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.

According to CNBC, YouTube could be on the brink of a major makeover for companies and content creators. The service would offer a subscription price to eliminate advertisements in videos. Google — which bought out YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006 — has been experimenting with a subscription based revenue model since 2013, though now it seems the service will launch full-scale in a matter of months.

The ad-free experimental model, starting as low as $0.99 per month, currently features partnerships with National Geographic, PGA, UFC and 26 other channels. After two months the service wasn’t quite what some hoped, at least according to National Geographic’s senior vice president of global strategy. On top of the channels and content, YouTube is also launching their Music Key service in order to bring ad-free content specifically to music videos.

As more and more people are finding ways around the pre-roll and in-video ads — the Ad Block Plus Chrome extension claims over 50 million users — it will be curious to see what demographic this new YouTube service is aimed at. As someone who has cut the cord, I rely on streaming services for information, entertainment and the like. While I turn off ABP for certain websites and for Twitch.TV, for the vast majority of my computer based browsing, I leave it on.

The sheer volume of content on YouTube is staggering: over one billion active users upload 300 hours of content is uploaded every minute. Despite sporting an impressive 50% advert revenue going back to the partners on YouTube, this new subscription-based model for generating revenue could be the cure for people like myself who use third-party options to avoid ads. I certainly can’t speak for everyone using ABP or a similar service, but advertisements are a matter of being an inconvenience and for me, just being impatient.

I for one, welcome our new subscription based YouTube overlords.

(Header image via YouTube)

Last week ESPN relaunched its app, now self titled after ditching the Sports Center name, while USA TODAY introduced a sports app any serious sports fan will want to add to their library. The former features rebranding with some tighter design, along with the first iPad app, but USA TODAY’s spotlights innovations in the form of hot game alerts and a self proclaimed “Best. Scoreboard.Ever.”

Let’s start with the old but new. At first glance, ESPN (which only has updated the iOS version) offers a very similar user experience. My settings translated smoothly with the update. When I receive news alerts, it’s still accompanied by the infamous SportsCenter jingle. But there’s a bigger picture, which ESPN recently explained to The Verge. Along with an updated phone app and its first iPad app, ESPN will launch a major redesign on April 1, the website’s 20^th anniversary. John Kosner, executive vice president of digital for ESPN, told The Verge the goal is to create an experience across all platforms that is “fundamentally similar in terms of the look and feel.”

ESPN added a “Now” column, a Twitter-esque scroll of news nuggets, reporter Tweets, images and videos chosen by the editorial staff to enhance the scores and news featured by the app – and not bog it down with redundancy.

Want to watch a game after scrolling through scores? Tap it and the WatchESPN app opens automatically.

For Android users, ESPN said it is still working on that platform and did not offer an estimated relaunch date other than “weeks or months to come.”

Meanwhile, the USA TODAY Sports app is available for iOS and Android. And it has some fun features that ESPN’s offering does not. The hot game alert feature, which can be toggled on or off in the settings, blasts in-progress notifications so users won’t miss those can’t-miss moments.

“Consumers have so many options for news and information, yet so few of them solve a fan’s most basic problem: What do I need to know right now so I don’t miss out on what everyone else is talking about, or will be talking about?” said Mark Pesavento, vice president of digital strategy for USA TODAY Sports in a press release.

Tim Gardner is the director of digital programming for USA Today. The editorial team, which works around the clock, falls under his watch, and is responsible for monitoring games and triggering the hot game alerts.

“If it’s Old Dominion and George Mason and they’re heading to double overtime, we’re going to alert you on that as well,” Gardner told NiemanLab.

And then there’s the Best.Scoreboard.Ever. That same editorial staff lists the most important games of the day. Tonight’s top option is North Carolina (16) at Duke (5). Since it’s not yet March, I haven’t paid attention to college hoops one bit. I had no idea the legendary rivalry kicked off its 2015 campaign tonight. And since I already watched this week’s Better Call Saul, maybe I’ll catch a bit of the game. Or at least wait for a hot game alert notify me when it’s late in the second half.

At the bottom of scoreboard it identifies, with photo and Twitter handle, the editor on duty. Poor Evan Hilbert. He’s going to read some harsh tweets tomorrow morning when I realize he didn’t send one hot game alert and I missed the entire Tarheels/Blue Devils slugfest after I fell asleep on the couch.

The app filters news and scores by sport, too, so you’re not just stuck on Evan’s decision making. But compared to ESPN’s app, USA TODAY Sports is pared down. And that’s on purpose. This is for mobile use only. USA TODAY isn’t the multimedia behemoth that ESPN is. It doesn’t need to synergize apps and web and video. Its goal is simple with the app – to fulfill a niche. A niche for the itch of the can’t-miss-moments sports fan.

Carlos Rodon’s slider simultaneously giveth, taketh away.

Collegiate baseball possesses two compelling qualities even for those who, like the author, don’t have a vested interest in a particular school’s success on the field. For one, it offers the opportunity to consume actual baseball at a time when — like all of February and March, for example — at a time when the professional version of the game remains entirely too obscure. For two, it allows one to watch and become acquainted with no fewer than half the players who’ll be selected in the first round of the amateur draft in June.

White Sox left-hander Carlos Rodon, for example, was ranked eighth among all prospects by Kiley McDaniel this morning at our sister site, FanGraphs. Rodon’s repertoire includes a fastball that sits at 92-95 mph and, more impressively, a slider which, by some unusual property, has demonstrated the capacity to repair the ozone. At this time last year, however — months before he was selected third overall by Chicago — Rodon was throwing those sliders for NC State.

“That sounds excellent, but how does one find his or her way to such a game?” is a reasonable question to ask at this juncture — and one I’d like to answer poorly in what follows.

As a resident of a region in which college baseball isn’t widely available — or, at least, not available at the highest level — I’ve been forced to search for either television broadcasts or streaming video. The former is often more expensive than the latter.

If one’s interest is in having access to the greatest number of games for the least amount of money, CBS’s College Sports Live is the best option. It costs just $9.95 per month and is available as an app, as well, for iPad and iPhone and Android devices. As I documented at NotGraphs a couple years ago, I subscribed to an earlier version of this same service called ULive. College Sports Live features three distinct advantages over ULive: a more intuitive layout, accessibility on other devices, and price (ULive was $14.95 per month).

College Sports Live offers live games and on-demand replays.

This past weekend, I used College Sports Live to watch two ranked teams (Rice and Texas) play each other — and was also able to see possible first-round selection, Illinois left-hander Tyler Jay, make a start against Lamar University. While the feeds for both those games were reasonably strong in terms of video quality and camera angle, one is also at the mercy of the particular university’s resources so far as that’s concerned. A Virginia game featuring top collegiate pitcher Nathan Kirby was also available, but the main camera was an elevated, behind-the-plate one that lacked intimacy and provided almost no information regarding Kirby’s pitches.

I note in that review of ULive from three years ago that I chose to watch Stanford and Vanderbilt — and, indeed, the latter of those schools features probably the best team in all of college baseball at the moment. So far as I can tell, however, watching Vanderbilt by way of College Sports Live is impossible now, since the introduction of the SEC Network a couple years ago, the product of a partnership between the conference and ESPN.

WatchESPN’s college baseball content is largely provided by the SEC.

The SEC Network is available by way of most digital cable packages, but seems to require one of the more robust subscription levels from any given provider. To receive the SEC Network at my home would necessitate something called Digital Basic, for example, which costs roughly $95 per month. It does include access via WatchESPN online not only to all the normal programming found on the SEC Network, but also to SEC Network Plus, which offers feeds of games unavailable on the the actual channel. If one really is dedicated to the idea of watching of watching the best college baseball, ignoring the SEC poses some difficulties. Right-hander Walker Buehler, shortstop Dansby Swanson, and other shortstop Alex Bregman, for example, were all featured near the top of Kiley McDaniel’s way-too-early 2015 draft rankings — and all play for SEC schools.

The Stanford-Vanderbilt game would be impossible to watch on College Sports Live in 2015 for another reason: the conference to which the other school belongs also has its own network now. Nor is this unique at this point. In addition to the Pac-12 Network is also the Ivy League and even Southern Conference networks.

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)

Looking at my Venmo app the past couple weeks one might think that sports gambling in the US was legal. Gambling related debts have shown up frequently in my feed in the aftermath of the Super Bowl on the payments sharing app. But with the reintroduction of a bill to Congress that would make all online gambling illegal, bettors might want to start relabeling their Venmo gambling debts as “groceries.”

With sports gambling legal in only four states, the vast majority of wagers are placed with local bookmakers or offshore gambling sites. Mirroring Prohibition-era legislation and the US war on drugs, American gaming laws are puritanical, archaic, and often counterproductive. Some estimate only one percent of sports wagers are made legally and third-party “runners” often place bets at legal sportsbooks to launder money for criminals.

Which makes it odd that a group of Congressional Republicans would reintroduce a bill titled Restoration of the Wire Act (RAWA), named after the 1961 law criminalizing wagers made over wires. The legislation would outlaw online gaming, save for fantasy sports, which is exempted by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). Fantasy sports are classified as a game of skill (poker is somehow not), so it is legal at the federal level, with 40 states having laws on the books that follow suit.

You may have been able to surmise RAWA hasn’t been met with unified Republican support given this isn’t its first trip through Congress. In fact, in an interview earlier this year Senator John McCain said about legalized sports gambling, “We need a debate in Congress. We need to have a talk with the American people, and we need to probably have hearings in Congress on the whole issue (sports gambling) so we can build consensus.”

This coming after Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA, stepped forward in an op-ed for the New York Times, calling for Congress and other professional sports leagues to explore legalizing sports gambling, writing, “I believe that sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.” Quickly getting past the irony of the fact that the NBA was the last pro sports league to have a point shaving scandal, Silver’s stance is more pragmatic than bold.

It turns out that casinos, who stand to benefit the most from a lack of competition, are the influencers behind the reintroduction of RAWA by Congressional Republicans. As Steven Silver of Above the Law Redline wrote, the ringleader behind the casino industry’s push to pass RAWA is Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino owner. Silver, a former sports reporter and lawyer, noted Adelson, “has openly admitted that he would be willing ‘to spend whatever it takes’ to halt the spread of gambling over the Internet.”

Adelson has been using his deep pockets to influence US gaming legislation as well as to finance the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling, which, as the USA Today notes, “warns of children gambling on their smartphones and tablets.” This last bit is nothing more than laughable moralistic cover and obfuscation for the real issue at hand — protection of Adelson’s business interests.

Alison Siciliano, of the Coalition for Consumer and online protection said in response to the reintroduction of RAWA, “casino magnate Sheldon Adelson has relentlessly twisted the arms of members of Congress to pass an ill-conceived ban on Internet gaming.”

With fantasy sports apps like FanDuel and DraftKings predicted to handle more entry fees than all Las Vegas sports books combined by the end of this year, it’s easy why Adelson sees online gambling as a threat to casino gaming. However, with online gambling’s increasing popularity and power players like John McCain and Adam Silver sticking their necks out for legalization, it’s unlikely Sheldon Adelson will have enough firepower to shut down the entire enterprise.

(Header image via flickr)

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)

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)

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