The Pats Super Bowl Shirts

Every year the company who gets an exclusive license to produce the Super Bowl Champions t-shirt, has a tough decision to make, which shirt to produce? Since no one in this world is psychic the company produces an immediate run of about a thousand or so for each team. However nobody wants a shirt that says they are champions when they just lost the biggest game of their lives. So a few years ago companies started giving the losing teams shirts, to underprivileged third world countries. That is why you will see a lot of kids in those ads to adopt a child wearing Buffalo Bills Super Bowl Champions shirts. (There are quite a lot of those since the Bills lost four years in a row.) The N.F.L. has really got their acts together by doing this. This shows commitment to the world and most importantly its children. Kudos N.F.L. on whoever instituted this idea. The video can be found here.

NewsTrust

Going a little off topic for this post, but I felt it was necessary to talk about NewsTrust.net. This is a site that allows its readers to rate solid journalism and recommend it to fellow readers. The site moderators of News Trust pick a topic for the week and allow the readers to submit stories on it. The more you submit, the higher your ranking is and the higher your contributions are placed on a certain topic. NewsTrust also allows its readers to comment and rate several different aspects of the story. The higher each of the rankings is the better the story, and the more it gets read. However if the story does poorly it gets pushed to the bottom of the pile and readers have to search harder to find it. The rankings allow you to rate specific areas of the story such as facts, sources, quality of sources, stakeholders, to the way it’s written and several others. The site then allows you to write about whether you think the story is good journalism or if it falls short. You are allowed to write about 250 words describing what you think the story does well and what you think the story fails in. The next section allows you to post a key quote that you think sums up the article best. My favorite part of News Trust was the section where it allows you to rewrite a paragraph or paragraphs that you think need work on. By allowing this feature, this site really connects its readers with the news going on in the world. News Trust is the new wave of online journalism and people should be ready to embrace it.

Extra Mustard and Page 2

A part of the SI website, Extra Mustard pokes fun at the lighter side of sports. It is somewhat news oriented but it is mainly aimed at the casual fan who wants to enjoy a laugh or two about sports. Too many websites try to be serious and not poke fun at some of the idiosyncrasies in sports. Extra Mustard actually requires very little journalism, most stories are just little blurbs with links to other pages, but it gets the job done. They really have the advancing technology down pat, as they blog, post video and links and allow for readers to send in their own submissions and if it's good enough, they will post it. They do everything from stupidest athletes, to the all convict football team, to posting videos of every body's favorite female sports reporter Erin Andrews. (She actually posts from time to time as well.) What I like best about Extra Mustard is the site embraces the new technology that is present in the world of sports media today, and they use it very well. To counter Sports Illustrated, ESPN launched Page 2 several years ago and it is one of the most read sections on the site. Some of the journalism is serious, but mostly it is either blogs or funny little quirks in the world of sports. Bill Simmons the most famous of the Page 2 columnists launched his career from writing on this site so much. Page 2 will be a vast collection of articles, predictions, pictures, links and videos relating to the content. Page 2 has sections like Uni Watch, cartoons, the BS Report and even has a link where ESPN The Magazine subscribes can read the current issue online, with the pictures ads and everything else. Most columnists usually write a weekly post, which can be a prediction on a season or playoffs, what a stupid thing an athlete or athletes did, to just plain old writing about an issue in sports with a more serious tone. What Page 2 does very well is they are journalists, writing actual journalism just in not that serious of a tone.

The Masters New Technology

With the 72nd Masters wrapping up for Augusta, GA yesterday, we got to see first hand the new technology that was available for the first time at a Major. CBS Sports had several new tools to bring fans closer to the action and to understand what is really happening in the game. First of all the Masters was available on three screens, (for AT&T Wireless subscribers only). The screens were the television, the computer and your cellphone. This technology is advancing by the minute, so the picture quality is getting better and better. This was available last year but it had several kinks, such as slow load time, freezing and unclear picture quality. This year however the reviews have been mostly positive, which is a step in the right direction. CBS also launched the 3-D course views, which was unbelievable. Anywhere a player was on the course, CBS could show you the exact geographical situations the player would be facing. You got to see how the lie was, what they had to watch out for, the hills, runoffs and the like. It really gave you a first hand look at just how hard Augusta National really is and why the low scores have been declining over the years. It used to be when they said that the player had to hit it up 30 degrees, you just had to take the commentators words for it. Now you actually got to see what 30 degrees was and how the player would have to strike the ball to play the shot properly. The best views that came from the 3-D animation were when a player was stuck in the trees or rough, and to play the ball past some obstacles. As the viewer only certain angles are provided for you by television, so you basically had to guess what they were going to do. Now the 3-D showed how high they had to hit, what they had to play the ball around and how they had to do it. CBS also unveiled shot tracker for certain tee shots. This was great because on certain dog legs at Augusta you really have to fade or draw the ball or else you would find yourself in some real trouble. Shot tracker allowed the viewer to follow the path of the ball in slow motion so that you could see how the players struck it with his club, to do what the ball did. It was interesting to see how high the players shoot the ball and how much a fraction of an inch really matters. For the first year ESPN, covered the afternoon rounds of Day One and Two at Augusta. What ESPN did very well was they set up live views from Amen Corner and Scott Van Pelt even did a podcast recapping the days highlights. The Masters is one of, if not the, pristine tournament of the year and technology allowed coverage like no other. Finally, the best part of Masters coverage has been the same for years, just allowing a few sponsors to shell out an insane amount of money so that there were hardly any commercials. More sporting events should follow this premise.

SportsCenter Minute

Da-Na Da-Na. Sportscenter, one of the greatest shows ever to grace the airwaves just got better. To compete with themselves SC launched the SportsCenter Minute. A sixty second rundown of everything currently going on in sports every hour on the hour. ESPN plays it on both the website and the television station. No more waiting for the Internet or 11:00, you can get current information now. Don’t have ESPNNews? No problem, the video saves online for the hour until the next one launches. It’s a little annoying to watch the same Aflac ad all day (I hate that duck, but he saves me money) but you get filled in with the most current information available. If you don’t like to read this is Heaven for you because all you have to do is watch. (Now if they can only get Erin Andrews to do the SportsCenter Minute, that would be an idea). The SportsCenter Minute works very well because it is everything Americans like, it’s quick, fast and it’s about sports. Kudos to whoever invented it.

MLB.TV

In my opinion one of the greatest inventions in sports history is MLB.TV. There is nothing better then sitting back on a summer evening enjoying a cold beer, a nice sandwich and watching your favorite team play America’s National Pastime. I myself am a Yankee fan and I live in enemy territory, Boston. So I don’t get to see the greatest sports franchise under the sun play. But now with MLB.TV I get to watch every game my beloved pinstripes play. Whether they are in Toronto battling Roy Halladay and the Big Hurt, or they are in Oakland battling the Pathetics, I can see them play. It is very interesting to see advertising from around the nation, (people from the west buy some stupid stuff). For those of you unfamiliar with MLB.TV here’s how it works. All you need is a computer and an Internet connection. You plug in, log on and you get streaming video of the game. It’s a little behind but MLB.com promises that this year will be better. Last year they added a mosaic feature, which lets you watch six games at once. SIX GAMES AT ONCE! It highlights your favorite teams and you can have it send alerts when something is happening in your game. One of the things that I enjoy most is the fact that you hear commentary from around the nation, and the way some people these days can call games is like a 21st century Jack Buck. (For the record nobody will ever be Jack Buck). MLB.TV is one of the greatest technological advances to ever happen to the sports world and it’s getting better as we speak.

NASCAR in Car

The fastest growing sport in America has another way for you to enjoy it. They put you in the car, in the pits and hearing the radio. Well not literally of course. I am talking about DirecTV’s NASCAR in Car, a service available with their very popular NASCAR package. Hear Junior curse at his car, watch Tony Eury Jr. call the number 88s shots and see super owner Rick Hendrick huff and puff up and down pit road coaching his drivers and hoping to pull away with another cup win. This service has boosted DirecTV’s sales tremendously and is one of the most improved aspects of covering sports in history. For those who find NASCAR boring and think it’s cars driving in a circle, this is a new aspect that can bring them in. For the die-hard car fans it brings them one step closer to the oval.