NFL Launches "Game Rewind", Every Game On-Demand In HD With No Commercials

Today, the NFL launched a new video on-demand service called Game Rewind that lets you watch every NFL game in HD quality, with no commercials. The service, which costs $19.99 for the season or $4.99 for a week pass, also provides DVR functionality and lets you watch up to four games at once. While it is not known exactly how quickly games are made available after they end, for now the NFL is saying within 24 hours, but it is expected times will be much shorter. The NFL is using Move Networks for the service, which is the same technology partner used for the NFL's live video service called GamePass HD, available to those outside the U.S. As expected, the quality of video for Game Rewind is amazing and the NFL kept the interface clean and simple.
http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2008/12/nfl-launches-game-rewind-every-game-ondemand-in-hd-with-no-commercials.html

http://www.nfl.com/gamerewind

Kongzhong.com Launches New Mobile NBA Game

Kongzhong.com, a long-established value-added telecom service provider in China, lately launched the Dreaming NBA, a mobile phone-oriented Web game, with big fanfare. The company hoped the new hit would help it chart a new path to sales in the mobile phone game market. At the moment, Web games and mobile phone games have been gaining popularity in China. Unlike traditional games, Dreaming NBA is dependent on instant sport games. Players can get initial operation capital after they register as team managers. And the game is tied up with the real NBA games. Kongzhong.com will grand prizes to winners after each round of games. On top of that, players can establish their own teams and join competition among players. Experts and game players are bullish on the new game for its innovative playing mode and they believe that the new game will make a hit.
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-kongzhongcom-launches-new-handset-game-/2008/12/09/3843045.htm

Reebok Holding Online/Txt Message "Lost" Contest for Winter Classic

Reebok is mounting a watch-and-win promotion during NBC’s telecast of the NHL’s Winter Classic on New Year’s Day, when the Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings play the Chicago Blackhawks outdoors at Wrigley Field. The “Lost Logo Challenge” asks TV viewers and the 40,000 expected at the game to find the lone NHL player without a Reebok logo on his jersey. TV viewers can enter the challenge online, while attendees will be given Reebok and Winter Classic branded binoculars and be able to text in their entries. All entrants naming the correct player will be entered into a random drawing, with two winners receiving trips to the Stanley Cup Finals for four. Non-winning entrants get discounts on Reebok merchandise. It’s no coincidence that Reebok wants to draw attention to the jerseys, as both teams will debut retro uniforms from Reebok at the game. The Blackhawks will wear jerseys first seen in 1935, while the Red Wings will don sweaters from 1926. The size of the Winter Classic merchandise selection, much of it from Reebok, has doubled this year, and includes outerwear, fleece, caps, gloves and scarves. It will be largely available online and in the Detroit and Chicago markets.
http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/60871

MLBAM Lays Off 3-4% Of Work Force, Will Reduce Prices For '09

paidContent has learned that Major League Baseball Advanced Media laid off 20 of its 400-plus staff today, roughly 3-4 percent, with original programming taking the biggest hit. At the same time, MLBAM head Bob Bowman told me the digital arm of Major League Baseball will reduce its prices for 2009. “We have a divided loyalty to our fans and to our employees ... We need to do our level best for our fans and for the coming year, we have to lower our prices. To balance against that, if we’re going to lower price and revenue, we’re going to have to lower costs.” He expects prices to drop at least 20 percent but said the final numbers had yet to be decided. The standard monthly subscription was $14.95 this year; the minimum cut would take it to roughly $12. Instead, Bowman said MLBAM will shift its priorities to what it does best and the fans’ number-one choice—live game coverage, not early-morning live programming. The live game day starts around 1 p.m.: “The focus will be on those 12 hours.”
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-mlbam-lays-off-20-savings-will-help-offset-price-reductions-on-subscrip/

NBA to Hand RSNs Broadband Streaming Rights

The NBA is about to become the first professional sports league in America to allow regional sports networks to control local digital rights, a sign that the league believes that teams and their media partners are better suited to delivering digital content locally than the league office. League executives are working on deals with regional sports networks representing 29 of the 30 teams. The deals will allow most of the 29 regional sports networks with NBA team deals to roll out video-on-demand and some broadband services after the All-Star Game in mid-February. More significant is that local in-market streaming rights of live games are included in the packages, though no live games are expected to be streamed locally this season. The breakthrough in the digital rights package comes as part of a larger five-year deal that regional sports networks will sign with the NBA to renew their extended market rights.
http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/60855

Sports Leagues Get Online Boost from Black Friday

Around pro sports, Black Friday was a good day. The NFL recorded an 85 percent increase in sales at NFLShop.com on Black Friday compared to 2007, making the day the league’s third highest grossing sales day. The biggest day was yesterday (Thanksgiving Sunday), followed by Thanksgiving Sunday in 2007. The best sellers since Thanksgiving? Brett Favre’s replica men’s green jersey and youth green jersey, followed by Giants-custom hooded sweatshirts and Eli Manning’s replica men’s blue jersey. Meanwhile, the NBA said its online store recorded its best Black Friday sales ever, more than doubling last year’s figures. Sales at NBAStore.com were up 95 percent for the full weekend. Together, sales at the online store and at the NBA Store in Manhattan rose a combined 38 percent from last year. Chris Paul’s jersey was the top seller over the weekend, followed by NBA team logoed T-shirts. And the league kicked off a 12 days of deals promotion at NBAStore.com today. A new discount will be announced each day. MLB.com, which sold select jerseys at 40 percent off, said sales were up 25 percent compared with 2007.
http://blogs.trb.com/sports/custom/business/blog/

Sports Retailers Look for Cyber Monday Boost with Online Specials

MLB.com and NFLShop.com are both offering one-day Cyber Monday sales today. The NFL runs a full-page ad in USA Today in support of its sale, which includes discounts from 15-25% (THE DAILY). MLB.com Shop offers a 25% discount on all merchandise between noon and 5:00pm ET today. The National Retail Federation said that it expects 84.6 million adults to shop online today “from either home or work, up from 72 million last year”
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=tdi.morningBuzz

United Football League Launch Official Website

The league also has launch a new Web site at www.ufl-football.com. In January, the UFL will announce cities, owners and stadiums. Some cities that are in final negotiations and/or are being discussed by the UFL to house a franchise include Hartford, Las Vegas, L.A., Monterrey, Mexico, N.Y., Orlando, Salt Lake City and S.F. The UFL also is in negotiations with a national sports cable network for a weekly national primetime game (UFL).
http://www.ufl-football.com/

Jacked Inks Deal with NBA to Offer Sportstop Application on Team, RSN Sites

Jacked has struck a deal with the NBA in which its online game-viewing application, SportsTop, will be integrated into the Web sites of participating teams and rightsholding RSNs and populated by official content such as highlight videos and ticketing links. The deal, built around a revenue share of advertising funds, is the first season-long pact with a major pro league for Jacked, whose interactive SportsTop synchronizes with live sports telecasts by offering up a real-time stream of stats, news feeds, photos, chat windows, merchandise links and other content. Jacked, while supporting thousands of games on an independent basis, also has worked officially with NBC for Notre Dame football, KCAL-TV for Lakers basketball, the Big Ten Network, and Versus, NBC and the NHL during last spring’s Stanley Cup Finals, among others. The NBA deal will exploit Jacked’s geotargeting technology that will differentiate visitors by their IP address and serve advertising and content accordingly, “This does a number of things for us, and for the NBA,” said Jacked CEO Bryan Biniak. “This helps advance the geotargeting, it bottles our experience and redistributes it within the team and RSN sites, and allows us to be a proxy for the clubs for national advertising.”
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=archive.printArticle&articleId=125819

NFL Looking Into Legal Options Against Skyfire for Mobile Streaming of Free NFL Games

There is a new cellphone web browser that can be downloaded called Skyfire that enables Windows-based and certain Nokia model cellphones to pick up streaming video, including NFL Network games on Thursday nights and NBC games on Sunday nights. The NFL had recently announced a deal to allow Sprint to offer to its wireless customers the NFL Network telecasts via what was called an "exclusive NFL Mobile Live" application. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said the league's legal department is "aware" of Skyfire. "We are exploring our legal options in regards to several different platforms," McCarthy said. Tracy Demiroz, vice president of the Mountain View, Calif.-based Skyfire, said users who can get the free Skyfire download on their cellphones are able to pick up anything broadcast or streamed live on PCs. Demiroz said that she was unaware of any legal concerns the NFL might have. "In terms of blocking what is freely available on PCs, I'm not sure under what grounds the NFL would have that is feasible," Demiroz said.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-media21-2008nov21,0,97511.story

MLB.com Goes Back To Adobe Flash After Flirtation With Microsoft’s Silverlight

Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the digital arm of MLB, is dropping Microsoft’s Silverlight after a year, for a return to Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) Flash beginning in 2009. MLBAM gave Silverlight a boost when it switched from Adobe Flash in 2007 as part of the media player’s launch. But MLBAM’s Bob Bowman says the Adobe Flash Platform better matches its needs. During an interview after the announcement, he held off on any comments about Silverlight, saying only ”our experience with Silverlight has led us to where we are.” Instead, he described why a two-year deal with Adobe makes sense now: “We did it because we serve up more live video than anybody.” Bowman said MLBAM needs something flexible and reliable. “Turn it on and it works.” It needs to be scalable to support hundreds of thousands of simultaneous viewers and it needs to provide “more than just video.” Asked if there was an economic advantage to opting for Adobe, Bowman said no. The deal includes all of MLBAM’s live and on-demand video offerings beginning in 2009 and an MLB-developed app using Adobe AIR to make features available outside the browser. The release spells out “statistics and highlights” outside the browser so it doesn’t sound like full games are going to be delivered that way.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-mlbam-goes-back-to-adobe-flash-after-flirtation-with-microsofts-silverl/

NFL Asks Sports Fans to Vote on Next Super Bowl Ad

The National Football League will unleash a TV spot this weekend to encourage online voting on its Web site dedicated to the Super Bowl, NFL.com/SuperAd. The spot, a collaborative effort between NFL Films and BBDO, New York, is a spinoff of last year's NFL Super Bowl ad starring teammates Chester Pitts and Ephraim Salaam. The NFL is once again asking consumers to select their favorite player's life story, and the winning pitch will be used in an upcoming NFL Super Bowl ad. NFL.com/SuperAd currently features life stories of 210 players. The polls will remain open starting today through Dec. 17.
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/promotion/e3i60b39c4b57a9d7750dc1ad54bb0e8b97

http://superad.nfl.com/

NFLshop.com Goes After Women

NFLshop.com is trying a different approach this holiday season. Instead of tapping into its predominantly male audience, the National Football League's e-commerce arm will go after female shoppers, who make up the majority of the site's business this time of year. While the online shopping demographic usually skews 70 percent male and 30 percent female on NFLshop.com, around Christmas the numbers flip, said Bob O'Keefe, who oversees NFL Direct, the sports organization's database of 25 million fans. Last year, 60 percent of the site's shoppers were women during the holidays, per the company. "When we looked at where the growth was coming from, the holiday portion of it was growing at a faster rate than the non-holiday portion," O'Keefe said. NFLshop.com's sales were up 46 percent overall in 2007, but sales during the holidays (Nov.-Dec.) increased 100 percent, per the NFL. Company research showed that the seasonal spike in sales came from gift givers, leading the NFL to alter its marketing message. New ads, via BBDO, New York, reflect the change. A spot that is now running on major networks, including CBS, Fox, ESPN and the NFL Network, shows a male sports fan opening up a gift from his wife. The man digs into his present so eagerly that he cuts his index finger and a green and yellow foamy substance oozes out—mimicking the official colors of his favorite team. He then pulls a jersey (of the same color) out of the box and hugs his wife. Voiceover concludes: "This holiday season, give them what they bleed for." The TV spot's debut on Sunday resulted in a 260 percent spike in online sales for the day.
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/digital/e3i2dd2f2ead332946a27fbf45711a1796f

NASCAR Sponsorship Being Sold on eBay

Hard economic times continue to take a toll on professional sports, an industry once thought recession-proof. But nobody's had it worse than NASCAR, as the circuit's drivers continue to hemhorrhage sponsors while fans struggle to get to the track, thanks to escalating gas prices and travel costs. "It costs about $25 million to be the primary sponsor of a car," wrote SI.com's Lars Anderson earlier this month, "and in this harsh economic climate the competition among owners to attract sponsors is every bit as fierce as the paint trading on the track." In this survival-of-the-fittest environment, one marketing company is getting creative with its approach. Racing Aces Marketing is selling the sponsorship rights for J.J. Yeley's race car on popular auction site eBay. The auction was posted this morning with a Buy It Now price of $12,000,000.00, more than a 50 percent discount according to Anderson's figures. (And no payments until 2009 with an eBay MasterCard!)
http://www.fannation.com/si_blogs/for_the_record/posts/16361

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360099542034

Tom Group, NBA Partner On Chinese Web Sites; Free Live Games Online Daily During Regular Season

The NBA’s digital reach in China is getting a Yao Ming-sized boost from a new deal with Tom Group. The multi-year pact between NBA China and Tom Group means expanded content for NBA.com/China, NBA.com/Taiwan and NBA.com/Hongkong. The China and HongKong siteswill show a live NBA game every day of the regular season—free, with play-by-play in Chinese. Other aspects include live halftime highlights in real time; social network features; personalization; and—a first for Asia—a live daily half-hour highlight show produced by Tom for all three sites and as a prime-time show on CETV. Tom claims 100 million users, 200 million wireless users and 70 million TOM-Skype users.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-tom-group-nba-partner-on-chinese-web-sites-live-games-online-daily-duri/

20 Most Influential In Digital Sports

The Sports Business Journal is out with their list of the 20 most influential figures in digital sports media:
#1, John Kosner, SVP/GM, digital media, ESPN

#2, Bob Bowman, president and CEO, MLBAM

#3, Perkins Miller, SVP-digital media, NBC Sports

#4, Brian Rolapp, SVP-digital media, NFL

#5, Jimmy Pitaro, VP/GM, *Yahoo!* Sports & Entertainment

The rest of the top 10 in order: Jeff Price, president, SI Digital: Ted Leonsis, majority owner, Washington Capitals; Jason Kint, SVP/GM, CBSSports.com, Lenny Daniels, SVP-sports production and new media, Turner Sports; Chris Russo, Fantasy Sports Ventures.

11-20: André Mika, SVP, NHL; Paul Johnson, SVP, PGA Tour; Charles Wang, majority owner, New York Islanders, chairman, NeuLion; Shannon Terry, CEO, Rivals.com; Artie Bulgrin, SVP-research and sales development, ESPN; Bryan Perez, SVP, NBA Digital; Jeff Husvar, SVP, Fox Sports Interactive; Derrick Heggans, GM, AOL Sports; Ed Baker,publisher, Sporting News; James Dolan, chairman, Madison Square Garden LP.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-sbjs-20-most-influential-in-digital-sports-kosner-bowman-miller-lead/
http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/60287

NY Times Criticizes New NHL.com

NHL.com underwent its annual redesign over the summer, and when it made its debut just before the start of the regular season it looked impressive. More visual than text driven, or so some reviews would have you believe. But judging by the first few nights of the season, I’m quite certain that a few stirring words would help what appears to be a static visual presentation. The score ribbon on the home page rarely reflected what was going on. At least 30 minutes after the first games were completed on Friday night, the score ribbon would have led visitors to NHL.com to believe that the games were in the second period, if not early in the third. It gets worse when you get to the scores page. Last season, a visitor had the option of 30- or 60-second automatic-refresh updates, or none at all. Now, you get nothing and like it unless you hit the refresh button. And good luck getting an accurate update even then. I scrapped my use of NHL.com on one computer, while keeping it on my laptop. On the big G5 Mac, I tested the scoreboard pages of ESPN.com and Yahoo!Sports NHL, both of which were far superior to that of NHL.com. OK, so if you are keeping score, that’s two strikes. And if you ask why I am using baseball terminology for a hockey Web site, it’s because the periods seemed to stand still on the league’s Web scoreboard, seemingly a full period the same game I was watching on television. (UPDATE: as of 6:32 pm EDT on Saturday, the box for the Capitals/Thrashers game still isn’t complete. Try to find the time of the Donald Brashear/Zach Bogosian penalties in the third period. Not there on NHL.com.) Eventually, even the real-time scoreboards started to stall.
http://slapshot.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/the-bunker-nhlcom-looks-nice-but/?scp=1&sq=NHL.com&st=cse

Judge Says NY Rangers Victory in NHL Lawsuit Over Websites Unlikely

MSG won the right to continue its antitrust lawsuit against the NHL, but it faces a “tall order” in its effort to prove its case, U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska ruled late Friday. Preska dismissed a portion of the MSG suit objecting to the league’s rules prohibiting the Rangers from selling team merchandise outside its home arena, broadcasting games outside of their local area, and using virtual signage during game broadcasts. But the judge allowed the new media portion of the suit to continue, even as she expressed doubts MSG could win. “To be sure, MSG faces a tall order in making its case,” Preska wrote. “This Court has already observed that agreements among parents of a joint venture not to compete in the market in which a joint venture operates have generally been upheld.” Despite that warning, MSG plans to continue with the new media portion of the lawsuit, which focuses on the league’s rule preventing teams from operating their own Web sites independent from the NHL’s common platform. In a statement, MSG said, "We are pleased the court recognized the validity of our fundamental claims and will continue to pursue the legal process through final resolution.” NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly: “The court's ruling reinforces once more our belief that MSG's claims lack any basis in fact or law. While we believe the parties would be far better served to devote their time and resources to more productive endeavors, the league and the clubs are committed to doing whatever is necessary to confirm our rights.”
By Tripp Mickle, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal

NHL Launches GameCenter Live Streaming Video Service, Free Trial All Weekend

The National Hockey League (NHL) on Thursday launched GameCenter Live, its new online subscription service that stream live NHL games. The league is offering a free trial of the service this weekend, for the season's opening games. Available for $159 for the whole season, or in monthly installments of $19.95, the service is targeted at both avid fans and what the NHL said are the nearly 50% of fans who live away from their favorite team's local television market and would enjoy more access. GameCenter Live does have some blackout restrictions, but allows users to view up to four games at once, choose from multiple camera angles, check stats and chat with one another.
http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2008/10/09/nhl-launches-gamecenter-live-streaming-video-service

MLB Makes Postseason Games Available Online—But Only To Customers In Airports

Major League Baseball postseason games will be available live online in U.S. for the first time, but there’s a catch and it’s, well… major. Access will be limited to 23 participating airports as a special four-hour pass to the “Airport Edition” of MLB.tv. Moreover, the $4 four-hour pass will only provide access to the division series and American League Championship Series games. TBS, a partner on the deal, doesn’t have national broadcast rights for the National League series. MLB.tv subscribers will, however, gain access any postseason game from the site’s on-demand archives. One last catch: the offer’s only available to Boingo customers who are logged into their Wi-Fi subscription at one of the 23 airports. So baseball fans who might have their own internet access will still have to purchase a one-time access to Boingo’s Wi-Fi network, which has more than 100,000 hotspots worldwide at airports, hotels, cafés and metropolitan areas.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-mlb-makes-some-postseason-games-available-online-at-23-airports/