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17 Engaging Ways to Experience the 2009 NFL Season

Bradley Hebdon — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:43:14 +0000

The NFL makes its anticipated return with the first game of the 2009 regular season kicking off on Thursday, 9/10/2009. So lets cut to the chase; how are you going to experience this game, and the rest of the 2009 season? Assuming you won’t be physically attending a game, here’s a cheat sheet to help you weigh up your other 17 choices:

Television

NFL Network
A television network solely devoted to the NFL. Includes 8 live regular season games, in addition to preseason games and other game broadcasts. The NFL Network also offers year-round NFL programming. Learn more >

NFL RedZone
NFL RedZone is a brand new channel brought to you by NFL Network each Sunday afternoon during the season. NFL RedZone will jump from game to game to bring you key moments from around the league — live as they happen on the field in HD. DirecTV, Comcast, Verizon FIOS, and Dish Network will carry RedZone, with more carriers to come. Learn More >

NFL Sunday Ticket
NFL Sunday Ticket™ brings you access to up to 14 live games a week in the regular season. With the player tracker, follow up to 18 players each week right on your screen – a perfect feature for Fantasy players! Also, get scores and stats of other games without missing the game you’re watching. This is carried exclusively on DirecTV. Learn more >

Network TV
Throughout the season, catch selected games broadcast on FOX, CBS, NBC, and ESPN on Monday Nights. View the schedule >

Online

Game Center
NFL.com has launched a brand new Game Center experience, where you can follow live plays and stats from the game, making for a valuable fantasy football resource. Don’t forget to try out the new 3D Drive Chart view, and chat with other fans before, during and after the game. Also for the first time ever, you will be able to watch in-game highlights, all without leaving Game Center! Check it out on nfl.com, by clicking on a game in the scorestrip.

Field Pass
NFL.com offers Field Pass, a subscription based product that allows you to listen to live game audio. Access live streaming audio and replays of over 250 NFL in-season games and replay archives going back to 2004; including preseason, regular season, and postseason match-ups. Get Field Pass >

Game Pass
If you live outside North America, you’re in for a treat. You can subscribe to live HD streaming video of every regular season NFL game online, and this access also includes archived broadcasts and NFL Network programming. And now for the first time, watch the all new RedZone channel as part of the Game Pass experience. Get Game Pass >

Game Rewind
Watch every NFL game on-demand, commercial free, in its entirety. Control the archives of the 2008 and 2009 seasons in stunning HD quality video. Subscribe now, and never miss a game again. Get Game Rewind >

NFL.com/LIVE
NFL.com hosts NFL LIVE as a free on-line companion to the NFL Network broadcast games. Submit questions to the experts and receive in-depth analysis of the game. Learn more >

DirectTV Supercast
Included with NFL Sunday Ticket, Supercast delivers live streaming video of every NFL Sunday Ticket game to your computer desktop. This also includes stats to track your favorite players’ performance. Learn More >

Fantasy Football
If you’ve played Fantasy Football online before, you’ll know that the likes of NFL, ESPN and Yahoo! Sports let you track your players’ performances in real-time. To many folks, following NFL games from their fantasy team’s point-of-view, is an engaging and fun experience.

Mobile

NFL Mobile Live
Get live audio broadcasts of every regular season game, live NFL Network games, live NFL Network 24/7 and customizable red zone alerts all on your Sprint mobile phone. Access the NFL whenever and however you want. Free for Sprint subscribers with any data plan. Learn more >

NFL Wireless
Use your mobile phone to access NFL.com anytime, anywhere. Keep up to date on the latest scores, news, and updates from NFL.com when you can’t be at your computer. Learn more >

DirectTV Supercast Mobile
Use your NFL Sunday Ticket subscription to access live games on your mobile phone. This shares the same features as the Supercast computer application, meaning you can also enjoy live streaming video, highlights, scores and stats wherever you happen to be. Lear More >

Text Alerts
Sign up for mobile alerts and you’ll get instant scoring notifications as well as quarterly updates and end of game summaries. Learn more >

Radio

NFL Sunday Drive
Sirius Satellite Radio enables you to hear every game and also listen to the experts talk about the game 24/7/365. Learn More >

Local Radio Stations
NFL teams run their own flagship radio stations, where you can listen to game-day coverage and around-the-clock analysis. Visit your team’s website for a full list of affiliates, or view all teams here.

Sci Fi Channel Rebrands and Fails

Bradley Hebdon — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:22:14 +0000

Coming off the best year in the Sci Fi Channel’s history, what better timing than to change what was already working.

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network.

The hope is that changing to “Syfy” is less geeky than the name “Sci Fi.” At least Dave Howe, president of the Sci Fi Channel is betting the farm on this one.

The network worked with the branding consultancy Landor Associates and went through about 300 possibilities before selecting “Syfy” as the new name and brand.

“When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how you’d text it,” Mr. Howe said. “It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise.”

The network made the changeover on July 7, when it launched the new series “Warehouse 13.”

Syfy? Really? It’s honestly difficult for me to believe their approach, and the new brand fails on so many levels.

Why the rebrand fails:

The logo doesn’t translate well to small sizes, and looks more like “Sgfg” in a smaller scale.
It looks like a typo, at first glance – or perhaps a sign for a Finnish Genetics Lab.
This could be a new wonder drug for Syphilis – a particular strain from the future perhaps?
Too much attention to the name, and not enough to the programming.
Attempting to attract women, but confusing the existing viewer base.

This has the Tropicana OJ re-branding fiasco written all over it.

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TV in your contact lens? Grow up 007.

Bradley Hebdon — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:56:36 +0000

Miniaturization of circuits and displays could lead to televisions shrunk into contact lenses and being powered by body heat, according to British futurologist Ian Pearson.

Channels could be changed using voice commands or gestures, Pearson told The Daily Mail. “You will just pop it into your eye in the morning and take it out at the end of the day,” he said.

Pearson’s predictions are in contrast to how consumer electronics companies have been pushing bigger TVs. In the last few years, advances in plasma and LCD panel technologies along with falling prices have made it easy to buy TVs with up to 100-inches in screen size.

But Pearson believes that trend will change and contact lenses that double up as personal TV sets could be reality within the next ten years.

Already scientists have taken the first steps towards making contact lenses more powerful and versatile, says LiveScience. Digital contact lenses that can zoom in on objects and display related information have been tested on rabbits for up to 20 minutes. Digital and programmable contact lenses will be the next big step, say futurists like Pearson.

Wow, cool. But something just doesn’t seem right here. The human eye does have limitations, especially when it comes to focusing on an object that close. Furthermore, there are the safety issues. Cell phones are controversial enough, can you imagine gunning down the freeway, while watching the Champions League final, and not the road.

This is in my opinion a classic case of something that sounds good, but is full of impractical baggage. OK, so it might work itself nicely into the next Bond flick as a gratuitous gadget. Enter Q.

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NBC Olympics: Commercials over goals

Bradley Hebdon — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:01:12 +0000

Watching Brazil against Argentina in the semi-final of the Olympics, I felt like I was in a timewarp back to the late 1980’s. That’s because NBC, in their infinite stupidity, are breaking for TV commercials in the middle of the game.

And just as it routinely happened in the late 1980’s (including the 1986 World Cup when televised by U.S. TV), the broadcast of the game came back to show that a goal had been scored during a commercial.

Wake up NBC. It’s 2008. Let’s come up with a better solution for televising soccer matches that doesn’t include breaking for commercials.