The NBA just agreed to a 4-year deal with fantasy website FanDuel according to both TechCrunch and ESPN. For daily fantasy players, this means FanDuel will be the exclusive website to get your hoops fix at. Already on the NBA Fantasy site you can be linked to FanDuel and expect the association to promote it on their apps as well as their streaming ads and commercials.

Currently FanDuel offers both free and pay-to-win leagues. The prizes for these range from cash to game tickets to merchandise. Now with the association in their pockets, FanDuel and the NBA, along with money from venture groups such as Shamrock Capital Advisors and NBC Sports Ventures, will be able to reach and attract even more customers.The growth in the daily fantasy industry is on a massive rise, as FanDuel has increased by 650,000 paying players in the past three months after never before having even a third of that many in a single quarter. FanDuel claims they project to make approximately $600 million in entry fees this calendar year while handing back $540 million in prizes.

While this is new territory for the NBA as a whole, five teams had prior deals with FanDuel; the Brooklyn Nets, New York Knicks, Orlando Magic, Dallas Mavericks and Chicago Bulls. The move also includes NBA league executive Sal La Rocca as a FanDuel board member, further strengthening the ties between the two entities.

With competitor DraftKings snapping up the NHL, this deal makes sense for FanDuel. Given the massive interest and ease of use for daily fantasy leagues, it appears as though both FanDuel and DraftKings will the main entities of daily leagues going forward. With both sides throwing around millions of dollars, the money is driving even more attention to fantasy sports.

(Image credit to NBA.com) 

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.

(Header image via John Biehler)

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.

(Header image via Piotr Drabik)

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.

(Header image via Keith Allison)

If you’re jonesing for some baseball — and who isn’t? — then fear not sports citizen, as there will be live professional baseball being played tonight! Technically it will air at 4 am E.T., so it is tomorrow morning, but the point remains. Major League Baseball kicks off the Japan exhibition games with the opening match set for tonight.

The game will consist of MLB All-Stars going against a collection of players from the Hanshin Tigers and Yomiuri Giants. Following that game, a five-game series pitting the MLB All-Stars against the Japanese national team, Samurai Japan, will begin and the tour will close with a final exhibition game. Rather than squaring off against the Japanese All-Stars again, the MLB players will be thrown up against the national team due to the Nippon Professional Baseball commissioner wanting the national club to gain experience heading into the 2017 World Baseball Classic.

Current MLB.TV subscribers will have access to all of the games or one can pay the 24.99 for the off-season package which includes every regular season and playoff game as well. With the off-season package also including over 200 spring training games, if you haven’t subscribed yet, you ought to. If you’re unable to catch the middle-of-the-night games or don’t want to pay extra to view the online stream, MLB Network will re-air the games at 9 pm E.T. the same day.

An interesting note is while the game will be broadcasted on television in Japan, current MLB.TV subscribers in Japan will not deal with any blackout restrictions. There has never been a blackout policy for countries other than the United States and Canada, however given the probable high television ratings these games could bring, it is curious — yet encouraging — to see the league take a more passive stance on blackouts.

Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell and 29 All-Stars will look to repeat the perfect record MLB had in 2006, the only other time a five-game series was played between the two leagues as well as the most recent. Three of those five games were decided by two runs or less and hopefully the games this year will be just as exciting.

(Image credit to MLB.com)

$750,000 in prize money — more than Xander Bogearts made this year and more than twice as much as Anthony Rendon made —  is up for grabs this weekend at BlizzCon. The annual expo put on by video game developer Blizzard Entertainment, BlizzCon, marks the start of the weekend’s world championship matches and for the first time the games will be live-streamed to ESPN3 as well as Twitch.TV. BlizzCon starts today and has been long host to championship world finals for Blizzard from StarCraft II to World of Warcraft. This year the company has also included their new latest project, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, and posted a total prize pool of a $250,000 for each game.

The ESPN3 schedule was tweeted out yesterday afternoon and will include an impressive array of viewing options for all three games today, starting at 12:45 eastern.

According to ESPN3’s schedule, they will also show the  matches leading up to and including the grand finals for each game tomorrow.

If you happen to be interested in more than the in-game action, there is the option to purchase the virtual ticket for BlizzCon, granting access to Q&A panels, exclusive previews and the ability to re-watch sections at a later date for the people who are too busy to sit and watch a stream for 10 hours.

Given ESPN’s recent backing of esports with their partnership between MLG and the X Games it should be no surprise to see even more events being streamed via ESPN3. With the general acceptance of esports rapidly growing — including professional players getting not just student visas to stay in the United States, but full on athlete visas — and the increased ease of access to live games via streaming services, expect more esports events to be shown to a wider audience.

As recently as October, we mused about the possibilities of augmented reality in sports, and I concluded with a brief story about some strange display technology my grandfather encountered in the 1960s — a device that could purportedly display 3D images without 3D goggles. I have always had trouble conceptualizing that idea. How to you make light stop mid air? How can you create a hologram without some sort mist or substance to reflect the light in transit? Well, I dunno. Maybe it’s not possible.

And maybe this:

This technology could be significant in many ways. It could illuminate the ball path for a touchdown throw, a three-pointer or a fastball on the outside edge for fans in the stadium (not to mention umpires and referees). It could show a glowing yellow line for the first down marker that more than just the audience at home could see. It could change the role of a scoreboard as we know it.

Obviously, glittering dots in the sky are a long way away from an illuminated pitch tracker. But computers went from singing Daisy to World is Mine, this, in under 60 years. We cannot say where this current technology can and will end.

For those keeping score at home, go ahead and add Showtime to list of companies for cord cutters to support. On an earnings call on Wednesday, CBS — parent company of Showtime — CEO Leslie Moonves stated standalone Showtime will be available in 2015 “fairly definitively.” The news was first reported by Julia Boorstin, editor of CNBC’s Media Money, and this move by Showtime is coming off the heels of a similar move by competitor HBO.

Though it may not be a hard “yes!” CBS already has a large online infrastructure in place. With their CBS All-Access (available for 5.99 per month) and free CBSN site/app that launched today, the company is clearly headed in new direction.

Be it championship boxing, 60 Minutes Sports or any of their sports documentaries, there is no shortage of quality programming for fans on Showtime. As more and more people decide to move away from dozens — if not hundreds — of unused television channels, it’s encouraging to see the content producing companies shift as well.

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.

Once more ESPN is partnering up with esports and Major League Gaming, again at a venue for the X Games. After the successful MLG debut at this year’s June X Games where Call of Duty: Ghosts was the game, this time the showcase for esports will be Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Both X Games and MLG executives were thrilled with June’s turnout and used that success to parlay this new venture. Tim Reed, senior director of X Games content strategy was quoted as saying:

We took a big step in creating a broader experience for our fans in Austin, with the new gaming event, the music festival and other interactive activities and content on site, and now we’re working to extend that to Aspen.

MLG President and co-founder Mike Sespo echoed a similar sentiment, telling ESPN

Our fan base was really electrified with the idea of having MLG competitions at the X Games and having our pro players earn X Games medals in Austin, where it was a tremendous success. We’re thrilled to announce that Austin wasn’t a one-off.

The 2015 Aspen X Games will take place from January 23-25 and will feature eight different qualified CS:GO teams. The original version of Counter-Strike debuted in 1999 as a Half-Life modification and different versions of the game have been in global competition since the early 2000’s.

After personally played CS 1.5 and 1.6 at a decently-high level, I can say I am thrilled to see CS:GO continue to gain steam. Despite being out for over two years, only recently has Global Offensive began to meet the previous high water marks in popularity of the Counter-Strike 1.5 and 1.6 — early-to-mid 2000’s — heyday.

If you plan on being in the crowd at Aspen, there is one downside: the esports section will be the only non-free admission area. The limited seating forces a premium to view CS:GO in person, however live streams will be available at MLG.tv as well as highlights on ESPN and ABC broadcasts. Tickets are currently available and the $100 price tag includes benefits such as reserved seating, a behind-the-scenes-tour and a gift bag full of MLG goodies. For a three-day weekend of live esports action, the price isn’t outlandish.

Continuing the merge of MLG and X Games events could very well continue, as Sespo told reporters

This is a dream partnership and we’ve always thought MLG and X Games would be a really good match. Austin was a very successful experiment where we learned that these sports play well together and that we can dramatically open up the audience on both sides of the partnership.

Over the years MLG has proven to be a stable platform for displaying esports to a greater population. The continued support of ESPN and the X Games will extend MLG’s reach even further.

(Header image via Piotr Drabik)