The long-fought fight to keep the Internet as free (as in speech, not beer) and open as possible gained a very significant victory today, as the FCC ruled in a 3-2 decision to implement strict net neutrality rules and reclassify Internet service offerings as a Title II service. This ostensibly means that Internet services will be classified much like utilities are now, and therefor can’t be subject to the general bandwidth and pricing shenanigans that have begun to crop up.  Unless you own an ISP, you can consider this a victory.

The ruling prohibits carriers from strong-arming content providers into ponying up more money to make sure their product reaches consumers. Before today, an ISP — let’s call them Fomfast for the sake of argument — could look at all the traffic that a streaming service like NBA League Pass was carrying across their wires and decide that they were taking up far too many resources to not have to pay a premium. Fomfast would then tell the NBA folks to pay them a fee of some kind, lest they wish their streams to be throttled, creating a poor experience for the customer. This has already happened with Netflix, and could have very well happened to services like League Pass, MLB.tv, FOX Sports GO, WatchESPN, etc. without today’s ruling. What transpired today means less cost for the providers, which means (hopefully) less cost for you.

In an interesting turn, the FCC widened the scope of their ruling to include mobile providers, so while it will still count toward your data cap, you should be able to stream soccer matches on your phone without throttling or slow-down problems.

We talk a lot about streaming sports online on these electronic pages, but in truth, a lot of the services and sites we mention could have looked (and cost) a great deal differently without similar governance in place. There would have been nothing stopping Fomfast or Fime Farner from holding our sports streams hostage in a pixelated prison until the leagues decided to let the providers in on the action.

The Internet has been such a large part of our lives for quite some time. It seems silly that it took this long for this kind of decision to be made. But at least it happened. And in a rare instance, a U.S. governing body made a decision about something before it became a really big problem. It’s a little sad that what seemed like such a no-brainer garnered two “no” votes, but fair-headedness won out in the end.

And just in time for baseball/MLB.tv season. What joy.

(Image via William F. Yurasko)

I’ll be honest. I didn’t really understand SnapChat when it first came out. I mean, I understood what it did and what it was for, but I didn’t understand how it could make money or why Facebook would want to buy it for $3 billion. SnapChat has since matured. You can send money over it. You can post whole stories that don’t disappear right away. Organizations are using it to push content. And now it’s worth $20 billion. Shows you how much I know.

The same goes for Yo. The concept was simple, I just didn’t understand why anyone would use it for more than a day. It seemed like a slightly more social fart app. But people are still using it. My wife’s roller derby team uses it to a borderline-unhealthy amount. And now Yo has made the turn. They’ve gone from cheeky fad app to new entrant to the world of news. Yes, you can now get news updates via Yo.

The concept behind the Yo Store is that people will subscribe to channels based on their interests — be that news, listicles, cat photos, etc. But sports-related apps have a fairly big presence in the new store. The NBA is in already, as are some individual basketball, football, college, and soccer teams. CBS Sports has a channel as well. The goal seems obvious — to get every major sports team and league involved, offering full customization for the user. It’s a little odd. It’s a little new. And I think it’s kind of genius.

When you get a new smartphone or tablet, you are tasked with re-downloading all the news and alert apps you had on your old device. I always grab CBS Sports (the best mobile sports app, in my opinion), the Associated Press App, the New York Times, etc. These can all be replaced by Yo in the not-to-distant future. And that’s where Yo can have the advantage. It doesn’t matter if it’s the best sports alert app, because it’s the most comprehensive app to have for everything else. People just might convert for the sake of simplicity — a catch-all for their news, sports, and silly videos or whatever the hell. Surely people will keep their SportsCenter or MLB app for random staring-at-your-phone time, but it’s not hard to imagine that those apps will get used less and less as more options are available in Yo.

Listen, am I going to download the app? Yes. Is it technically for my job? Yes. Does that make it easier to swallow? Not really. I’m 32. I’m probably not in Yo’s demographic. But curiosity has finally gotten the best of me. Perhaps that was their plan all along.

You may have heard the term MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) in the past. They are the folks behind MLB.tv as well as the At Bat app and Gameday feeds. But they’ve gotten so good at delivering digital content, that they have branched outside of baseball. MLBAM now helps power the WWE Network, WatchESPN, and MLBAM technology will soon be providing the long-awaited standalone HBO GO service. MLBAM has become so large and powerful that MLB is looking to possibly turn it into its own business.

The idea is to keep the websites and ticketing stuff with MLB, but to fork everything else over to MLBAM. While it’s possibly a surprising move, it shouldn’t be unexpected. MLBAM makes crazy paper for MLB, and it’s only looking to expand. They took a bet on video streaming over ten years ago, and have since built a solid infrastructure around that technology. They are the mechanic that’s been on your block for decades — others might promise more, but MLBAM has been around forever. They know how to make these things work.

And no matter how much content providers whine and moan, more and more TV is going to be shown on things that aren’t TVs. WatchESPN is expanding all the time. HBO GO’s move will soon inspire other top-tier cable networks. We can every Simpsons episode ever made on our phones, for crying out loud. I feel like I’m in one of those news stories from the 90s that’s trying to tell you what the Internet is. You know these things I’m telling you, but they’re important to remember when thinking about what MLBAM is doing. Through some forward thinking, some early investments, and a little bit of luck, a sports league has ended up being a giant in one of the biggest tech industries around. And instead of sitting on their haunches, they’re being proactive about it. And that’s hard for a large company to do. Startups are nimble, easily adaptable. Big companies with lots of human and financial investment can’t navigate as quickly, but MLBAM is trying their best.

They are succeeding at it, too. And only look to get stronger and richer. Now, if they would return Sports on Earth to its former glory, then things would look even sunnier.

(Image via Geoff Livingston)

It’s been a good week for DirecTV customers who want to stream sports online. After an announcement earlier this week that FOX Sports GO would be available to customers of the U.S.’s largest satellite provider, ESPN has announced that their expanding online streaming service will be available to subscribers of DirecTV as well.

Channels like ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, ESPN Deportes, Longhorn Network, SEC Network and SEC Network+ will all be available to stream via web browser or apps for iOS, Android, gaming systems, smart TVs, and connected devices for DirecTV customers who can provide a valid login. This also means that, thanks to a partnership between ESPN and TSN, I will be able to watch John Morris’ return to the Canadian Men’s Curling Championship come the end of the month.

Trust me, that’s exciting.

Pete Vlastelica, head of Digital at Fox Sports, has recently announced that the network’s online streaming service — FOX Sports GO — will now be available to the U.S.’s largest satellite provider, DirecTV.

Hey, look at that! I'm authenticated on FOX Sports GO via my @DIRECTV account! @cpiercejr pic.twitter.com/GMPMO1p2JX

— Pete Vlastelica (@PeteVlastelica) February 17, 2015

This means that DirecTV customers can now access the growing amount of sporting events and programming offered by Fox Sports online. I just checked myself, and was able to view multiple NASCAR, soccer, and college basketball offerings.

This, along with the coming ability to access WatchESPN, is a boon to DirecTV’s offering and, frankly, has been a long time coming. With the increasing demand for streaming-service access, DirecTV finally has leveled the playing field with its competitors, at least in terms of sports.

The FOX Sports GO app is available for both iOS and Android, and is accessible via standard web browser.

(h/t Awful Announcing)

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)

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)

For people who want to stream sports on their computers and devices, baseball fans have it pretty great. MLB.tv was really the first of the big four sports to offer live game streaming via the web, and the progress made by MLB Advanced Media has been strong, if not without its problems. It can be buggy, it can be laggy, but it allows us to watch baseball online with a reasonable success rate. But with all the advancements made for mobile viewing, simple web-based viewing has seemed to take a step backward.

Beyond my work here, I also occasionally contribute baseball writing to our sister site FanGraphs. In some cases, I’m looking to capture a GIF of a certain pitcher or a certain play. I know how to capture and convert the video — I’ve become fairly quick at it over the past few years. But actually finding the video can be troublesome thanks to the jenky way MLB streams games over web browsers.

In the past, MLB used a plugin called NexDef. I’m not privy to the reasons why this particular plugin was utilized, but I can say that it was crappy and unreliable. But it was needed for more advanced features like the live DVR capabilities and the switching of audio commentary. The biggest problem that I had with NexDef is that it very rarely recognized that it actually existed on my computer. It would constantly ask me to reinstall. Constantly. On both Mac and PC. Support was limited to a few sets of instructions on how to remove and (again) reinstall NexDef, but I don’t recall that ever solving the problem.

Last year, MLB.tv seemed to offer a NexDef-less way to view on the web. This was a welcome change, but more issues seemed to arise. Primarily, the time coding seemed to be all over the place. Say I wanted to grab a clip of Giancarlo Stanton hitting a double. I would look up the game logs and find out that he hit one in the bottom of the fifth inning. I would pull up the game online, and use the web player to switch to the fifth inning. I would not end up there. More often than not, the video would display that the game was about to start. Sometimes it would take me to the first or second inning. Sometimes it would thank me for watching, as the game had already ended. This left me to use the scrubber and the score bug on the video to try and find my way to the fifth inning. It was a long and stupid process.

But 2015 is a new year, and with it, MLB is promising a better version of its streaming service. Among the new features is the ability to watch Spring Training games via mobile and connected devices and the ability to sync Spanish-language broadcast audio. But they also list “web-based HD media player” as a new feature. Maybe there is such a thing as Santa Claus. If I can finally watch an MLB game online without wanting to punch my laptop, the 2015 season is already off to a great start. Heck, maybe my Astros will make a run at the postseason. Well, baby steps, I suppose.

I realize that the way I want to use MLB.tv is different from most everybody else. Still, if a product offers me the ability to jump between innings and batters, it should, you know, actually do that. I’m a baseball nerd, and I will probably always buy MLB.tv, warts and all. But if minor tech issues are turning away more casual fans, that becomes a problem. Readers of this site probably have the wherewithal to follow instructions on removing plugins. The average user does not. If MLB has fixed the tech problems that have plagues the site for years, we might finally have the perfect sports-streaming solution. Well, they’d also have to address the blackout rules. But that’s a different post, isn’t it?

(Image via Twitter)

EA has been using its Madden franchise to simulate Super Bowls for fun and profit for some time now. So when the time came to plug in 2015’s Super Bowl contenders and let the ones and zeros predict the future, EA did so again. The results, as people say, will shock you.

According to Yahoo! Tech, the simulator picked the final score exactly right. This would be an impressive feat in and of itself, but it gets way deeper. I’ll let Yahoo! explain it. The details are far too bone-chilling for me to type:

… it even foresaw Tom Brady’s fourth-quarter game-winning pass to Julian Edelman.

And that was just the tip of the prognostication iceberg.

Madden predicted New England would score first in the game. It predicted Tom Brady would take home the MVP trophy. It was 27 yards off Brady’s total passing yardage (355 vs. 328) and got his total touchdowns (4). It was only 3 yards and 1 catch away from perfectly calling Julian Edelman’s entire game.

I would like to say — because I know they’re reading this — that I, for one, welcome the coming of our sentient-robot overlords. I’m sure if we behave the way we are instructed, that no harm will come to us or our families. All hail Lord XBOX! So say we all!

(image via YouTube)

Night baseball in Seattle, both in person and on TV, will look a great deal crisper thanks to some recent upgrades to Safeco Field. In the first such move in Major League Baseball, the Mariners have replaced their outdated lighting structures with new LED fixtures, which should bring a whole new level of clarity for fans both at the game and on their couches.

LEDs are popping up in all kinds of places including our gadgets, our TVs, and even the bulbs in our lamps. But illuminating a whole baseball field with LEDs should prove to be a very new experience for fans. There will be less glare, more even distribution of light, and the green of the field should really pop under the new lighting.

There are other advantages to the conversion as well. The Mariners are predicting a drop in energy consumption of filed lighting by 60-70 percent. The new bulbs will also last much longer, reducing waste and maintenance costs. TV viewers will get some added bonuses as well, as the lights will not only make the game look better on their HDTVs, but LEDs will also eliminate the flickering effect seen when super-slow replays are presented.

There haven’t been a whole lot of advances in field lighting since the Cubs were the last to install the fixtures in 1988. Though the upfront costs might be significant, the lasting effects and cost savings of LED lighting on a ball field will hopefully make their way to more parks soon. As very few games are played during daylight now-a-days, working to upgrade the fan experience at night would be a welcome addition. Reducing energy usage and waste is certainly a bonus, and watching Robinson Cano bash homers under the best possible lighting should give the fans at Safeco something more to enjoy.

(Image via Dave Sizer)