Posts filed under 'sports'
September 16th, 2008, 01:38pm
As October draws near, and the temperature begins to drop, hockey fans anxiously await the opening game(s) of the NHL season; but for CBC viewers what song will be played during the opening broadcast? For over 40 years the “Hockey Night in Canada” theme song has permeated through Canadian living rooms and sports bars, signaling “game time.” However, at the beginning of June, the rights to the infamous jingle were sold to the CTV-owned TSN. (In other words; a canuck crisis).
In search of an anthem, CBC looked to the best possible source….hockey fans themselves, launching “Canada’s Hockey Anthem Challenge.” Just to prove that Canada is the hockey nation, even in the middle of the summer, hockey fans from across the country rose to the challenge, with more than 14,000 submissions received by the August 31 deadline.
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July 24th, 2008, 02:38pm
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A few weeks ago, my colleague Ben Letalik wrote about the MLB in his weekly Wikinomics Report Card. This Tuesday, the MLB announced that it began installing IBM software “to exploit the next generation of the Internet.”
“The IBM WebSphere Portal software architecture allows us to consolidate information from a variety of sources. It enables collaboration within our user community and provides a strong platform for future growth and development,” said Mike Morris, Vice President of Application Development and Program Management for MLB.
The immediate use of the software will help umpires officiate the game better by providing insights on player behaviors, weather conditions, statistics, and other key information.
“Major League Baseball has vaulted into the Web 2.0 era with powerful collaboration technology that puts the power of the World Wide Web and technology specialists into the hands of the baseball experts,” said Bob Picciano, General Manager, IBM Lotus Software.
I am hoping that, with the introduction of IBM’s software, the MLB becomes more transparent on issues concerning the game such as steroids and the idea of having instant replay. I can see how umpires will benefit from having player statistics and behavior tendencies instantly given to them. Maybe later when the software is integrated into the MLB culture, the umpires well have the opportunity to receive instant replay on a screen, so that human error can be reduced. It’s good to see that such a large part of American culture is beginning to understand the need to collaborate, especially such a large multi-billion dollar business.
I am interested to see if the NFL, MLS, NBA, or NHL decides to follow baseball’s footsteps.
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March 7th, 2008, 03:49pm
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“We don’t have a monopoly on baseball knowledge,” says Sig Mejdal, the Cardinals’ senior quantitative analyst who helped create the contest. “Just looking at the fan sites and posting boards, you see an amazing amount of energy. Why not harness it?”
Why not indeed! So what this senior quantitative analyst has done (as reported in the WSJ) is create a “One for the Birds” contest, where fans are invited to file 300-word recommendations for players at small, non Division 1 schools. The fan who sends in the most compelling recommendation, whether the player ends up being drafted or not, gets a tip to St.Louis and a couple of sets of ball tickets.
I have to thank Joseph P. at River Ave Blues for pointing this story out, and catching me up on a couple of other wikinomics-related stories tied to baseball that I had missed or forgotten. Read More »
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February 1st, 2008, 03:05pm
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So it’s Friday before the Super Bowl, and you know what that means - hundreds of thousands of people pretending to work while getting the latest updates on what Bridget Moynahan may or may not have done to Tom Brady’s ankle, arguing about whether we’re going to see the “Manning Face” early in the game, and - of course - whether SpyGate will be an anecdote or an asteriks on New England’s potentially historic season.
Now on the SpyGate thing (I know this has nothing to do with the title of this post and is a little outdated, so you can skip the next few paragraphs and I won’t be offended), I’m on the side that thinks it got a little overblown, but there is still something very, very fishy about it.
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January 21st, 2008, 05:28pm
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When it comes to sports, ESPN has long been the dominant brand. When it comes to finding information online, Google has pretty much taken over. So if you want to find sports news online, where do you go? Yahoo of course!
As Fast Company reports on in their February issue, Yahoo!Sports is the most visited sports site on the web, which is quite a remarkable story if you think about it - and one that seems to deserve a lot of attention from those trying to figure out the rules for competition in the Web 2.0.
Personally, I think the #1, #2, and #3 reasons are the success of Yahoo! Fantasy sports, which the article notes controls almost 60% of the Fantasy Sports market. I think this because I know an extraordinary number of people addicted to Fantasy Sports games, they check out their teams very, very regularly, and as long as the sports news is connected to these pages the story kind of tells itself. Regular readers may remember Naumi’s post from last year, which offered a brief discussion of some of the lessons we can learn from fantasy sports.
Side note - between finishing that last paragraph and starting the next one, I went and checked the up-to-the-minute basketball scores in order to estimate how my team is doing today. OK, fine - how my teams are doing today. About 20 minutes had passed since I last checked. I continue to amaze myself by how… what’s the term I’m looking for here… pathetically and hopelessly addicted I am to these little games. But winning makes it all worth it. So I’m told.
Back to the main story line - there are also other interesting things to look at in relation to the growth of Yahoo! Sports. For example, the company has simutaneously been growing it’s collaborative communities (particularly in relation to group sports blogs), while also hiring the likes of Kenny Smith (ex NBA player) to write articles as part of an editorial staff that’s gone from 4 to about 50. Many, many companies have went down one of these roads, but few have found a way to pursue both in parallel in a successful way. Might the balance Yahoo! is striking here be useful for upstarts that can get a little blinded by the hypeelement surrounding the Web 2. 0, which leads them to adopting the former approach in isolation?
I imagine there are a lot of other pieces to this story, and I might just lobby Don to let me investigate them in depth for a future research project to see if there’s any surprises lying beneath the surface - can anyone think of any hypotheses off the top of their head?
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October 30th, 2007, 04:38pm
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In honour of the first day of the NBA season, I thought I’d share an interesting development in the world of data analysis in sports. This isn’t a new development, but in the context of the enormous growth in video content over the past two years, I think it’s very significant.
Synergy Sports Technology has used some next level meta-tagging to correlate hundreds of thousands of hours of video to almost every basketball stat imaginable, creating the first (to my knowledge) searchable video database of this magnitude.
Imagine being able to search for “behind the back assists by Nash” or “angry dunks by Bosh” and pulling up every video clip ever recorded. A boon for coaches, Synergy is currently catering its offering to the NBA, but the possibilities for growth are endless. Professional sports teams are increasingly scientific in their approach and this type of video indexing provides access to insights not previously available. Need to stop Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki in the next home game? Now coaches can give defensive assignments to players using a video iPod filled with every offensive play Nowitzki has ever made.
Consider this: In its inaugural 2005-06 season, Synergy only had four teams on board; the two teams that reached the finals – the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat – happened to be Synergy clients. Last season, 14 teams were clients, and this year the company considering expanding into other sports.
For me, this is a development akin to when CDs first came on the market to eventually kill the cassette tape. At that time, the killer feature that made me switch was being able to skip to a track at the touch of a button. Video currently suffers from the same shortcoming as tape – viewers have to fast-forward or rewind to find the specific clip they are looking for.
Google-like control over video would be a YouTuber’s dream. Of course, the downside is that tagging must still be done manually. Synergy employees still sit through each game’s video footage and painstakingly link every stat available to its corresponding clip.
For more insights on the Synergy offering, read last year’s press coverage in CNET and the article from the New York Times. From the CNET article:
Across the sports landscape, professional teams are taking a more scientific approach to running their businesses. With so much money on the line, executives and coaches who often relied on hunches and gut instincts are starting to do what nearly every other industry already does–make decisions based on hard data.[...]
“The infrastructure of the Net has gotten to where it can now support these kinds of models,” Lahr said. “We couldn’t have done this just a few years ago.”
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October 26th, 2007, 03:42pm
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Despite being a long-time Toronto Raptors fan, it’s taken me until this season to join an online fantasy basketball league. Now I’m hooked. For those not familiar with the concept, fantasy sport sites allow groups of people to form online leagues and draft their own “fantasy” teams from real-life players in a major sports league. Throughout the year, players’ stats are updated using results from actual games. There’s usually money involved and teams can monitor stats, adjust their line-up of players, make trades, and “trash-talk” with fellow members of their fantasy league.
The sophistication and growth in popularity of these leagues is impressive. According to a Wikipedia entry, “19.4 million people age 12 and above in the U.S. and Canada play fantasy sports and 34.5 million people have ever played fantasy sports.” Further, “Fantasy Sports is estimated to have a $3-$4 billion annual economic impact across the sports industry.”
My first foray into the world of fantasy sports has opened the doors to an unimaginable wonderland of statistical analysis, renewed my passion for the sport of basketball (beyond my myopic espousal of a single ‘home team’), and given me the opportunity to interact with my peers through a new social medium. There are some clear lessons here for students of Wikinomics.
Real-time reporting. Fantasy sports Web sites have mastered the art of collecting, analysing, and disseminating information in a usable manner. They offer customizable dashboards, side-by-side comparisons of players and teams, and tips from experts to guide decision making. Wouldn’t it be great if government services and enterprises had the same kind of statistical reporting and advice? Imagine being able to select a hospital in the area based on the average wait time at a given moment in time. How about “drafting” an area school from a database that tracked performance indicators like average class size, number of after-school programs, and percent of students that become college grads? The same approach could be used when deciding which city to live in – what are the crime rates, average housing prices, number of parks per capita, air quality levels, commute times, and employment rates of Toronto vs. San Francisco? For enterprises, imagine if the same type of dashboards and reporting tools were leveraged when deciding on different products, suppliers, and marketing promotions: Process A not as good as process B; make a trade. An alternate supplier just got new high-performance equipment; move them to the starting line-up. The latest ad campaign is a dud; bench it. Thinking about entering a new market; get online advice from an expert.
Distributing the brand experience. Marketing 2.0 involves extending the user experience across a diverse set of media. Fantasy sport does just that. By adding an element of gaming, professional sports leagues are involving users more deeply with their brands (players and teams). A friend of mine recently went as far as to say, “fantasy sports have saved sports.” While this may be a bit overstated, it’s not a far stretch. While fantasy sports may not sell more tickets at arenas and stadiums, they do create a reason for fans to watch more sports games and follow players’ activity online (the chart below shows this relationship – football and baseball seem to be most affected in the U.S.).
Creating a social network. This is an obvious one – fantasy leagues are social networks. They pull together a diverse group of individuals with a common interest, allow users to create profiles, and provide a platform for messaging and posting information. Some leagues even have draft parties and other game-time events, taking the online experience offline.
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September 10th, 2007, 04:40pm
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As I’m prone to do on a Monday afternoon… ok, every afternoon… I popped over to the Sports Guy’s page, this time to see if he had anything to say about New England’s rather commanding victory on Sunday. He did, it’s as gushing as any long time reader would expect, and he’s also unveiled an entirely revamped home page under the link title of the Sports Guy’s World 2.0.
Seeing this (and particularly the 2.0) gave me a great idea - if I could work up a little post that ties to this launch, I could justify spending the afternoon on his site in the name of research, so I’ve done just that. Otherwise, I would have had to write about the other big story on the web today, which of course is Britney’s VMA performance, and no one should ever want to hear about or see that again.
But pushing that terrible visual to the side, The Sports Guy is truly a great story that ties to the growth of the web and wikinomics. As he’s prone to mention whenever he’s not over hyping a Boston sports team or player (yes, I’m the sucker that drafted Rajon Rondo as a fantasy basketball “sleeper” last year on his advice… I think he overslept), Bill was working on establishing and building a web audience (as the Boston Sport’s Guy) before most people really knew what the web was. His popularity grew, somewhere along the way he became affiliated with ESPN, and now he is one of the most influential and entertaining sports journalists around. As his wikipedia profile notes:
His ESPN.com column is notable for being written from the viewpoint of a fan rather than an impartial journalist. Simmons aims for humor in his columns, often using extended analogies and references to pop culture (especially from the 1980s and 1990s).
But it’s from surfing around his newly designed site that one is really reminded of how far we’ve come in terms of media over the last few years. On there you’ll find his aforementioned Boston Blog, the new basketball blog and other articles, his recently launched podcasts (with Adam Carolla and Sugar Ray Leonard as recent guests), a “found on YouTube” video featuring recent Celtic acquisition Kevin Garnett in a 2005 interview, a link to purchase the Sports Guy’s book (which can be purchased via Amazon of course), and links to many years worth of archives and a variety of external content.
Of course in many ways, none of this seems extraordinary - but I think that’s the most extraordinary thing. Just stop and think about how different this really is then what was available even a few years ago, let alone when the Sports Guy got started. How did people waste time at work before anyway?
But the real questions I have now are how much better can the site get and how many other web 2.0 tools could be integrated (can’t Digg and Facebook get involved somehow?), will the Sports Guy name a future son Moss Simmons, and if his die hard devotion to the Boston clubs will flip from endearing to painfully annoying if the Celtics, Pats and Red Sox are all dominating at once. Of course, if it does there are all those other writers and podcasters to choose from and many more that can now make their voice heard on the web… another part of the web 2.0 many of us already take for granted.
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June 7th, 2007, 06:02pm
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After a year in progress, the logo for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games was unveiled by Committee Chair Lord Sebastian Coe and his ambassadors at the Roundhouse in Camden, North London this past Monday.
Designed by Wolff Ollins, who also designed the logo for the 2004 Athens games, this is the first time that the same brand will be used for both games. With an apparent price tag of £400,000, I can only surmise that the branding was so exorbitantly expensive that the organizers could only afford to create one brand for both games. In their defense, I can understand how the integration of both games does help the intention of the branding. I can also see how the branding itself contributed to costs having increased by 40 percent in the 18 months since the bid was won.
Based on the number 2012, the emblem comes in a series of pink, blue, green, and orange, and was designed with the intentions of inspiring everyone, while reaching out and engaging young people around the world. According to abdicating Prime Minister, Tony Blair, “When people see the new brand, we want them to be inspired to make a positive change in their life.” The message to be conveyed – London 2012 will be “Everyone’s Games.”
In this same spirit, you too can make an artistic contribution to the games. Download the design templates, do something creative with them and upload the results to the online gallery.
But is it really everyone’s games? With such a strong push from those who rightly should be advocating the success of the brand’s launch, there has been an exorbitant barrage of negative opinion from the general public. An online petition to change the logo has already garnered roughly 50,000 signatures.
What do you think?
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June 2nd, 2007, 08:51pm
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Guardian sports writer Will Buckley wonders whether a little bit of wikinomics thinking could democratize football in England. The English game has recently attracted a wave of American investment as clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool, and Aston Villa have succumbed to American-backed takeovers. There is intense speculation that Stan Kroenke, who co-owns the St. Louis Rams, will make it four after having recently bought a 12% stake in Arsenal.
Now Buckley reports that Will Brooks, son of legendary actor Ray Brooks, is harnessing mass collaboration to mount a takeover bid of his own. Brooks has been asking people to join with him to buy a football club and is already over halfway to his target of 50,000 investors (http://myfootballclub.co.uk). As Buckley points out:
The sub is only £35. In other words, it’s cheaper to be a co-chairman than it is to take a child to Chelsea.
Once the sum is raised, the investors will vote on which club to purchase (Leeds, maybe?) And then the fun and games will begin as all decisions, including team selection, will be taken after a vote by the membership. Welcome to a magnificently chaotic pure democracy.
Best of all, the purchased club will presumably receive the TV monies due to them. We will, therefore, receive some of the money we pay to watch football. The more successful we are the more we will receive, the more imitators we will spawn… until people’s football clubs will be in a majority.
For 35 quid it might be worth the gamble — if only to get a vote on team selection and which players the club brings in at the end of each season. That being said, I wouldn’t bet on Brooks’ new team winning the Premiership anytime soon.
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May 28th, 2007, 11:15am
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YouTube is on the verge of reaching ‘google’ status. If I tell you to ‘google’ something, you understand it means to search it. Google has become a verb, and as ESPN columnist Bill Simmon’s describes, YouTube is also heading that way.
excerpt from 10 more reasons why I love sports
“Until recently, we described every hellacious NBA dunk in someone’s face as “He posterized him” or “He put him on a poster.” But after Baron Davis’ dunk in Round 2 , there was a seismic shift. For the first time, you could have said, “Davis YouTubed Kirilenko!” and gotten the point across. A few more monster dunks, and I see YouTube becoming a verb along the lines of Google and TiVo. Frankly, it’s time. Who buys sports posters anymore?”
At the heart of this shift in vernacular is the new way we consume sports. YouTube has become a tool for sports fans to revisit dramatic moments (Joe Carter 1993 World Series), watch improbable plays (Tiger Woods Master Shot), research upcoming stars (Andrea Bargnani) and judge controversial calls, hits and brawls (Emery v. Biron v. Peters fight ). It’s an on demand highlight factory, and as such I think has earned its verb status.
(And yes, I am from Toronto)
