college sports
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YouTube TV adds NFL Network to its core lineup
With football season right around the corner, YouTube TV is making some significant changes to its NFL and general sports coverage.
How to stream college sports without losing your mind
Thanks to all the services that let you stream live TV, it's easy to watch sports without a commitment to cable. The channel lineups vary, and some are more limited than others. What's more, the television rights for college sports, especially football, are tied to the conference, so you'll need to find out which channels have the deal covering your favorite schools. From there, it's a matter of making sure the service you choose has all the channels you need so you don't miss a game. Lucky for you, we can help.
All things college athletics with the official NCAA app
Mention the NCAA around most sports fans and you can expect a litany of complaints about the organization that oversees college athletics. However the official NCAA app should satisfy most followers of collegiate sports. The free universal app runs on iOS 7.0 or later and covers a lot more than just football and basketball. Similar to other apps that cover college sports you can get the latest news updates on major sports such as football, basketball, both men and women's, and baseball. The NCAA app goes further with coverage of all the NCAA sports: Wrestling Volleyball Field Hockey Ice Hockey Cross Country Track & Field Lacrosse And about a dozen more. If you have someone involved in any of the athletic competitions taking place at NCAA member schools you can follow them with the NCAA app. Users can choose up to three favorite schools and the app pulls news, video, scores, and more from each of those schools so you can find it in a single location. No browsing through hundreds of stories or score to get your favorite's. And you can set up alerts for your favorite teams for news and or score updates. The hardest part of picking your favorite is finding the school on the huge list of colleges and universities included in the app. Every school that is an NCAA member is listed in alphabetical order from big universities like Notre Dame, Southern Cal, and Alabama to small schools like Agnes Scott College, College of St. Elizabeth, and Judson College and all the colleges and universities in between. Regardless of what your favorite college sport is, you will find stories and other features included in the app. Plus users can find out the latest rankings of teams in all the sports. So if you want to see how your college cross country team is doing, select cross country from the sports list then choose rankings and you will find Northern Arizona at the top of the Division 1 list followed by Oklahoma State and Colorado. The app provides numerous videos for users to watch both in the team pages and in the general news coverage. I checked several and all were preceded by a fifteen second commercial announcement and unfortunately it appears the same commercial appears before each video so be prepared to sit through the same ad time after time if you watch a lot of videos. Despite this failing, the official NCAA app is still worth having for those fans of some of the less popular and highly covered sports that take place on college campuses around the country.
University adds League of Legends team to its athletic program
Could being at wiz video games get you a scholarship and a college degree? As far-fetched of a dream as that may seem, it's now becoming a reality at one institute of higher learning. Robert Morris University in Illinois announced today that it will be forming an official League of Legends varsity team as part of its athletic program for the 2014-15 academic year. Team members will be treated on the same level as other athletes, meaning that they're eligible for tutoring, support, and scholarships. The team is a result of the university's associate athletic director's love of competitive PC gaming and acknowledgement that it requires the same level of teamwork as other sports. "Although e-sports have long been a part of the culture of gaming, competitions have seen a large surge in popularity in recent years," the university posted. "Robert Morris University recognizes the value and legitimacy of e-sports and is excited to add e-sports to its already rich athletic program."
Pac-12 Conference streams come to iPad, fuel that Big Game rivalry on the road
Cal and Stanford fans away from home no longer have to huddle around their laptops if they want to learn who's one-upping who. The Pac-12 Conference has just launched an iPad app for its authenticated Pac-12 Now service: as long as you're with a TV provider that carries the college sports division's games (sorry for now, DirecTV customers), you can tune into 850 live matches spread across a myriad of sports. As you'd hope, going the digital route allows for some on-demand viewing, a dedicated program guide and the social sharing you'll want to rope friends into watching. Only Bright House, Cox and Time Warner Cable subscribers can use the iPad viewer at first, although support should come to BendBroadband, Comcast, Frontier and Suddenlink this fall, right alongside Android- and iPhone-sized apps. Hopefully, they arrive in time for a little ego padding around the Big Game in October.
Final ESPN 3D NCAAF games announced with a Tostitos Fiesta Bowl surprise
Mad you missed ESPN's previous 3D college football broadcasts and worried it might not come back? Then get your DVRs and calendars at the ready, because the network has announced its remaining 3D college football broadcasts will follow the Boise State Broncos as they play the University of Hawaii on Saturday, November 6th at 3:30PM ET and Idaho on Friday, November 22th at 9PM ET. Combined with the first ESPN 3D NCAAF game, this means the heavily debated Broncos will at least temporarily hold the record for most 3D appearances in college football history. Sadly, it won't enhance their bid for the biggest 3D game of the season -- you know, the Tostitos BCS Championship on January 10th. But even if the blue turf's weak schedule woes keep them from the title, at least one of their records could still improve by returning to the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl -- which ESPN also shared will be aired in 3D. Obviously waiting is no fun, but unless you jacked Adam Sandler's DVR from Click, reading our college football kickoff review can help pass the time until game day arrives.
Fresno State Bulldogs to see lots of HD play on KAIL-TV
Hopes are high for Fresno State, and with the expectation of greatness inevitably comes an HDTV deal. Okay, so maybe that's not a given per se, but the upcoming Bulldogs basketball / football seasons will indeed be aired to locals in high-definition. New for this year, MyNetworkTV affiliate KAIL-TV will serve as the flagship station for the institution and will broadcast every single game in its entirety. Better still, the tilts can be seen in HD on MD Digital 7.1 in and around Fresno, California. Congrats, Fresno State fans -- just don't gloat too much over there, cool?[Image courtesy of Bulldog Village]
Comcast to offer up NCAA March Madness, more films on HD VOD
Comcast isn't messing around with its HD VOD initiative, as just a under a month after it promised to deliver a slew of upcoming films to its on-demand library the same day they arrived on DVD, the cable company is hitting back with even more goodness for March. As expected, Comcast will be offering up NCAA March Madness Memories and Highlights via HD VOD, and if that wasn't enough, you can also catch sport-themed movie highlights this month as well. For those not exactly into hoops, you can check out Nancy Drew and August Rush at your convenience on March 11th, and your kids will certainly dig the exclusive HD replay of Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards on March 30th. For the full rundown on Comcast's March HD VOD plans, check out the release waiting after the jump.
Big Ten Network still courting Charter
Make no mistake, Big Ten Network has been quite successful in getting itself on a number of providers, but to this day, Charter subscribers in the eight-state Big Ten footprint are still missing out. According to a new report, the network is still anxious to get a deal done with Charter, as quite a chunk of Minnesota Gophers fans are currently cheering through Tubby Smith's inaugural season without the ability to view some 17 of the team's games. 'Course, we've no idea if Charter is even close to forking out the coinage required to land a carriage agreement, but at least one side isn't backing down, right?
Comcast, Big Ten duke it out over licensing fees
For the estimated 5.7-million Comcast subscribers residing in the Big Ten footprint, seeing your favorite games this coming Fall could end up costing you a bit more than expected. Apparently, the Big Ten conference and Comcast have yet to reach an agreement on carrying the Big Ten Network, as Comcast reportedly wants $1.10 per subscriber in order to host the content on a dedicated sports tier. The conference, however, suggests that watchful consumers shouldn't be forced to pay "undue costs" in order to watch local teams, and even points out that the Mountain West Sports Network is carried on Comcast's basic cable lineup in the Salt Lake City region. Of course, we all know there's more money to be made in the juggernaut that is the Big Ten, but if an agreement isn't reached by August 1st, the Big Ten Network "could go on the offensive and encourage millions of Big Ten alumni to switch to DirecTV."
