Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Who's on first?

Jacked is a new service being launched over in the US, targeting television sports fans. I'm not a massive sports fan, I'll be honest, but the service seems like it may have something. Watch the game on the telly (remember those - generation Y people?) and get live stats, news, product info streamed to your computer, all ad supported.

Given there's an increasing number of people
watching tv and surfing at the same time (twittering while Lost gets Lost) this isn't such a far flung proposition. If you've ever watched a baseball game or NFL, you'll know that half the screen is littered with stats. This eases the problem, letting you watch the game on your tv and getting your stats fix from your laptop. If they could offer a mobile service, so people could get this info while attending the game itself, I think they could be onto a winner. Google already have a live scores service for mobile users.

Saying that, have a look at this report from the beginning of the year, detailing the war against live blogging at sports events, following a recent crackdown by the NCAA (
National Collegiate Athletic Association). Given broadcasting rights are the backbone of the sports industry, control of stats from feeds and the internet, no matter how they're collated, carry a premium. Someone will at some point want paying for all of this.

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