Microsoft and ESPN bring media convergence to sport

Beginning in November, if you own an Xbox 360 and subscribe to Xbox Live, you will be able to watch ESPN3 live and on-demand through your magical Microsoft box.  The entertainment device already boasts connections to Netflix and other kinds of entertainment content, but it's safe to say that today's announcement at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) opens the world of sports broadcasting to an intriguing new medium.

Two SportsCenter anchors were on hand at E3 today to

show this picture of USC players hugging.

Importantly for both companies, however, this new feature will be exclusive to the Xbox, leaving Microsoft competitors Nintendo and Sony out in the cold.  Both console-developing companies, however, have made strides within the past year to make their mark in the streaming sports world.  Just a few months ago, Sony made a deal with Major League Baseball to supply a live streaming service through the Playstation.

The kids are going to want to do this, ESPN thinks.

It also means that there are some new features forthcoming as a result of the convergence.  According to their presentation, the Xbox/ESPN experience will also feature "live trivia, polls, and clips from ESPN shows  like SportsCenter."  For ESPN's Digital Media GM, John Kosner, streaming programming through the Xbox can create a "live even experience" that "reach[es] a group that we don't normally reach."

ESPN Rolls Out its WC Coverage

This is an impressive start.  Mike Tirico handling the on-location studio-hosting duties for ESPN's World Cup coverage, a first for World Cup coverage in the U.S.

With pre-match shows and post-match shows, as well as a daily evening show to recap and analyze the day's action - all broadcast from South Africa - it's like soccer finally getting its due from the Worldwide Leader.

Canada's Stanley Cup Coverage puts NBC to shame

As in many things hockey, the Canadian Broadcasting Company is putting NBC's lackluster approach to the Stanley Cup Finals to shame.

Time to admit that yes, even with these guys, Canada does it better.

Evidence?  Exhibit A and B, from the CBC, below.  From the opening night (Saturday) of the Stanley Cup Finals...

Sinatra, the history of both franchises, and one of the wildest arenas in all of sport? Well done.  And from last night's coverage of game two of the Stanley Cup Finals...

My favorite part?  About 1:10 in, where you can see Patrick Sharp yelling from the bench at pulled Flyers goaltender Michael Leighton.  The production firepower for NBC's Stanley Cup Finals broadcasts don't even come close.  This is all I could find online from Game 1, and I can assure you that Game 2's intro video was just as short and lame.

I guess that should be expected, considering how low hockey is on the totem pole in the United States, but still - if the Stanley Cup is your property, NBC, wouldn't you give it half the consideration and production power of that overblown, completely out-of-touch venture you call Sunday Night Football?

Well, remember, this is NBC we're talking about.  Still, NBC network executives are probably ecstatic with the Stanley Cup Finals, considering their coverage on Saturday night produced the highest overnight ratings for the opening game of Stanley Cup Finals in 11 years and a 12% jump over last year's opening game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings.  While national viewership figures won't be available until tomorrow (Wednesday), we already know that the overnight figures for game 2 produced the highest-rated game 2 numbers in 35 years and a 21% jump from last year's game.

Still, couldn't they put a bit more effort into their production?  As it stands, CBC's coverage is all the more interesting because they are formulating an actual narrative.  A narrative - with all of the dramas, twists and turns, and so on - sells the broadcast.  Seems like common sense.

In soccer, as in any sport, pretty girls = good ratings

While it may be the oldest TV broadcasting maxim in the book, it is still interesting for me to hear it so prominently proclaimed.  In this short behind-the-scenes video from Fox Soccer Channel's Football Fone-In, we see male co-hosts Eric Wynalda and Nick Webster tout the addition of former Arizona State University soccer standout Temryss Lane (twitter) for boosting their show's ratings.  Again, it's an obvious connection, but it's almost flaunted by her male counterparts in the vid below.

The boost in ratings, furthermore, has not gone overlooked by Major League Soccer and their website - which produced an article on Lane's rise, put together a photo gallery of Lane that dates to her playing days at ASU, and featured her - along with the rest of the Football Fone-In cast - on yesterday's MLS video podcast.

What is Lane's role on the Fox Soccer Channel's prime call-in show, you might ask?  She is charged with breaking down highlights for the WPS as well as responding to e-mails and Tweets - not altogether unlike the role currently held by another female in the realm of cable sportsdom...that is, the role that Jenn Sterger plays on Versus' The Daily Line, a nightly sports talk show where Jenn blogs, conducts a live chat, and reads Tweets during the telecast.

The Daily Line hosts. And I ask, why is Jenn's head 

so disproportionately tilted?

I guess these women are just another pair in the long line of women relegated to the sidelines of sports broadcasting, seeing as both are typically shown (by themselves) to the fair right or left of the show's main desks.  But in the digital age, it's interesting to see that the sideline - for these two shows at least - is now the Internet...a place where both Lane and Sterger - as aspiring models - have their own followings.