Sports networks develop apps to allow mobile streaming

Over the past few years, cable companies and sports networks have agreed to contracts that allow people to stream their channels from their smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. The streaming service benefits the user, the cable company, and the sports network.

Since the smartphone has become popular over the last decade, people all over the world have become more demanding of instant access to news. Social media has become a part of daily life for many, with websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram drawing millions of users per day. As the amount of information that users can retrieve from their phone increased, so has the desire for people to watch television on their devices.

Growth of video streaming / Business Insider

The business of video streaming has become an immensely rich industry over the past few years. Since the beginning of 2012, the revenue has more than doubled, as people are eager to watch their favorite television shows right from their phones. Sports fans desired the same ability to watch their teams from their mobile devices.

To accommodate its fans’ wishes, ESPN launched WatchESPN in April 2011, an app that allows viewers to watch ESPN networks on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, as long as they have a subscription to a cable company that carries ESPN. Executive vice president of sales and marketing for ESPN Sean Bratches attributed the service to the demands of the consumer.

“We strive to serve the sports fan wherever they consume sports,” Bratches said in a 2011 ESPN press statement. “I can’t think of a better way to do that than making our networks available to fans whenever and wherever they might be.”

With ESPN launching a service that allowed users to stream their channels on their mobile devices, they gained an advantage over other sports networks because people could now instantly access ESPN’s content. To regain an edge other networks developed their own mobile apps that allowed on-the-go streaming. FOX Sports invented their own app allowing users to watch sporting events that are on FOX, FS1, and the FOX sports network that is in the region of the viewer. While FOX Sports saw a decline in the viewership in Super Bowl LI than in years past, many more people streamed the game from the app than in previous Super Bowls.

“[FOX Sports Go] averaged 1.72 million viewers per minute for New England’s 34-28 win,” said Taylor Soper in a 2017 article for Geekwire. “Last year, an average of 1.4 million viewers per minute streamed the Super Bowl.”

Broadcasting sporting events from mobile devices has benefits for all parties involved: the streamer, the sports network, and the cable company. Streamers do not need to rely on a TV to watch a sporting event. Sports networks now have another outlet for viewership, which makes its advertisements more valuable, as more people are able to see them. These sports networks still require a potential streamer to have a cable subscription that carries their channels. Cable companies may even gain subscribers from people who wish to watch sporting events on the go. As the demand for instant media access increases, streaming services will continue to grow and benefit all parties involved.

By Bruce Mayfield and Michael Stern

Misconceptions of Tommy John Surgery

Tommy John / Roger Dewitt / Wikimedia

In the past decade there has been a recent spike in the amount of players having Tommy John surgery. Last year 19 MLB pitchers alone had this surgery. As the demand for faster pitchers increase, the amount of surgeries have increased as well. 

MLB teams expect fast hard speeds consistently from their pitchers. As the pitchers throw harder the bigger possibility of their UCL tearing. To repair this doctors remove a ligament from either a hamstring or forearm and replace the torn UCL.

The human arm is not designed to throw a ball overhead at 90 mph. This stress is equivalent to holding a 12-pound bowling ball. Even at amateur level players are expected to pitch faster and harder because thats what professional leagues expect.

“That means more young pitchers must throw more, trainer harder, and test the limits of their own health more often,” former MLB pitcher Dirk Hayhurst wrote in a 2014 SportsonEarth article.

These limits that are being pushed by these young athletes are the root causes of this surgery. Preventing this surgery could be as easy as limiting their pitching. Coaches are pushing their players to throw countless pitches for consecutive games which prevents the ligament from rest and growth. Dr James Andrews, the man who developed this surgery, is giving advice to these young athletes to help prevent injury.

“One coach will pitch a kid for five innings one night and then the next day the same kid will go throw five more innings for a different coach in a different game," Andrews said in a 2012 ESPN highschool article. “These pitchers should not be playing in more than one league at once. You have to rest to prevent these injuries.”

This surgery is thought to increase the speed of a pitcher’s throw. In reality players just return to their normal pitching speeds. This misconception has influenced parents wanting to have their kids obtain the surgery prior to any injury. There hasn’t been any evidence that this surgery increases the skill of any pitcher.

"It doesn't make someone faster or, well, anything," Cincinnati Reds surgeon Dr. Tim Kremchek said in a 2014 BleacherReport article. 

It is not certain that the surgery will be successful, in many cases players were forced to get a second surgery because they had injured themselves during the rehabilitation process. There is an 80-85% chance that the surgery will be successful, meanwhile if their ligament tears again the chances are as low as 40%.

This surgery has been very controversial over the past three decades. Many pitchers have been able to continue their careers from getting this surgery. They get it in hopes that their performance may increase on the field. Young athletes looking at this demand for the surgery on the pro level, influences them to want to get the surgery. These young athletes are trying to achieve what their role models achieve. In reality this surgery is more of a necessity than a privilege.

By Adib Islam and Nicholas Bohan

Coaches and administrators opinions on football union

On January 28, 2014 the College Athletics Players Association petitioned that the players on athletic scholarships at Northwestern University are employees of the university. If the claim that the students are employees is supported, the players can unionize. This will allow the players to manipulate the hours they practice reducing the coaches control over the player's schedule.

Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald does not support the unionization of his football players. He believes that this will have a negative result on the realationship the university has developed with the players. He urges his players to vote against the union. He does not see the need for others to intervene with the relationship the players have with the university because the university will provide everything the players need.

“I just do not believe we need a third party between our players and our coaches, staff and administrators. ... Whatever they need, we will get them,” Fitzgerald said in a 2014 Huffington Post article.

Stanford football coach David Shaw also questions the need of a player union in college football.

“I think Northwestern does a phenomenal job providing for their kids, and it's weird to try to unionize but still compliment Northwestern and compliment their coaching staff on being taken care of. Those things don't seem to go hand in hand," Shaw said in a 2014 ESPN article.

The Ohio Valley Conference Commissioner Beth DeBauche participated in a conference discussing the commercialisation of college sports on Tuesday, April 15, 2014. She participated in this conference to give her input on how the NCAA business plan may change to give student athletes what they think they deserve. The student athletes believe they deserve a portion of the large revenue the NCAA receives.

"The landscape as we know it for Division I is going to certainly change in some form or fashion," DeBauche said in a 2014 Associated Press article.

DeBauche admits there must be a change in the format of the business plan in the NCAA. She sees this situation to change the business plan of the NCAA into a positive direction. Many administrative influences on the NCAA like the Big Ten do not see a need for change.

"I have a really hard time envisioning what it would be," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said in a 2014 Chicago Business article.

The opinions on unionization of these two coaches and administrators are mostly negative. They believe this idea of a union will conflict with the university’s preparation of the players and it will not fit into the business plan set by the NCAA.

Jabari Parker’s questionable future

Jabari Parker/Adam Glantzman/Flickr.com

Jabari Parker was one of the most popular and talked about college basketball players this past season, but no one knows when he will enter the NBA draft. Duke was eliminated in the first round of the 2014 NCAA tournament. This gives Parker a reason to stay at Duke for another year. The question that now comes up is when will Parker enter the NBA draft. As of right now it seems that he is leaning towards staying at Duke for another season; however, Parker is not worried about the NBA.

“We honestly don’t know. After the season, we’ll talk about it,” his father Sonny Parker said in a 2014 SlamOnline interview.

Parker has the potential to be a great professional basketball player, but he needs more time to develop his raw talent into skill. The fact that Duke was eliminated so early in the tournament, as well as the fact that highest rated high school player in the country, Jhalil Okafor is coming to Duke, only adds to him wanting to play another season of college basketball.

The 2014 NBA draft is loaded with prospects including Kansas' small forward Andrew Wiggins, a player that is often considered to be the rival of Parker. In late March, Wiggins declared that he was joining this year’s NBA draft and this decision could impact whether Parker returns next season. If Parker stays another year at Duke and enters the next year's draft, he would stand out more in the draft class of 2015; however, if he enters this year he could get paid sooner and have a guaranteed contract for the 2014-2015 NBA season.

An extra year playing in college would help Parker gain more experience and to develop his skills; however, there is also a possibility of injury that could damage his career. Only time will tell where Parker will choose to take his career and the choice is entirely up to him.

Is anyone really responsible for the Patriots’ loss to the Giants in Super Bowl XLVI?

Who is to blame for the Patriots' loss to the Giants in Super Bowl XLVI? Football is a team sport where one shouldn't carry the whole team to a victory. Many sources such as ESPN and Yahoo Sports blame Wes Welker for the dropped pass and Tom Brady for the inaccurate pass, even though there are other factors that was crucial to the game, such as the 38-yard pass to Manningham late in the fourth quarter that gave the Giants momentum and confidence to get the win. “He wasn’t the only one dropping passes.” said a Pawngo company spokesman in a Daily News article. It was just a broken connection between Brady and Welker, and that happens every time, even in professional sports.

Welker, leading the NFL with 122 receptions, is one of the best active wide receivers without a doubt. "Ninety-nine percent of the time, he makes that grab," fellow receiver Deion Branch to ESPN. "It's football. Nobody's perfect." Even his teammates support him, and they don’t blame him for the dropped pass. “He’s a hell of a player," Brady said to NFL.com. "I’ll keep throwing it to him as long as I can.” In the Super Bowl, Welker completed seven of eight targeted passes. The dropped pass turned out to be the most crucial.

This season, Brady proved to doubters that he still is one of the best players in the NFL. Brady won three Super Bowls with the Patriots and is also a three-time MVP and a seven-time Pro Bowler. Not only that Brady knows how to dodge tackles and move on his feet, but he is also one of the most accurate throwers in the league. The chances of the Patriots going to the Super Bowl without their amazing quarterback is very slim, so it’s not really logical to blame Brady for the loss. If you watch the highlight of the throw to Welker, you can see two safeties near Welker, so maybe Brady had a difficult decision not knowing where to throw, making sure the pass wouldn’t be intercepted. It’s not really the quarterback’s throw that cost the Patriots the most important game of their season.

In each football game, there are a few plays that would decide who will win the game. In this game, the dropped pass by Welker was just one of them. It isn’t really fair to put the blame only on this pass. Something that could’ve happened was Patriots forcing a turnover, either an interception or fumble and not allowing Giants to finish their final drive that won the game. Also, if they didn’t have the 12-players on a field penalty earlier in the game. That would’ve given them the fumble recovery early in the game in the first quarter; those plays would’ve made a big difference.

The Patriots missed many opportunities during that last drive. The AP reported, “The Patriots also had several drops on their final drive, and there were many more plays that cost them their fourth Super Bowl championship in 11 years.” It shows that maybe the Patriots aren’t so good under pressure. “It always comes down to one or two plays in this game. If you make it, you’re celebrating. If you don’t, you don’t sleep for a week.” said Tom Brady to NFL.com. No one is really at fault for this dropped pass, because missed opportunities happen often in professional sports.

Josh Hamilton, then and now

In 2001, Major League baseball player, Josh Hamilton, began to use drugs at the age of 20 to cope with a car accident he and his parents had. Hamilton felt the use of drugs was his only way out.

Hamilton’s parents were there for him at every game, and the night of the incident brought changes to him and his whole family. The accident left his mother, Linda Hamilton, suffering major injuries and Josh with back injuries. His parents returned to Raleigh to get medical treatment. Hamilton, alone, began to hang out with a group of people at a tattoo shop. They weren’t bad people, according to him, but they would drink and smoke. Eventually he became addicted to cocaine and excessively drank alcohol.

“I had my first drink of alcohol and did my first line of cocaine in the same night,” he said. “I can’t say why I did it, other than just curious about both of them. When I first got into drinking and using drugs, it was because of where I was hanging out, it was whom I was hanging out with. You might not do it at first, but eventually, if you keep hanging around long enough, you're going to start doing what they're doing,” Hamilton said on CBN.com.

Hamilton could not control his drug use. He failed the MLB drug test multiple times and got suspended for 25 days and eventually didn’t play baseball from 2004 to 2006, suffering a fine of about $25,000. “I sat out three years and played only 15 games last season in A-ball,” said Hamilton in an ESPN.com article.

Eventually, Hamilton decided he needed to get his life together. He decided to visit his grandmother where he had dreams about his addiction. “Within my first week of sobriety in October 2005 -- after I showed up at my grandmother's house in Raleigh in the middle of the night, coming off a crack binge -- I had the most haunting dream. I was fighting the devil,” said Hamilton. “I GET cravings, and I see it as the devil trying to catch me in a weak moment. The best thing I can do is get the thought out of my mind as soon as I can, so it doesn't turn into an obsession. When it happens, I talk to him. I talk to the devil and say, ‘These are just thoughts, and I'm not going to act on them.’”

Hamilton continuously fought against his temptations and after a couple of months, he learned to be completely resistant.

After five years, Hamilton has been doing well in his career and has been drug-free. He won the BBWAA Most Valuable Player award in 2010. "I would say a 99 percent chance that this would never happen. It's an absolutely great honor. I think about where I was at my lowest time and how God has brought me through that and sustained me,” he said.

Hamilton is glad that he was able to go through everything, yet manage to earn his position in the MLB. “This may sound crazy, but I wouldn't change a thing about my path to the big leagues. I wouldn't even change the 26 tattoos that cover so much of my body, even though they're the most obvious signs of my life temporarily leaving the tracks. You're probably thinking, Bad decisions and addiction almost cost him his life, and he wouldn't change anything? But if I hadn't gone through all the hard times, this whole story would be just about baseball. If I'd made the big leagues at 21 and made my first All-Star team at 23 and done all the things expected of me, I would be a big-time baseball player, and that's it.”

Steve Lavin, a savior for St. John's

Steve Lavin / Wikimedia Commons

Steve Lavin had an early start to his coaching career, and has made quite a name for himself in a short amount of time. When he was merely 24 years old, he was the assistant coach at Purdue. In his three years at Purdue, he picked up valuable experience under the tutelage of Gene Keady. He uses what he learned to help win games to this day. Then in 1991 he was hired by UCLA to be an assistant head coach.

In 1995, Lavin saw the team win the 1995 national championship with a 32-1 record. After 5 years of service as the assistant coach, he was promoted to the head coach position with the UCLA Bruins and led the Bruins to the 1997 Pac-10 Championship and the NCAA Elite Eight with an overall record of 24-8 in his first. In his 7 years as head, Lavin compiled a record of 145-78. His first season there, he led the Bruins to the 1997 Pac-10 Championship and the NCAA Elite Eight with an overall record of 24-8.

His impressive performance caught the eye of many, as he had a 12-4 overtime record throughout the course of seven seasons. He also led the team to a 10-4 record against the rival USC Trojans.As both an assistant and head coach, Lavin participated in 13 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances (1990–2002), while working at Purdue University and UCLA. During Lavin's tenure as a head coach, he was one of only two coaches in the country, along with Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, to lead his team to five NCAA "Sweet 16s" in six years ('02, '01, '00, '98, '97). Lavin guided UCLA to six consecutive seasons of 20 or more wins, as well as six consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. After one losing season, he was fired by UCLA, and began his job as an ESPN analyst.

After seven years as an ESPN analyst, he became the head coach at St. John's, although his dream job was to coach Penn State. According to an article published by SNY, “Lavin said St. John's was one of ‘two or three schools in the country’ for which he would have left his broadcasting career at ESPN.” Lavin’s guidance over the St. John's basketball team led the Red Storm to the NCAA championships for the first time in seven years. He powered the team to obtain the sixth seed in the tournament.

Had Lavin not been there to drive the team, they would have gone another year seedless. According to a PennLive.com article, “(The Red Storm) could not make a winning play when it mattered. They could not beat anyone who mattered. They finished 6-12 in the Big East for the school's eighth straight losing conference season. They weren't even an afterthought in a town that worships at the altar of the sport.” The students at the University believe that Lavin could turn around the dismal losing streak of the Red Storm. “Because I'm a student at St.John's, … I actually believe Lavin has a good chance of helping turn around the program here at St.John's,” according to a student's blog. He also has an off the court presence, where he got Dwayne Polee to sign a “National Letter of Intent” to play for the Red Storm.

Steve Lavin has had an illustrious career. Starting out as an assistant coach at Purdue, he worked his way up to head coach of UCLA, where he obtained five Sweet 16 spots in six years. After a brief hiatus, he returned to coaching at St. John's, one of the few schools he was willing to leave his ESPN job for. So far, he has led them to the NCAA championships, where they have the sixth seed. The team would not have made it this far without him.