of Italian soccer federation, Carlo Tavecchio, has mentioned a desire for goal-line technology (GLT) in the past, publicly stating he believed it will be implemented before next season. In an interview following exploratory meetings last month, Tavecchio was quoted:

“This morning’s meeting began a journey that will take us to the application of goal-line technology in our country during the predicted time-frame…I am convinced that its [GLT] use, starting from next season, will be unavoidable.”

Given the usage and growing acceptance of GLT in domestic and international leagues, seeing another one of Europe’s power leagues roll out a system is excellent. Of the Big Five, the Premier League already uses GLT, the Bundesliga will use it next season and with usage on the rise elsewhere — including US-based MLS clubs and the Dutch Premier League — it should be just a matter of time (and funding) before it is a universal part of soccer. While neither this year’s Africa Cup of Nations or Asian Cup offered GLT, it will be in use for the UEFA Euro 2016 matches. This year’s Women’s World Cup will feature goal-line technology for the first time, marking another step in the right direction.

(Featured image via the Serie A Facebook page)

As more and more people get connected devices, it is no surprise to see data usage rates rise. According to a study by Cisco, 497 million connected devices were added to the market in 2014, with the total number now at an estimated 7.4 billion. The type of data the various devices are using was mostly video — over 50% — with web, audio and file sharing following in order.

While data compression (such as GIFV instead of GIFs) continues to improve the sheer number of users combined with a higher reliance on cloud computing access will likely drive mobile data usage ever higher. Last year cloud computing — including audio as well as video streams, gaming and more — made up 81% of all mobile data. The table below shows Cisco projects this rate continue to rise.

For a measure of anecdotal evidence, I find myself increasing my data plan — I envy unlimited plans — if I know I’m going on a roadtrip or will be waiting in an airport without Wi-Fi. I’ve come to rely on staying connected, even at a higher monthly cost, for professional and personal reasons. If I take the train to Chicago, I’ll stream a podcast or even a game on my phone or tablet. I’ve used my phone as a mobile hotspot to type things up while riding the train as well, something even two or three years ago I wouldn’t have.

It isn’t just what and how we’re connecting to the mobile web, it’s also from where. The rates of usage is up around the world, particularly in North America and Asia. The fastest growth projection is actually for Africa and the Middle East and Central/Eastern Europe coming in at 71% and 72% compound annual growth rate.

There isn’t a major entertainment network, website, team or league without an app, twitter account or even media player. With a history of growth a clear projection going forward, mobile data will continue to play a large —and ever growing — part of our lives. The full Cisco report is available here or in PDF format.

(Header image via Cio)

After CES back in January, everyone seemed to leave talking about two things — wearables and VR. We covered the first section, since that’s more of our bag. But we stayed away from VR for the most part since all the booths and presentations and talks mainly revolved around gaming. Companies were betting big on the idea that players wanted to feel totally immersed in the game, like they were right there. And judging by the long lines and big smiles at the Oculus Rift booth, this is the case. Now, the technology that seems to pair so well with gaming (yes, and porn) is making a move into professional sports.

According to Wired, the NBA is teaming up with Samsung to offer a VR experience for this year’s All-Star Game. Using cameras from BigLook360, the All-Star Game, the three point contest, the dunk contest, and even a dunk contest practice session will be captured.

The downside is that it won’t be streamed live. This is a technology that exists, but not one that the NBA and Samsung will be utilizing. The NBA says the footage (more of a highlights package, not the entire event) will be available a few weeks after the game. It will be offered, for free, on Samsung’s Milk VR Store. This means that the experience will only be offered to Samsung smartphone users, though there are ways to get the VR Store on other Android devices with some rooting magic.

It’s great to see the NBA venturing into the VR sphere so early in the game. Everyone seems to be pretty sure that VR is going to create some mini singularity, and we won’t understand how people lived before it existed. So while it’s new and weird and only accessible to a few people now, I imagine those who download the free footage (and purchase the not-free Gear VR Headset) will be quite impressed by the experience. And that’s what Samsung is really selling. Yes it’s trying to sell VR headsets — and to a lesser extent, phones — but it’s really trying to sell you the VR headset it releases in two years when VR is actually good. Games are a way to do that, but there are many different sectors that can get sold on the future of VR. Someone finally figured out a way to bring sports into the fold.

Providing a VR NBA experience isn’t going to catapult the technology into the mainstream. Honestly, it’s not polished enough yet. But you can get by on buzz a lot longer that you used to, and VR has that going for it in spades. Samsung is just hoping you’ll remember that solid they did for you when it’s your turn to buy into the hype.

(Image via SamsungTomorrow)

From 2002 to 2009 the popularity of yoga stagnated. Then in 2010 yoga began a clear rise in popularity and according to projections by Google Trends and Statista, it will continue to grow. The app market has taken note, as there are dozens of yoga apps to choose from in the App Store, Google Play Store and the Amazon Store. Right now through the Amazon Store and for Android devices, the Pocket Yoga app is free to download.

As someone would be classified as an interested novice in yoga, I wouldn’t bother paying the normal $2.99 just to try an app. Free? That is the right price for me to give it a whirl, and Pocket Yoga has impressed me. It features three different practices, each with 27 different preset routines to pick from. Within each routine you can pick the duration — 30, 45 or 60 minutes — as well as choose between beginner, intermediate and expert. There is also the ability to pick a home, studio or office environment, though the only difference is the background setting in which the app runs.

In addition to the preset routines there is also Sun Salutation A and B where instead of a time limit, it is based on how many repetitions you’d like to do, ranging from two to 108 (both A and B also have the option to choose which difficulty and environment).

Throughout each routine the digital instructor gives cues on pose changes as well as helping you regulate breathing, but I found myself struggling to get into the correct form before the next pose. The app does allow you to pause each routine — and pick it up where you left off — or even preview the routine before you get started.

A built-in index of the different poses in alphabetical order is incredibly helpful, and if you’re a fellow beginner, I strongly recommend looking at the preview and the list of poses before jumping into a routine.

Pocket Yoga tracks your completed practices and routines and once you finish a session you’re given the option to share the accomplishment via Twitter, Facebook and a number of other social networks.

As even the beginner routine was challenging to me, I’d recommend Pocket Yoga to someone who has more of a working knowledge of yoga. For Android users, make sure to download it through the Amazon Store as it is still $2.99 through the Play Store. The same goes for iOS users. Still, it is hard to fault the app for me not being as flexible as I was in my youth, though after a few weeks of using Pocket Yoga, I should be back in form.

Big-time athletes have swarms of business managers and lawyers to handle the day-to-day affairs. But the those starting from the bottom — the guys on 10-day contracts, and rookie-scale deals — may not have that luxury. The NBA Players Union is hoping to ease the burden on these players by offering a new smartphone app specifically for members.

The app was developed by SportsBlog.com, who has made similar products for the WNBA and NBA Retired Players Association. We can’t get a peek at it, for obvious reasons, but the idea is to help players by passing along important information as well as allowing their input for union business.

SportsBlog.com’s chief officer, Kevin April, sounded optimistic about the future of the app, saying that they are “just getting started and we have an ambitious roadmap ahead of us that will deliver even more capabilities to NBA players, their union, and even their fans.”

While being even a low-paid bench player might sound like a better job than most, many of these athletes are still very young adults. Any young person getting started in life needs a hand every now and then. The NBA Players Union is looking to ease the transition by keeping important information just a few taps away.

(Image via Kārlis Dambrāns)

In the Barclay’s Premier League, the status quo continues for the online broadcasting options for at least one more season. Both Sky Sports and BT Sport won the broadcasting rights, now showing 126 and 42 matches respectively per season starting from the 2017-19 season through 2018-19. Both numbers represent a jump from the 116 and 38 currently shown, however the price was high. Sky Sports and BT paid a combined £5.136 billion (nearly $8 billion USD) — coming to more than £10 million per match — with BT paying £960 million and Sky picking up the rest of the tab.

Neither BT Sport or Sky Sports currently broadcasts internationally, and with NBC’s contract set to expire after the 2015/16 season, the bidding for the Premier League will come to a fever pitch next year. Currently with either BT, Sky or NBC you’ll need a cable package, but here in the United States there is not a way to view the streams from BT or Sky without using a VPN. Even by tricking the system into thinking you’re in the UK, you’ll still need a paid subscription to view the content.

The same goes for both broadcast apps (available on Android and iOS)  as there is no standalone package available yet. A brief exchange with a BT Sport chat helper cleared up any potential for a stream option here.

The tables below, courtesy of Statista, show the Premier League’s rapid growth above their fellow European competitions as well as the amount paid to the clubs from broadcast revenue.

The leagues, from left to right, are the Premier League, Serie A, Bundesliga, La Liga and Ligue 1. These leagues are often referred to as the “Big Five” as they represent the top competitions in not only Europe, but the world.

Despite being the most popular of the European leagues, the PL’s popularity is still on the rise, as is the price to broadcast it and view it. While this deal does not hurt or help anyone already with a cable deal in the UK, for the rest of us it is merely treading water until the international rights open up again next year.

Sources: Sky Sports and BT Sport
Header via Wikipedia

The National Football League is getting all Kim Kardashian on us. It wants to break the internet. Or at least try to.

As John Ourand reported for Sport’s Business Daily on Monday, the league aims to air one regular season game on the internet in 2015 as a test run. Commissioner Roger Goodell announced his plan during the Super Bowl press conference, and Ourand provides us with some details that have finally emerged.

The game would be carried in both team’s respective markets on television and broadcasted online to the rest of the world. Or, as Ourand’s sources tell him, to anyone outside of the Buffalo and Jacksonville markets, as the NFL is “looking closely” at the October 25 game in London. And if that one isn’t chosen, it’s likely it’ll be one of the other two London games on the schedule.

“That 9:30 a.m. [ET] time slot is interesting internationally when you start to think of parts of Asia, where it reaches into Sunday night, as well as parts of Europe,” NFL senior vice president of media strategy Hans Schroeder told Sports Business Daily. “The one-off, over-the-top game is more of a test to see if digital companies can handle the large audiences that watch NFL games.”

An over-the-top broadcast refers to one which is provided over the internet, or via mobile, directly to the viewer, rather than distributed by a multiple-system operator.

While Ourand lightly speculated in his piece that YouTube, Google or Yahoo could carry the game, there isn’t any sense yet of which digital companies the NFL will talk to. Likely, those three will be involved, as the NFL will perform its due diligence. Whichever company it will be, it will have to be able to prove to the league that it can accommodate millions of viewers at one time from across the globe. Because really, this is what the whole thing is about.

Sure, the NFL sees that the future is in digital. And the present is as good a time as any to lay the ground work for a multi-billion deal with whichever company it eventually strikes an expansive deal with. Streaming games, at no additional costs to fans (if it worked out that way), would go a long way to rebuild a perception that the league has developed over the years as greedy and money-hungry. And more eyes watching more games gives the NFL the leverage it needs when it develops relationships with corporate sponsors and asks for dump trucks full of money for broadcasting rights. But it’s more than that.

The whole thing is about reaching Asia. The National Basketball Association has fantastically marketed itself throughout Asia to the tune of 70 million followers on Sina Weibo and Tencent’s microblog platforms, which are similar to Twitter or Facebook. Conversely, the NFL has fewer than 400,000 followers.

Reuters ran a story prior to the Super Bowl regarding the NFL’s attempt to market globally. In it, the author interviewed a female Chinese student studying business and economics. And she succinctly summed up the NFL’s issue in her country.

“Most Chinese people don’t have the foggiest idea of American football,” Zhao Yaginq said. “Instead, many boys in China are familiar with NBA and European soccer.”

So if you’re peeved that the lone streaming game will start before you wake up from your Saturday night hang over, this isn’t about you. It’s about Zhao and her university buddies and Europe. The NFL already has its claws in you. It wants to reach those that don’t know what a 4-3 defense looks like. And if all goes well for that lucky provider, it won’t break the internet.

Image via Mike Sanchez 

Boston Dynamics, the now Google-owned robotics firm, released a video on Monday of it’s latest little terrifying robot, Spot:

The applications here are manifold: It could be a modern St. Bernard with a cask of whiskey for the stranded mountain traveler; it could be a vital supply delivery mechanism for war-torn or disaster-struck locales; and, most terrifyingly, it could be a deadly ground-based drone in the coming Future Wars.

But pertinent to us, they can replace the most-often-abused athletes: race animals. Or more specifically, greyhound dogs. Not only does the greyhound racing industry have a reputation — if not a history — of animal abuse (direct from owner to dog), it also has the unintended consequence of greyhound overbreeding. This can and has resulted in unacceptable euthanization rates among former race dogs.

So, is with most modern problems, the answer is probably robots. Let’s walk through the above video one more time and point out some of the pertinent details:

• 0:00
  Spot decides to go for a walk. Did he decide for himself, or was it a matter of programming culminating in this? Was it fate or free will? We’ll never know. Because they never show anybody controlling this robot.
• 0:22
  Craig from accounting, having no discernable soul, emulates the role of the typical greyhound goon, and Spot weathers it like a champ.

  

• 0:29
  “Maybe if you win more races, I won’t be able to kick you because my solid gold shoes will be too heavy.”
• 0:51
  All-terrain dog races! ALL-TERRAIN DOG RACES!
• 1:09
  Seeing Spot dressed in a gray, foam-based armor excites me at the possibility of combat robot races, which is where the sport would inevitably lead.

  

• 1:21
  Did anyone else just pee themselves a little? Seriously, where’d this second robot come from?
• 1:39
  The only thing more terrifying than two all-terrain robot dogs is the shadow they cast.
  

  

• 2:45
  No robots were harmed?! I THINK WE WANT TO KNOW IF THEY RAISED UP AND OVERTHREW THEIR CREATORS; NOT WHETHER OR NOT THEY BROKE A WIRE.

I hope you’re as excited as me about the future of robot racing! Will they drive themselves around a circular course, or be driven by a pilot a la drone racing? Will all-terrain mountain courses draw the yawning gaze of Vegas? Will the robots self-actualize, overbreed, and then rise to power through democratic and soft-power means?

The answers, of course, are: “Both,” “probably,” and “no, violent revolution.” And I personally can’t wait to see some robot dog racing!

Will MLB.TV be blackout free? Say it’s so, Joe. According to Forbes, Major League Baseball and FOX are negotiating a deal that would remove blackouts from any games streamed by FOX regional sports networks. Last year, FOX-owned regional sports networks aired 37 percent of all broadcasted games.

The biggest roadblock to a deal is how this affects FOX. If MLB Advanced Media, the digital arm of the MLB, can offer the games on MLB.TV without blackouts, it’d cut in to the amount of viewers on FOX Sports GO, the network’s streaming service, and on foxsports.com. In 2014, the nationally broadcasted games, including the All-Star Game and World Series, streamed to FOX’s mobile app without blackouts. And while they’d attract viewers that don’t subscribe to MLB.TV, they’d still lose a piece of the pie.

The real news here, though, is that blackouts are finally being addressed. And for that, we have to give thanks to the new commissioner, Rob Manfred. As far as we know, Bud Selig never pushed for a resolution. And while Manfred is at least making a deal with FOX  a priority, he does acknowledge the challenges that television territories carry in order to lift blackouts completely.

“Television territories that cause these blackouts are integral to the economics of the game,” Manfred told Forbes. “They’re a foundation of the very structure of the league. Blackouts are actually caused, not by our desire not to cover that area, but by the inability of the rights holder to get distribution in certain parts of the television territories. It’s not solely our issue to resolve. Having said that I am aware of these complaints and whenever we have an issue like this we are constantly evaluating how we do business to make sure we are as fan friendly as possible.”

Maury Brown, the Forbes contributor that broke this story, published a MLB Blackout Map to illustrate the TV territories. “While there has been a thawing of blackouts on the national level,” Brown wrote, “it is local broadcasts that create the most trouble due to territories for each club that started out as over-the-air reach, and ran amok as pay-TV took hold. They are, to the fans, arbitrary, and at the very least, arcane.”

These regional sports networks that run TV territories want to get paid. Ultimatley, this is the problem facing any solution to blackouts. Paul Swydan of FanGraphs dissected this issue brilliantly on Friday, and included his idea of a Super Premium MLB.TV package that would keep the local networks from losing revenue generated by carriage fees (due to lost cable customers) and allow the networks to run their local ads, rather than the MLB.TV ads we get now.

These are complicated issues to work through. But I like I wrote earlier, the real news here is the problem is finally being addressed.

“This reported agreement between MLB and FOX is a nice first step,” Swydan wrote. “Hopefully we’ll see more steps soon.”

Image via Billy Bob Bain

After getting a sneak peek at Sling TV back in January at CES, many people were excited for the potential it held. At the time is was an invite-only system and only five major network channels signed up — ESPN, Food Network, TNT, TBS and CNN — but now the system is live and now has even more channels.

There is a free seven day trial period to test both the opening price point of $20 per month for the “Best of Live TV” service out on its own or even the add-on packages. The previously listed channels plus ESPN2, Adult Swim and the Disney Channel are available for the opening price point, but the extra channels include even more options.

The three channel lineups for an additional $5 each on top of the normal $20 monthly cost from Sling are Sports Extra, News & Info Extra and Kids Extra, with the channels on each shown below.

After putting in your information to register, Sling shows you a welcome screen as well as listing the service compatibility. CES had a running version of Sling on an Xbox, but the picture below is accurate in saying it isn’t available just yet. The Android app is available, but it will have to be side-loaded. The computer version of Sling works quite well and hopefully the mobile will soon be on par with it.

Sling shows channel category options in the form of an “All Channels” sidebar and once a selection is made, upcoming programs are shown along with their start times on that particular channel.

The quality of the broadcasts is up to the consumer, allowing you to select how much bandwidth and thus what the video looks like. On the highest setting neither the video or audio ever stuttered, however the quality seemed to move from the 1080p to about 480p despite my WiFi signal remaining constant.

For cord cutters, Sling TV is about the best option around for live entertainment. If you’re on the fence, I strongly suggest taking advantage of the seven day trial to experience it firsthand.