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2K's upcoming NFL games will feature real pro players
The deal covers more than 2,000 current professional NFL players.
'Madden 21' arrives August 25th with new player controls
EA's 'Madden 21' arrives on PS4, Xbox One and PC on August 25th.
EA can make Madden games until 2026 after renewing its NFL deal
Electronic Arts and the National Football League have agreed to extend their partnership for the Madden NFL series until 2026.
ESPN starts broadcasting the 'Road to the Madden Bowl' this weekend
As real football focuses on the NFL draft, ESPN is devoting five straight hours on Sunday to the Madden Bowl esports competition. This is all leading up to the championship game on May 16th.
NFL and 2K revive their partnership to make more football games
2K is well known for its NBA, WWE and PGA video games, but it hasn't made an NFL title since 2004. That's about to change. Today, the NFL and 2K announced that they've revived a partnership to produce new non-simulation football video games.
Hitting the Books: These brain cells could hold clues to the CTBI crisis
Welcome to Hitting the Books. With less than one in five Americans reading just for fun these days, we've done the hard work for you by scouring the internet for the most interesting, thought provoking books on science and technology we can find and delivering an easily digestible nugget of their stories.
You can still watch the Super Bowl for free on Roku (updated)
Last night, Fox apps were pulled from Roku, which left users who were planning to watch Super Bowl LIV via those apps scrambling. While Fox and Roku work out their differences, the NFL says there is nothing to worry about. The league will stream the game via its free Roku app, NFL spokesman Alex Riethmiller told Fast Company.
How to watch the Super Bowl in 2020
Super Bowl LIV will occur this Sunday, and it'll be a match between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs. NFL's biggest event of the year is a television phenomenon that goes beyond just sports, whether it's the million-dollar commercials, the half-time concert or just an excuse to hang out with your buddies and chow down on chicken wings. It used to be that the only way to watch it was to either have a cable or satellite subscription, or venture out to your local sports bar. Fortunately, that's not the case anymore. You have plenty of streaming choices too -- some of them even offer 4K resolutions.
Amazon and the NFL team up to create a 'Digital Athlete' simulation
Amazon's AWS and the NFL plan to use AI and machine learning to protect players. The partners announced today that they'll co-develop a "Digital Athlete" platform, which will create a computer simulation model of an NFL player. Using the computer simulation, they'll be able to test different game scenarios without putting actual players at risk.
Sports teams are using Signal to duck deflategate-like scandals
Facebook isn't the only company struggling over the prospect of end-to-end encryption in messaging apps, as a report from Yahoo Sports cites examples from "every level of sport" turning to encrypted messaging. While Whatsapp and iMessage provide encrypted communications, increasingly the app of choice is turning out to be Signal, which not only protects their message from MITM spying, but can also auto-delete them based on rules. If you're a college coach or athletic director and someone makes a FOIA request, that could reduce the amount of information they get about contacts with recruits and boosters. In the NFL, investigators pursuing the "deflategate" incident famously requested access to Tom Brady's texts, but the quarterback destroyed his phone prior to meeting them -- an act cited in the league's decision to hand down a four game suspension. He stated that breaking or wiping a cell phone when he got a new one was a standard practice, but execs and agents believe a simpler, stronger argument is that if you've set Signal's rules to delete all messages regularly, then investigators can't claim you were trying to hide a particular conversation. The report specifically calls out the NBA, where commissioner Adam Silver has been pushing to reduce "tampering," or contact between players, their representatives and teams about contracts or transactions outside of the approved periods. Marc Stein of the New York Times reported this week that the NBA sent a memo to teams requiring them to keep all contract-related communications for at least a year, while The Athletic explained that could include notes on training, endorsements, player fit with a team and more. The rule seems specifically aimed at cutting off any argument about using Signal as a simple standard practice, and it wouldn't be surprising to see other leagues do something similar, whether or not they'll be able to enforce it.
Fox Sports is creating exclusive, interactive shows for Facebook Watch
ESPN isn't the only big broadcaster committing to exclusive sports shows on Facebook Watch. Fox Sports is teaming up with Facebook to create unique interactive shows for Watch viewers, including a marquee Fox Football Sunday program. The Monday morning show covers the NFL games from the day before, all the while giving Facebook users a chance to ask questions from show hosts. If you can't wait that long, a Fox Football Update show on Sunday nights will recap match-ups in a more one-sided format.
Fox Sports will broadcast Thursday Night Football in 4K
Fox is expanding its 4K offerings. After it streamed every Women's World Cup game in 4K, it's now doing the same for the NFL's Thursday Night Football -- the new season of which kicks off on September 26th. The game is being captured in 1080p and HDR, then upconverted, so streaming viewers will get the benefit of resolution beyond Fox's usual 720p broadcast plus the improved colors and contrast, if not all of the pixels you'd expect in a true 4K feed.
Facebook Watch gets more NFL highlights, news and analysis
The National Football League isn't done teaming up with tech companies. Today, the NFL announced it is extending its partnership with Facebook, a deal that began back in 2017, which will continue to bring highlights of all 256 regular season games, playoffs and the Super Bowl to Facebook Watch. In addition to these recaps, this year the league is serving even more snackable programming on Watch, including news and analysis clips, video versions of podcasts, classic game archives from NFL Films and special videos dedicated to 100th NFL season. Facebook says that, in 2017 and 2018, over 22 million people watched at least a minute of an NFL recap, a sign that people on its site have an appetite for this type of video content.
After Math: The NFL goes full geek
The NFL is matching brains with brawn for its 100th season. Fans will be able to enjoy faster in-stadium internet, deeper insights into their local teams and virtually trade their favorite players like sentient trading cards (but only in New Jersey). Here are our top gridiron headlines of the week.
Verizon brings 5G coverage to 13 stadiums as NFL season begins
When Bears and Packers fans descend on Chicago's Soldier Field tonight for the start a new football season, they'll be in one of 13 NFL stadiums that now has 5G connectivity. Coinciding with the start of the 2019-2020 NFL season, Verizon (Engadget's parent company) announced that it's expanding its 5G network to include some of the country's biggest sporting venues, with plans to add additional NFL stadiums as the season progresses.
The NFL's new TikTok account is all about highlights and sideline moments
The National Football League is hyping up its 100th season with a TikTok partnership. Today, the NFL is launching an official TikTok account with packaged highlights, sideline moments and behind-the-scenes footage. To get things started, it's promoting a #WeReady challenge. Today through September 5th, the NFL is asking fans to share videos about their favorite teams with the hashtag.
Alexa adds in-depth NFL stats ahead of the new season
Alexa's football knowledge is now decidedly more profound. Amazon has added a slew of info to its voice assistant's repertoire that includes "comprehensive, in-depth" stats for NFL teams and their players. If you want to know your favorite player's rushing yards or how many penalty yards the team has racked up, it's just a quick question away. You can even ask about fantasy football scores if your reputation is on the line.
NFL celebrates 100th season with Snapchat AR Lens that comes to life
The National Football League and Snap have made another augmented reality experience together. In celebration of the NFL's 100th season, which kicks off on September 5th, the companies are unveiling an AR Lens that lets people scan an NFL 100 logo and bring it to life inside the Snapchat app. The feature uses Snap's Marker technology, introduced in 2018, to let people use their Snapchat camera to unlock a special video created by the NFL. After scanning an NFL 100 logo, the video will show historic highlights between the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers, the two teams that are playing the first game of the 2019-2020 season next Thursday. And right beneath the video, as pictured above, there's a clock counting down the days, hours and minutes to the beginning of the NFL 100 season.
Madden 20 Championship Series ties its schedule to NFL events
Just a few months after EA announced its Madden NFL 19 bowl set new viewership records, it's laid out a schedule of events for the 2020 season. Madden NFL 20 launches next week on August 2nd -- or three days earlier for people who pre-order a special edition -- and it's touting the ability for players to go "from couch to champion." EA has announced that it's increased the number of spots available in online eliminations, with its first Classic event scheduled to occur starting August 30th. There, fans will compete to represent one of the NFL's 32 teams at the Club Championship in December. Then there's the Madden NFL 20 Challenge during Super Bowl weekend and the Madden NFL 20 Bowl during next year's draft. The NFL and EA have aligned the esports schedule to work along with the league, seeing it as a way to keep viewers and gamers engaged. NFL VP of Gaming & Esports Rachel Hoagland said in a statement that "We view esports as a key accelerant to growing the NFL. It enables new ways for young fans to engage in the sport through Madden NFL competition." The league has also snagged sponsors including Pizza Hut and Snickers, and this year signed up the first "virtual stadium rights deal in esports" that will put MCS Major live events in Pizza Hut Stadium. In a world where Fortnite exists, making sure gamers still tune into your sport any way you can is probably a good strategy. More details about the esports events were announced tonight during a Twitch stream that you can watch right here.
Ticketmaster fights ticket fraud with 'refreshing' barcodes
Ticketmaster is trying a new way to combat ticket fraud: make the ticket change on its own. It's introducing a SafeTix system that gives ticket buyers a unique, encrypted barcode that refreshes every few seconds. You can't copy the ticket by taking a screenshot or otherwise copying the barcode data. The barcode will continue refreshing if you sell or transfer your ticket -- the recipient just gets a new ticket linked to their account and cellphone.
