Fantasy Stories Podcast

For my final post of the class we were to do a podcast.  My podcast is about fantasy football and how to draft.  My podcast is entitled Fantasy Stories.  I tried to make it interesting.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

Blog #5: U.S. Swim Team Call Me Maybe Viral Video

So, this week the blog post is about Viral Videos.  The Viral video I picked is the 2012 USA Olympic Swimming Team doing the song Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen.  Carly Rae Jepsen quickly became an internet sensation with this song in 2012.  There were many different people that posted videos of people dancing to the song and lip syncing it.   This one in particular became very popular, it currently has almost 12 and a half million views.  I remember seeing it after the 2012 London Olympics (I think it was filmed before the Olympics because there are parts in the video where there on a plane and I’m assuming they were traveling to London).  Part of what might have made this video popular was the fact that the US did so well in swimming in 2012. 

In class we talked about successful viral videos have to have the “lean forward” experience.  There were four things the “lean forward” experience needed; engage audience, relevant, easily shareable, and include an action path.  This video has all of that.  It is very engaging to the audience.  It is fun to watch and funny because many of the people on there are very recognizable after the Olympics.  When the video came out in 2012 it was very relevant because as I mentioned earlier the US Swimming Team did very well in the Olympics.  Next it was very easily shareable.  I remember seeing it on Facebook after one of my friends shared the video.  You can still share the video today from YouTube.  Finally it did include an action path.  There was a clear path the video was going and it all flowed very well together.

Overall this is a pretty good video and there are many more Call Me Maybe videos of people doing similar things out there.  One of the popular ones is of the Miami Dolphins cheerleaders, they have over 20 million views.  I’m sure you can guys why this one is so popular.  

Blog #4 Sutton Impact: Michael Sam

So for this blog we are to write in a similar style to Bill Sutton.  Bill Sutton does articles for Sport Business Journal called Sutton Impact.  In these articles he gives his opinion on a variety of topics.  For this blog post I am going to be giving my opinion on Michael Sam receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award last night at the ESPYs. 

For those of you who don’t know, the ESPYs stands for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards.  This is an awards show solely for athletes.  They give out a variety of awards for a variety of accomplishments.

Last night (07/16/14) Michael Sam received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award for being the first openly gay football player to be drafted by an NFL team.  After this happened Twitter exploded with comments both positive and negative.  Many people are still not willing to except a gay football player, or gay people in general. 

For me personally I have mixed feelings about him receiving this award.  First off I do think he was courageous for coming out.  It has to be difficult for him being the only openly gay athlete in the NFL.  There are a lot of people in the NFL who are not excepting of gay people (just look at the article that Chris Kluwe, formerpunter for the Vikings, wrote for Deadspin).  He came out at a time where it could really affect his future earning potential.  He was rated as a 3^rd or 4^th round prospect but fell to the 7^th round.  I’m not sure why he feel so far but I feel that he being an openly gay athlete had something to do with it.  I know some teams didn't want extra media attention because of him.  He is a great inspiration to gay athletes everywhere.  In his acceptance speech he mentioned a little girl that was contemplating killing herself instead of telling her family that she was gay.  Michael Sam talked with her and because of his experience he was able to ultimately save her life. 

So he is definitely courageous for coming out but does he deserve an award for it?  As I mentioned I have mixed feelings.  I want a world where telling everyone what your sexual orientation is, isn't considered courageous.  By Michael Sam winning this award for being openly gay in the NFL that shows that our country still isn’t there yet.  It will take a long time to get there but one day being a gay athlete won’t be news worthy and won’t win anyone any awards.  This is what I want to see. 

To end his speech Michael Sam said “Great things can happen, when you have the courage to be yourself”.  He won the award for just being himself.  It’s sad when you can win an award for courage for just being who you are.  But as I mentioned earlier that is the society we live in now.  People like Michael Sam and Jason Collins are trying to change society for the better but it will be a slow change.  One day people won’t have to be courageous to just be their selves, but until then we need courageous people like Michael Sam.

So in the end I have mixed feelings about him receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award but I think he deserves it.  

Blog Post #3 Eye-Scout

For the third blog post we get to choose anything we want.  The only requirement is it has to do with sports and technology.  So I did a little research about new technologies in sports and came across a blog site that is about sports and technology.  It’s called sporttechie.  I looked through some of the blogs on the site and found one that was interesting to me.  The blog is about a new software system called Eye-Scout.  This new software lets teams (the post mostly talks about NFL teams) put in information from their scouts and then will help them make decisions based on that information.  According to the post this system can help make decisions on draft picks, trades, free agents, and more.  The technology behind this software started in the military.  It was used to help solders know where their fellow soldiers are and where the enemy is. 

To see the blog click here 

With every team looking for a slight advantage this could turn out to be a big thing.  People in the sports world are starting to really look to analytics as a way to evaluate players, so they can make better decisions.  The Eye-Scout system claims to be able to do this.  Ever since the Oakland A’s were able to use analytics to help their team (if you haven’t already watch the movie Moneyball to see what I’m talking about) win, other teams have used analytics in some fashion to help them get the edge. 

In my opinion something like this was just bound to happen.  One of the most important things in sports is to be able to make decisions about players.  Should you draft this player, should you pick up this player in free agency, should this player start over that player?  All these questions are considered every single day.  If a team can spend less time worrying about these questions then they can spend more time worrying about making the team even better. 

I’m not saying that this type of software should be the only thing you consult when you need to make a decision.  What I am saying is that this can help make that decision.  Coaches should still look for themselves and make sure they agree with the software.  If they disagree with the program then you shouldn't do it.  The coach should always have the final say but the software my help with the decision. 

Whenever a team decides on something like a trade or the draft the teams want as much information as possible so they can make the best decision possible.  This software may just help with getting them more information.  I can see many teams in the NFL trying this out and we will see how well it will work.  It will be interesting to see if Eye-Scout becomes successful.  

Blog Post # 2 Website Evaluation

For my second blog I was supposed to do a website evaluation.  Basically my professor gave each student a website and wanted us to evaluate it based off of five different criteria: ease of accessibility, ease of navigation, use of interactivity, use of video, and quality of content.  The websites that each student received were considered to be destination websites.  A destination website is a website where a fan can go to and us the website for all of their information.  For example a fan can go on to the website and buy tickets, see news articles, get the schedule, etc.  Basically the goal of a destination website is for the fan to get everything they could want for the sport organization from one website. 

The website I was giving was http://www.theseattlemajestics.com/.  This website is for the Seattle Majestics (as the web address would suggest).  The Seattle Majestics are a women’s football team in Seattle.  The Majestics belong to the WFA (Women’s Football Alliance). 

Now that you know what the website is about lets dive into the evaluation.

The website’s home page was pretty full of different information.  Across the top you had hyperlinks to each page of the website with their logo next to that.  Under that the name of the team in the team colors was present but it wasn’t the first thing that drew my eye.  When first opening the page the first thing that really drew my eye to it was a big sign that said playoffs in big letters outlined in a florescent green (one of the team’s colors).  To the left of that is the teams twitter account and to the right is the 2014 schedule with the score and outcome of each game.  Than under the schedule was ticket information.  Under that and on the opposite side under the twitter account all the different sponsors had their advertisements.  In between the advertisements were some video clips from different games this season, there were four videos total.  Finally on the bottom is the copyright information and hyperlinks for the about, calendar, and contact pages.  Finally, also on the bottom is a link to the WFA website.  Overall the home page is very crowded and not really pleasing to the eye.

Ease of Accessibility:  The first thing I did for accessibility was to make sure that if I did a Google search for the Seattle Majestics that I would be able to find this website.  It was the very first website that popped up when I did the search so that’s good.  If a person can’t find the website in a search than it isn’t very accessible.  Another way that the website is easily accessible is that the name of the team is right in the domain name.

 

Ease of Navigation:  Everything on the site was pretty easy to navigate.  I clicked on each of the different tabs at the top of the home page.  The only issue I found with these tabs was that when your mouse hovered over the Media tab a menu came up and you could select a page from them.  The issue was with the color of each hyperlink.  The background of the entire website is very dark (mostly black) and the menu hyperlinks were a dark gray.  This made it a little more difficult to read what they were.  Also, scrolling through each page was pretty simple, even scrolling through their twitter account was easy.  The homepage also made it easy to follow the Seattle Majestics on twitter.  You only had to click the follow icon and were following them.  One thing that didn’t make it easy to navigate were their sponsors.  They have many sponsors on the homepage and some of them had hyperlinks to their websites and other did not.  Scrolling through the homepage you just don’t know which ones will take you to their page and which ones won’t.  As I mentioned earlier at the bottom there were also some hyperlinks that took you to different pages.  I clicked on each one and found that the about hyperlink took you to a blank page.  There was nothing on it at all.  In my opinion this is an important page to have.  You want people to know about you so you should have a fully functional about page.

Use of Interactivity:  For this I wanted to see how easy it would be to buy tickets.  On the home page there was a spot to click on to buy tickets to their June 21^st playoff game.  I clicked on it and was taken to the team store (which didn’t actually sell any merchandise only the playoff tickets).  From there I could select either an Adult ticket for $12 or a Senior/Military/Youth 6-18 ticket for $10.  Once you selected your ticket it took you to the PayPal website to pay for the ticket. 

Use of Video:  The home page had video from the most recent season on it.  The video was from YouTube and because of this the usual YouTube ads would pop up.  Overall the videos were well done and showed some different highlights from different games.  It showed some highlights from pregame, fans, warm-ups, plays throughout the game, and post-game interviews.  They were all set to music which made it a little corny if you ask me.  The videos were easy to use but because of the music and because there was just so many clips it was boring to watch.  One thing I thought was a little odd was that it not only showed clips of good plays by the Majestics but it also showed good plays by the opposing team.  In my opinion if they cut down on the clips, separated the interview from the highlights, and add some voice over explaining the videos that would make them much more interesting.  Also, I think they should only have the most recent game’s highlights on the home page. 

Quality of Content:  The content quality was lacking.  One of the links that took me to news archives had promotional things from 2012 (advertising the end of the year banquet).  All of the content under this section was promotional items (most out dated like the banquet) and nothing to do with news.  Also, when looking at the staff page only the head coach/ offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator/skill positions coaches had pictures, the other four coaches didn’t have any pictures.  The player roster didn’t have any pictures of the players either (they should have at least had a place to click on each player and get a little more information on them, as well as a picture).  Next, the schedule page was just a bigger schedule than what was on the home page.  It also had the previous year’s schedule on it.  Finally the biggest problem for the content was the fact that when I first saw the website I had no idea what the Seattle Majestics were.  At first I thought it had something to do with golf because one of the tabs at the top said golf.  Then I scrolled down and saw the videos, so I knew it was football but I didn't find out it was a women’s football team until I saw in the twitter feed the owner saying “Way to go, ladies” and clicked on the link to WFA.

Areas of Improvement:  I’ve already talked a little about how some of the areas cold improve but generally the website could improve by just updating a lot of their information.  As I mentioned before they had promotional items that dated back to 2012.  Next I think they could improve by having more written information on the site.  Almost all of the information on the site is either pictures or videos.  I want to see some written information in the about section (instead of nothing at all) and some more written information about players, coaches, and the league they belong to.  If I’m going to be a fan of this team I want to know about the team.  Finally, they need to make the website more professional.  It looks a lot like this blog of mine.  I would expect a destination website to look much better than a blog.

Check the website out and let me know if I missed anything.

KSS 782 Blog Post #1

This summer I’m taking my final three classes and then I will have my Master’s Degree in Sport Management.  One class I’m talking is called New Media and Technology in Sport.  For this class we have a minimum of five blogs to do (that’s why I’m starting this blog).  I may decide to do more and even continue this blog after the class, we’ll just have to see if I like it or not. 

For the first blog I have to engage in a technology deprivation experiment.  Basically I was not allowed to use email, texting, web browsing, social media, streaming, etc.  I also decided to not allow myself to play any video games or anything like that.  Basically all I could do for technology was watch TV.  I also conned my wife in to participating.  I was successful in lasting 24 hours buy my wife on the other hand was not. 

So, I started my 24 hour technology deprivation at noon on Tuesday (May 27^th) and ended at noon on Wednesday (May 28^th).  Before I began I made sure I played a Facebook game that I’m kind of addicted to, it’s called Marvel: Avengers Alliance.  I wanted to make sure that I was still able to get all the perks of signing in each day (yeah I know, it’s kind of lame).  I did all my stuff with that game and started shortly after that.  I also checked my Facebook wall and Twitter feed.  Than once that was done it was noon and I shut my computer and started reading for one of my classes. 

The most difficult part for me was the no streaming videos and no video games.  I enjoy playing video games and it was a little difficult not to start.  Also, my wife and I usually go to bed with Netflix playing but we weren't able to do that.  It was also difficult when my phone would send me notifications of different things.  I was able to clear them and not worry about them but every time I got one from Facebook or Twitter I wanted to check it out.  Towards the end of the 24 hours I really started to watch the clock.  I was anxious to get back to my social media sites.  I was able to stay strong though.  My wife on the other hand failed.

A few hours after we started we took a trip to Hy-Vee to get groceries.  My daughter (who will be two on July 31^st) was being fussy in the cart.  We let her down to walk with us but she likes to go her own way.  She did ok over all but we eventually put her back in the cart when we went to check out.  Well she was fussing and trying to stand-up so to distract her my wife pulled out her phone and opened YouTube.  She found the video for the song “Let it Go” from the movie Frozen.  I don’t really understand the obsession kids have with this movie but even my daughter loves that song (let me remind you, she’s not even 2 yet).  Anyway she handed the phone to my daughter and she was quite the rest of the time (as long as we kept restarting the video). 

Then Wednesday morning my wife failed again.  This time was a little more acceptable.  My wife’s cousin (so I guess you’d say my cousin in-law) had some family issues and was doing a mass family Facebook message and my wife thought she needed her support.  Even though I’m still not sure how she knew what the issue was since she wasn't supposed to be on Facebook anyway, but I’ll leave that one alone.  I won’t go into detail about what issues, that’s just not for me to tell. 

One thing that really saved my wife and me was that America’s Got Talent was on TV on Tuesday night.  That is a show that we both really like to watch and we didn't have an issue paying attention to that.  Many times there is nothing we both like to watch on TV so we watch Netflix or we’ll watch something that we both only kind of care about and do other things while we watch.  Many times I’ll be on my phone looking at Twitter or The Chive or some other web sites, but since AGT was on it wasn't too difficult. 

Overall this experiment was kind of fun and interesting to see how much we use technology every day.