Sports+Media+Update+3

Update 3 due: midnight March 10 =**Optical Tracking is the Future of Sports Entertainment**= March 08, 2011 BY:ANNIKA DAWSON

**(SPORTS TECHNOLOGY)** Imagine if you had the ability to track everything on the court of a basketball game, improving the view and understanding of complicated interrelated parts, like defensive close-outs? Sandy Weil, an experienced statistician and analytics professional along with STATS ([|News] - [|Alert]), a global [|sports] statistics and information company, introduced the potential applications of optical tracking data, or the information gleaned from the installation of high-tech cameras that track just about everything on the court. In a presentation, Weil demonstrated what has already been learned about defensive close-outs, open shooting and the value of a pass given this kind of available data. This kind of technology has a lot of benefits when it comes to breaking down a player’s performance. Conventional wisdom was confirmed in some cases, and challenged in others. For example, the [|NY Times] spoke with Brian Kopp, a vice president of STATS; [|Sports] Illustrated Zach Lowe found that passes from the alleged team killer Monta Ellis of the Warriors led to a surprising 60 percent shooting mark among his teammates who attempted a field goal after receiving the pass. That information alone may not be enough to cleanse Ellis’s reputation, but it offers insight into the way his playmaking abilities are understood and evaluated. With a study delivering those types of specifics, there shouldn’t be any doubt to the effectiveness of optical tracking; proving this is the frontier of basketball data collection and that teams who look to embrace it are on the fast track to analytical insight. An insight that is sure to give an advantage in pregame preparation. According to Kopp, only a handful of N.B.A. teams – the Spurs, the Rockets, the Mavericks, the Thunder and the Warriors, with the Celtics soon to join their ranks – have installed the tracking cameras in their arenas. He added, for this type of data collection to reach its maximum potential, more teams need to understand its value.

//Charles West is a Web Editor for TMCnet. Prior to joining TMC ([|News] - [|Alert]) Charles worked with many gadget oriented sites that included running his own blog (TheTrendaholic.com) and Smartphone column for examiner.com. To read more of his articles, please visit his [|columnist page].//

Edited by [|Charles West]

By: Amy Liao
 * Possible Live Sport Streams on YouTube **

YouTube is discussing with the NBA and the NHL to allow them to show live games. this idea surfaced due to the popularity of cricket’s Indian Premier League last year. During the Indian Premier League broadcast, viewers spent about 40 minutes watching each match. The Indian Premier League brought YouTube 55 million visits from more than 250 countries last year and the company anticipates that similar results will show with the NBA and NHL live broadcasts. Not only is Google considering the NBA and the NHL, they are also in talks with soccer leagues in Europe. Google hopes by adding live sports broadcasts to YouTube, it may expand their revenue by keeping viewers on the site longer as well as to attract more advertisers. The company wants to keep its viewers on the site for longer than the average daily fifteen minute session. “It’s fair to say that there will be a lot more appealing sports content you’ll see on YouTube,” says Gautam Anand, Google’s director of content partnerships for Asia Pacific. “We have ongoing conversations with pretty much everyone.” NHL spokesman Michael DiLorenzo, however, said that the league is not in talks to stream live games over YouTube, nor has it been in discussions about it, but the NBA spokesperson did acknowledge the fact that YouTube values live sport events.

New live-streaming services will be offered depending on each deal, informed by a spokeswoman for Google Korea. YouTube streams Major League Baseball games in Japan, where major TV broadcasters don’t feature the sporting events. This can mean that people anywhere all over the world can stream live sports from any country and are not just restricted to their own sport events. Some key goals for YouTube this year is to offer longer clips of movies and shows as well as boost sports content.

For more information on this article, go to []

By Dan Perez
All the Kings fans held their breath this past week as they felt an announcement slowly approaching that none of them wished to hear.

Jim Crandell, sports director for KTXL in Sacramento, tweeted early Wednesday morning that he would be having NBA Commissioner David Stern on his show at 10pm that night making an announcement relating to the ambiguous of the Sacramento Kings.



The tweet winded up being a false alarm, as all Crandell had was the recorded announcement from David Stern in 1985 informing the NBA that the Kings would be moving from Kansas City to Sacramento. But for one day, Crandell had an entire city on edge simply because of one tweet.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/ktxl-sports-director-jim-crandell-plays-cruel-joke-on-sacramento-kings-fans_b7537

**﻿** By Sarah Cole
 * ESPN and Their New Sports Media Blog**

ESPN is launching a sports media blog on March 30th, ESPNFrontRow.com it will be maintained by their communications department. It will not only provide a behind-the-scenes look at how ESPN operates it will also address controversies that involve ESPN. They intend to have at least 3 posts a day from main journalist, Sheldon Spencer. One worry that ESPN has is that people will be allowed to post comments however, they are not sure how they will monitor these comments. People will be able to access the sblog from a link at the bottom of ESPN.com’s home page; posts will be distributed via social media outlets like Twitter.

ESPN hired Voce Communications to design the site. The company has designed corporate blogs for companies like Disney Parks and eBay. Soltys said the site’s content will be patterned after those blogs. “The corporate sites that flounder typically are the ones that don’t post frequently enough,” he said.

[]

by: Kierstin HIll
 * NBA TV gets its Highest Ratings for Blazers/Heat**

Saturday's Blazers and Heat game drew the highest rating NBA TV has ever seen for a regular season game. The rating was a 0.45 with about 681,000 viewers. NBA TV usually averages a 0.26 rating for most regular season games. NASCAR Nationwide Series drew a 2.2 final rating. This station is up 22% in ratings from last year and up 21% for viewership from earlier this year. For more information, [|click here.]

By: Ashley Novack

NFL, union trade insults on Twitter


NFL players and owners have until Friday at midnight to reach an agreement, but right now that does not see so possible. After both sides gave interviews they both proceeded to use Twitter to fire back at the other through a series of tweets. In the article it cites the conversations that reporters had with the NFL over Twitter.

Next year's season and lock outs will be the outcome for players if this deal goes badly. You would think that social media would be the last thing on people minds, but I guess virtual fights are easier than duking it out with the person face to face. I just think it is so interesting to see how the role of social media has escalated to be apart of every aspect of America culture.

But really NFL? You are going to trash talk over Twitter? Hopefully this deal will go through and then the players union can elect real professionals to run the NFL; apparently high school girls are in the running.

[|The article above]

And an equally interesting [|article] about the negotiations, including more tweets for your enjoyment

=**NBA Market Size Numbers Gam**e=



Daniella Mora-Balbo

With so much talk about how big market NBA teams have a better chance of winning than their small-market counterparts, here's a quick look at some misconceptions about market size in the NBA. Of the 29 U.S.-based NBA teams, 22 play in one of the nation's top 25 television markets. Considering that there are 210 Nielsen-designated television markets in the United States, an argument can be made that there are zero small market NBA teams. The league's smallest TV market, New Orleans, is 52nd.

That being said, some NBA markets are certainly smaller than others. Take as an example Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, the nation's #16 market. With its 1.581 million TV homes, Miami is nowhere close to New York (#1, 7.515M), Los Angeles (#2, 5.667M) or Chicago (#3, 3.503M). It is, however, barely ahead of Cleveland (#18, 1.526M), Orlando (#19, 1.453M), and Sacramento (#20, 1.409M).

In fact, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and company play in a smaller market than the Timberwolves (#15 Minneapolis has 1.754 million homes) and Pistons (#11 market Detroit has 1.884 million). Of course, it was James, Wade and Chris Bosh who began the latest 'sky is falling' storyline in the NBA, that of superstar players leaving their beleaguered small market teams for big market bullies.

That certainly wasn't the case for James, who moved from Cleveland to a city with fewer than 100,000 additional TV homes. However, with Amar'e Stoudemire, Carlos Boozer, Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williamsall leaving smaller market teams for one of the nation's top three markets, the fear is that the league's talent will concentrate in just a few select big cities.

But a look at the current standings indicates that those fears are unfounded at best. The teams in the five largest NBA markets (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Dallas) have a combined winning percentage of .557. By comparison, the league's five smallest markets (Milwaukee, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Memphis and New Orleans) have a combined winning percentage of .591.

Another misconception is that there is a significant difference between a 'big' market and a 'small' market. As Kenny Smith told SMW earlier Thursday, there are "only three or four really big markets". The gap between the number of TV homes in #1 market New York and #5 market Dallas-Ft. Worth is 187% -- virtually equaling the 188% gap between the number of homes in Dallas and #35 market Milwaukee. In other words, the markets are much more concentrated outside of the top five. Certainly, while New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia are massive television markets, once you get past those four, the differences are not nearly as great.