SMARTER STRATEGIES

Tech Companies Are Positioning to Enhance Pigskin Options This Season

Dennis McCafferty | Date: 08-06-10 | Comments

Mobile, fantasy and even parking solutions are being upgraded with a host of innovations from tech/digital entertainment companies.

Face it: Watching the World Cup and listening to that non-stop drone of vuvuzela-buzzing fans got old after a while. Especially if you�re a fan of what Americans consider to be the real game of football. For gridiron enthusiasts, August couldn�t have come quickly enough: it�s the month when the NFL opens camps and preseason begins.

College and high school football practices are in full-swing as well. And tech/entertainment companies are ready to provide a better fan experience than ever, presenting the following football-focused options with respect to mobile devices, fantasy-league play, and even parking solutions at top NFL venues:

A game on the move. Verizon is launching NFL Mobile this season, which allows customers to get the latest news, headlines, stats and scores--including live audio broadcasts of every regular season game during the 2010 season--on their smartphones. Also, NFL Mobile users who want premium video content on their wireless phones can simply add a V CAST Video subscription to get video-on-demand and live streams of NFL RedZone, NFL Network, NBC�s Sunday Night Football, and NFL Network�s Thursday Night Football. The video content is free through all of August, and will cost $10 a month after that date.

Sprint to the endzone. Sprint has launched Sprint Football Live, a free mobile device app that provides live game telecasts of college games via ESPN Mobile TV; live Sunday morning fantasy shows from CBS, ESPN and Yahoo; and alerts for when the user�s favorite team is within touchdown-scoring position.

Better tools for fantasy fanatics. When it comes to fantasy football, participants--er, �team owners�--can�t get enough tech-assistance to give them an edge. The problem is that there are dozens upon dozens of online operations claiming to provide the very best in player-ranking intelligence for fantasy league player drafts, and you can only bookmark so many sites. So FantasyFootballNerd.com now searches and aggregates data from the leading fantasy football sites on the Web such as NFL.com, ESPN.com, CBS Sportsline, FOX Sports, and Yahoo to produce a consensus ranking of more than 1,000 NFL players. It also weighs the rankings based upon the historical accuracy of the provider. The site�s algorithm provides both preseason draft rankings as well as sit/start rankings every week during the season.

An app that uncorks parking bottlenecks. There�s nothing more frustrating than pulling up to an NFL stadium and discovering that there�s no decent parking anywhere. So the ParkWhiz mobile app promises to allow fans to reserve a guaranteed prepaid parking space from their iPhone and Android devices. Mobile users simply enter their end destination (such as Cowboys Stadium) and select �My current location.� This triggers the GPS function of the device to locate the closest available space. The user can then reserve the space and show their mobile phone device to lot attendants as a proof of purchase. ParkWhiz maintains more than 300 parking facilities in its network, including those for football and other sports as well as theater/concert venues.

�It�s aggravating to pull up to a parking lot only to see the dreaded �sold out� sign,� says Aashish Dalal, CEO of ParkWhiz.com. �Reserving a parking space whether from the comfort of your home or on your way to the game provides customers a worry-free stadium experience.�