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We at TechGraphs are looking to bolster our writing staff a bit. We think avid TechGraphs readers would make for perfect candidates. We need part-time people to cover breaking tech news, review new apps and products, and provide tips and tricks for the tech- and sports-inclined.
If that sounds like it’s up your alley, send an email to wanted@fangraphs.com and put TECHGRAPHS WRITER 2014 in the subject line. In the email, tell us why you would be a good fit for us, and include a writing sample in the body of the email. No attachments please.
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The one-day fantasy site DraftKings already has a partnership with MLB, but now they are expanding out to pro hockey, as well. According to Boston.com, a new agreement has been reached making DraftKings the official one-day fantasy site of the National Hockey League.
NHL-based games were already offered through DraftKings and their ilk, so this amounts to little more than marketing and product placement. Still, it shows just how large of a grasp daily fantasy is beginning to have in the sports world. DraftKings, along with their main competitor FanDuel, have been gaining lots of traction. They have bought out smaller competitors, and their ads can be seen all over sports sites and blogs, as well as during televised games. Their new partnership with the NHL should expand DraftKing’s presence even more, as they are slated to be advertised heavily on NHL-branded online entities such as their official Twitter account, NHL Mobile, and video replay and preview segments, among others.
NBC News has a story centered around how the rise in popularity of e-sports has led to a rise in gambling on e-sports. Writer Keith Wagstaff talks to people from Pinnacle Sports, one of the premiere online gambling sites around. And in 2014, e-sports were the eight most popular subset to bet on, beating out golf.
According to the article:
Since 2011, the year when Pinnacle began accepting bets on e-sports, the volume of trades placed on video game matches has doubled every year, Hudson said. The company has hired a team of eight e-sports traders responsible for setting lines and wagers.
This was, of course, inevitable. We humans never met a contest we didn’t like to wager on. And while side bets and friendly wagers go hand-in-hand with competition, the rise in both popularity and purse of video game tournaments is undoubtedly going to bring along its share of side action. With over 350,000 e-sports bets placed on Pinnacle alone in 2014, it appears the gamblers have officially gotten their dirty little fingers in e-sports.
Robinson Cano has had a big year. He signed a very hefty free agent contract, became a charter client for one of the most talked-about sports agencies, and still managed to be the best-hitting second baseman in the league. Now, to help cement himself as a superstar in sports, he’s signed a partnership with a tech company.
Taiwanese gadget maker HTC has announced a partnership with Cano via a press release. Cano and his smiling face confirmed as much on Twitter:
HTC, a maker of Android and Windows devices, is hoping to break into the sports world much like their competitor Samsung has (though not without some controversy). HTC had previously launched a fairly forgettable campaign with America’s Boyfriend Robert Downey, Jr. to little fanfare. Perhaps their new partnership will help bring their (very well-made, in my opinion) devices to the American mainstream via America’s pastime.
Being a fan of a team in the digital age can be daunting. Not terribly long ago, anything worth printing about a team came through in the local sports section in the paper. Now, in the 24-hour news cycle, there is a constant stream of information from traditional news sources, Twitter, team pages, and the big news organizations. For those without the luxury (or with the luxury, depending on how you look at it) of not having constant access to Twitter feeds and RSS readers, it becomes easy to fall behind. If you follow multiple teams throughout multiple sports, staying on top of everything can seem impossible. The site SportsManias is hoping to alleviate some of that stress, with the help of their curated feeds.
The idea behind SportsManias is a simple yet novel one. You create an account, pick your favorite teams, and the site scours the Internet for everything from rumor tidbits to big-time breaking news. The site splits your feed into four sections; articles, tweets, video, and rumors. It’s a fairly intuitive setup, and the sections are explanatory. The articles section deals with published news from many sources, the tweets and rumors section is curated based on the selected teams, and the videos are there to satisfy your lizard brain with highlights.
SportsMania takes all the effort and guesswork out of checking for your sports news. Gone are the days where you have to open 25 tabs in your browser to check MLB.com, NHL.com. mylocalpaper.com, etc. to get what you need. SportsManias does the grunt work for you, and relays it back in an easy-to-consume scrollable feed.
And to help with the curation and media partnerships needed for such and endeavor, SportsManias made a recent acquisition. They recently brought Tim Stephens aboard as their VP of Strategic Partnerships. Stephens is a former Deputy Managing Editor at CBSSports.com and a former president of the Associated Press Sports Editors. Stephens will use his pedigree within the sports-writing world to create new and strengthen existing partnerships with content creators to ensure that SportsManias is bringing the fans all the news they require. Per Stephens in a press release:
“SportsManias connects the great work done by professional journalists with the hard-core fans who want it delivered to today’s front porch – their smart phone, tablet or desktop – in one location, when they want it, how they want it and where they want it. It is a win-win for the journalist, the news organization and the audience. The goal is to become the digital gateway to newspapers, delivering their localized team news to the avid sports fan.”
SportsManias takes a positive-turned-negative back into a positive. It’s great that we have so many sources at our disposal for the which to follow our teams. However, that can come at a price of time and effort for the fan. Through careful curation, a streamlined presentation, and corresponding app offerings on both iOS and Android, SportsManias strives to help the fan stay well-informed. We as fans have an embarrassment of riches like we’ve never seen. SportsManias is looking to make it even better.
It’s kind of hard to explain IFTTT to people. I’ve tried. It’s a tool, that’s for certain. It’s a tool for doing online things. What kind of things? Well, pretty much all kinds of things. And that’s what makes explaining IFTTT so difficult. If you have an account with an online service that has even a half-decent API, then IFTTT can help you streamline a process, remember to do something, or automatically do that thing you always seem to forget. While IFTTT has applications for all kinds of people, sports fans and fitness nuts can mine a lot from it too.
IFTTT stands for If This Then That. It takes its name from a basic boolean operator found in all kinds of computer programming languages. The main idea is that if something meets a certain set of criteria, a specific action is to be performed. If A, then B. The A and B criteria in IFTTT are called channels. Channels are nothing more than online accounts or services. Things like Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs, Evernote, Dropbox, and Instagram all have their own channels in IFTTT. Combining two channels (one as a trigger, the other as an action) creates a recipe. A very basic example of a recipe would be “IF myfriend@gmail.com sends me a picture through email, THEN save it to my Friend’s Pics folder in Dropbox.” All you have to do is set the recipe up once, and you’re set. IFTTT takes care of all the other stuff in the background. But how does this apply to sports-minded people? Just like everything else in IFTTT, it all comes down to channels.
Fitness fans have a few options. If you use a service like FitBit, Misfit, or Nike+, there are plenty of ways you can tap into the data those collect. Maybe you want to keep a running log of every time you hit a daily goal. You can use IFTTT to log that in a Google Spreadsheet or Google Calendar. Those into public shaming can have IFTTT post burned-calorie information to Facebook or Twitter automatically. Weekly summaries can be sent via email. I use the FitBit channel to log how much sleep I get every night into a Google Spreadsheet. You can text yourself when you’ve reached a goal, or set yourself a reminder notification to to so. All of this only needs to be set up once. As our favorite rotisserie oven salesman would say, you just set it and forget it.
An example of some IFTTT recipes based in the Nike+ channel.
For those of use that would rather watch than do, there are options as well. As of now, there aren’t any channels for specific sports apps like NFL Now or MLB At Bat, but luckily ESPN offers a channel that can accommodate many needs. You can set a recipe to get text or smartphone notifications for your favorite teams — every time a game/match starts, when there’s a lead change, or just the final score. You can collect the results of every game in a Google Spreadsheet, have breaking news sent via text or added to your Pocket account for later reading, or set pre-determined tweets to be sent out depending on if your team wins or loses.
Some IFTTT recipes that can be set using the ESPN channel.
Sadly, though you can get alerts about fantasy sports news using the ESPN channel, it isn’t set up yet to incorporate specific league. However, if you are in a Yahoo! fantasy league, you’re in luck. You can have IFTTT send you a weekly trade summary in an email, or post to Facebook or Twitter if you’ve secured a fantasy victory.
The best way to find out how you can use IFTTT is to try it for yourself. Use a few pre-made recipes or try creating your own. Go back in and tweak them to your liking. IFTTT also offers mobile apps for iOS and Android so you can create and rework recipes on the go. Whether you’re looking to actually streamline some life workflow or simply fool around with a very fun and very powerful tool, it’s hard to beat IFTTT.
Picture it: You’re sitting in the stands during an NBA game. The action on the floor is slow — maybe there are free throws or a 30-second timeout on the floor. You grab your phone, connect to the arena WiFi, and pull up a webpage. You scroll through a list of players, pick your favorite one, and choose a highlight you want to see — a dunk, a sweet finger roll, a step-back jumper, etc. During the next timeout, on the big video screen over center court, the video you selected is playing, along with your name. This is what Steve Ballmer wants to do with Clippertron, and it’s already happening.
The Los Angeles Clippers have teamed up with the company Second Spectrum to work on developing a new approach to fan engagement at sporting events. The system allows fans to use their mobile device to pick a favorite highlight to be displayed on the scoreboard. While Blake Griffin’s dunking prowess is impressive enough, Second Spectrum isn’t stopping there. Using their proprietary DataFX system, they will also display key stats and measurements that will show how and why Griffin dunks so hard, what makes up DeAndre Jordan’s shot-blocking ability, or how Chris Paul gets so many assists. As Second Spectrum co-founder Rajiv Maheswaran told the LA Times:
“It’s not just going to be highlights […] It’s highlights with a lot of effects but also telling the story with numbers you can’t get anywhere else. Nobody else on the planet is going to have them.”
According to the Times, the Clippers will be the first team to incorporate this kind of technology during games.
DataFX showing rebound probabilities (courtesy Second Spectrum)
It’s a fairly logical move for the Clippers, as their new owner has such a rich tech background. But as certain NBA teams struggle to bring in crowds, something like what Second Spectrum is offering could help with fan retention. Basketball games can be expensive endeavors for fans when compared to staying home and watching the game on TV. Now, teams have the ability to bring a little bit of that TV experience into the arena. It wouldn’t be shocking to see more teams implement the same system — or something similar — very soon.
The folks at Polygon pointed out a nice Halloween treat provided by the folks at NBA2K. The hubbub around some of the terrible and sometimes frightening attempts at grafting one’s face onto an NBA 2K15 player is still palpable with some, and 2K Sports is attempting to take it in stride. In an effort to poke fun at themselves (or at least look like they are), the studio has released a Halloween mask making kit featuring eight of the more terrifying facial scan blunders.
All you need is a color printer and some string (or poster board and a Popsicle stick) and you’re set to scare the daylights out of some people this weekend.
2K Sports also releases a video on how to get your own terrible facial scan. It seems like it’s meant in good fun, but it also kind of insults people who had legitimate problems with the game’s feature.
Still, if you want to go to a Halloween party dressed as an inside joke to end all inside jokes, these masks might be your ticket. You could even get seven friends (or more if you want to double up masks) to join you and have your own impromptu Pickup Game of Horror.
Microsoft had long relegated themselves to the software business only. With the fairly-recent releases of the Surface and new Windows-branded phones, it seems as if the folks in Redmond were finally comfortable dipping their toes into the hardware waters. That’s even more evident today, as Microsoft has announced a new wearable fitness band called, simply, the Microsoft Band.
Microsoft Band does an interesting job of blurring the lines between fitness band and smartwatch. At a $200 price point, it falls in between those two categories as well. The device boasts 10 sensors, tracking things like heartbeat, sleep, and run/bike routes. Beyond those usual metrics, Microsoft Band will also look at UV data from the sun, and collect stress-level information. It also features a small touchscreen that can be used for notifications, call alerts, quick calendar viewing, and more.
The announcement of the device goes hand-in-hand with the release of Microsoft Health, a cross-platform app that lets you view stats about your activity, workout, and sleep habits. It will, of course, pair with Microsoft Band, but other device developers will be allowed to use the platform as well. Microsoft Health isn’t just relegated to Windows phones either, as an iOS and Android version of the app are now available. At the current time, it appears as if you can only pair a Microsoft Band with the app, and not any third-party devices.
The device, at least according to Microsoft’s official photos, looks pretty sleek. And they’ve packed a lot of functionality into that little guy as well. Like the upcoming FitBit offerings, Microsoft is looking to add enough functionality to the device to appeal to people who want a combo meal of tracker and smartwatch, without adding too many whistles so as to make the price a nonstarter.
$200 isn’t an insignificant amount of money, but for the health- and fitness-conscious, it might be the sweet spot of data gathering and smartphone functionality.
The Microsoft Band is available for preorder, or for immediate purchase at your local Microsoft Store.
We here at TechGraphs are big fans of Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP), and you should be too. It’s an immensely deep and feature-rich baseball simulator that allows you to create your own dream team using past or present players. Do to its extreme customizability, it also makes for some great thought experiments.
Recently, the New York Mets announced that they would, once again, be moving in the outfield fences in the right-center portion of Citi Field to make the park a little more hitter friendly. This will be the second time since 2012 the outfield fences have been tweaked with. The news lead to a myriad of jokes on Twitter, including this:
Queens, 2035: CitiField's dimensions are now 150 feet in all directions. Mets are out-homered, 1,215-1,049, and go 79-83
Which led to the fine folks at OOTP actually testing this theory out. Over on the OOTP blog, Brad Cook outlines just how he went about simulating a 2015 Mets season with a home park that was the Bandbox to Rule Them All.
Cook actually uses two methodologies, one with a straight 150-foot fence, and one with a slightly more realistically curved one. Click the link for the full details, but be prepared for Ike Davis to win the Triple Crown (and still be less valuable than Mike Trout). Needless to say, the Mets score a lot of runs and give up a lot of runs. But in one scenario, they actually manage to be a pretty decent team (there’s hope, Mets fans!)
OOTP is a wonderful game to play the “normal” way, but it’s tricks and tweaks like these that make it all the more enjoyable. On a similar note, friend of the site Patrick Dubuque performed a similar-ish experiment, creating four teams consisting of nothing but Adam Dunns, Koji Ueharas, Dee Gordons, and Bartolo Colons. This type of thing slices through the meaty side of life, and when the winter doldrums hit my abode, you can be sure that I’ll be experimenting like this until Spring Training starts.
