How the New Media are Used In Sports

New Media in Sports and E-Sports

Introduction

Tribe member hunting deer with bow and arrow

Since the beginning of time, man has been known to participate in a variety of sports. The idea of sports goes back centuries to the practice of hunting. Tribesmen created weapons with the resources around them and forged groups that would be the most successful at catching prey. Weapons often included bows and arrows, as well as spears. When facing large animals, such as bulls or lions, tribesmen were compelled to work in teams and create synergy in order to avoid casualties.

Since then, new sports have appeared and have developed into much more sophisticated versions of their former selves. The purpose of playing sports has also changed--rather than a necessity, sports have become a method of entertainment and competition. Along with these developments came the sports fans. Cheered on by a roaring crowd, athletes have become more and more interested in pleasing their viewers and ultimately, their sponsors. Media companies and executives have also become more and more interested in pleasing fans. High-definition televisions, portable devices, fan-pages, and social networking sites became the new media for people to receive sports coverage and updates when are unable to physically appear at the event.

eSports

League of Legends Season 7 World Championship Finals in the Bird's Nest, Beijing

“eSports”, also known as electronic sports, are a form of video game competition that is facilitated by electronic systems (PC, PS4, Xbox, Nintendo Wii, Smartphone, etc.). Just like NBA basketball players play basketball together, professional eSports players play video games against each other. In the past few years, eSports has evolved from professional gamers playing from home to playing at huge eSports tournaments that now take place all over the world in large theaters and arenas with hundreds of thousands of live spectators. Aside from live spectating, fans across the world also enjoy watching these tournaments through live broadcasts and commentaries at home or sports bars. At a typical eSports event, gamers would face off against each other (usually as a team) on a particular game, with many fans watching on a big screen, just like they would at an NBA game.

Electronic Sports (E-Sports) has been established in the popular areas of South Korea. South Korea has a deep history in which their infrastructure in gaming has been far ahead of every other country. E-Sports has been gaining strength in the western part of the world with the fairly recent introduction to games such as League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offense. E-Sports' popularity mainly existed in South Korean due to the highly famous StarCraft game that took the country by storm. Much like Baseball, Basketball, Football, and Soccer, the professional E-Sport teams were being sponsored by big corporations. Players received prize money in addition to the salary from the contract. The beginning of E-Sport effectively occurred in South Korea.

With the rise of League of Legends, Hearthstone, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offense (CS:GO), the West has begun to structure their own set of culture into the society. Colleges and High Schools are beginning to develop clubs and school teams to compete with others, much like how an NCAA works. In August 2017, NCAA has officially accepted the proposal of considering eSports as an official NCAA sport. In the meantime, different eSports clubs and teams in colleges have come together to form the “National Association of Collegiate Esports”, basically the equivalence of NCAA for college sports. They have established a list of official collegiate eSports teams and players. Like any other sports, gaming records are recorded and are accessible to the public on their website. The organization have gained funding for tournaments through various sponsorships, television airtime, and selling out of tickets for crowded arenas.

It is at a fairly young stage but it is definitely growing at a very rapid rate. Big corporations such as Intel, GEICO, Samsung, HTC, Logitech, are coming together to support the E-Sports teams as the wave catches on. As with all sports, it is a good sign to witness big-name companies willing to invest in teams and help the infrastructure grow. One of the most recent headlines was Mark Cuban, owner of Dallas Mavericks, played League of Legends in a celebrity show match in Intel Extreme Masters (IEM). This is the very proof of the gaining popularity of E-Sports and its continued efforts to be officially recognized as a sport. Mark Cuban famously dissed a famous host of a radio show, Colin Cowherd, and called him an "idiot when it comes to eSports."

South Korea, a leading country for E-Sports, also recently pushed the issue onto the Olympics and is now one step away from becoming an official event of the Olympics.

Recently Turner Studios, owner of the cable network TBS, has invested heavily into eSports by hosting their own tournament style broadcast labeled ELEAGUE. ELEAGUE like many other tournament organizers is beginning to show huge prize pools of a million dollars and for good reason too. According to TSN, a subsidiary of ESPN, the 2017 CS:GO tournament peaked at over a million concurrent viewers from Twitch.tv alone. Mainstream media are beginning to follow in the footsteps of eSports corporation most notably NBA retired star Rick Fox's investment in eSport team Echo Fox. In 2017, League of Legends and Counter Strike World tournament’s prize pool was more than $1 million USD. Even competitors who did not win the tournament received hundreds of thousands of dollars through sponsorships, ticket sales, and in-game purchases. In 2016, Dota 2’s World Championship had a prize pool of $20 million USD. That amount is greater than many sports tournaments and UFC fights.

Sports and E-Sports Websites

The official logo

NFL

NBA

BleacherReport

MLB

NHL

MLS

Fanduel

Entertainment Sports Programming Network, or ESPN , was founded to cover sports-related programs. It covers all major sports and primarily specializes in sports news, updates, analysis of upcoming matchups. In the mornings, their Sportscenter program covers sports highlights from the previous day, as well as analysis and any breaking news regarding injuries or trades. It is an extremely condensed and informative update, which make sit very attractive for many sports fans to tune in the morning as well as throughout the day. They repeat their report on team updates every hour on the hour, and also give live look-ins to any ongoing news conferences given by head coaches of teams, or superstars. ESPN is known as the worldwide leader in sports and its website contains a section for all the major sports around the world. ESPN gives the ability to create an account with them to receive email updates and set your favorite teams so that scores and news are always the first to pop up.

Sports Illustrated is a similar website to ESPN that provides similar coverage over a wide range of sports Although known for its magazine, Sports Illustrated's website contains much of the same stories as the paper copy. There are even extras such as videos, pictures, and current updates on the website. Also like ESPN, Sports Illustrated's website has a homepage for every sport that gives live updates on the biggest major news in that respective sport. These sites are popular for live updates for scores and major announcements such as trades.

As for specific sports leagues, Major League Baseball , the National Basketball Association , Major League Soccer , in addition to the MLS there is also the Premier Development League This is more for student athletes who do not intent to play professional but still want to compete on a high level, the National Football League and the National Hockey Association , they have their own websites with video highlights, interviews, and news. These all help sports fans better follow their teams and their respective sports. These websites also include team-specific apparel websites, which makes it easy for fans to find printed apparel to support their teams.

A website that has really collaborated all of sports news together is bleacher report . This website specializes in curating and gathering news that is trending in all sports. Bleacher report is owned by Turner Sports. This website brings together sports journalists and bloggers covering sports such as NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAA, and many other sports.

SB Nation is a sports news website owned and operated by Vox Media. SB Nation was established in 2005. SB Nation is a website that provides you with sports news updates and rumors. SB Nation consists of 309 blogs. SB Nation gives a list of sports then within the sport you can choose your favorite team or any team to check out all articles and blog posts. SB Nation also has a fan post and fan shot section making a more interactive sports website compared to some of the others.

Fantasy League

As an effort to continue the popularity and adjust to the taste of the culture in the United States, popular MOBA game, League of Legends has recently offered Fantasy League, where it functions very similarly to how other fantasy games are played for other sporting events. Participants are allowed to form their squad over a drafting system and compete with friends or strangers to collect the most points at the end of the season. It is still in the early stages of development (two years), and it is taking user feedback to better enhance the experience for the participants. Each league has over 20 million users. Fantasy people will have 75 million users in 2016.

Fantasy Football

Yahoo's! Fantasy Football

As a subset of sports websites, there is now what is called ‘fantasy sports’. In Fantasy sports , a ‘commissioner’ of a league recruits ‘team owners’, who then draft real players to form their own ‘fantasy team’, and they score points and compete with other fantasy team owners. These leagues have different scoring formats and scoring uses the stats that the players rack up in the real games during the regular season. This makes watching the regular season games even more entertaining, and fantasy sports has expanded primarily to include basketball, football, and baseball. Participating in fantasy sports gives an extra stake to regular season games which do not usually have that high of a significance. It is common for sports fan to own multiple fantasy teams over the course of the same season. Playing fantasy sports has become commonplace in workplaces with friendly wagers.Sites like Fanduel[1]and Draft Kings[www.draftkings.com], allows their users to bet real money for prizes, such as $1 million dollars. It's been so popular, it has created a controversy among fantasy sports[2] and is actually banned in states such as New York and Las Vegas.[3] Both ESPN and Yahoo! have their own fantasy sports websites.

Fantasy Football started early in 1962 by Wilfred Winkenbach, Bill Tunnell, and Scotty Stirling, while they were on an east coast trip.Wilfred and Bill were part of Oakland Raiders organization and Scotty was a reporter for Oakland Tribune.First ever Draft for fantasy Football was helped in 1963. The NFL started modifying the fantasy rule to give both Defense and Offense some advantages By 1989, fantasy Football had over One million players. The players would have to account for every week their team plays. On a bye week, the team would have to adjust it based on the changes needed. Now in 2016, More than 20 million people play Fantasy Football. Players can compete to win prizes among friends, or they can choose to compete in a public setting to win greater prizes.

Fantasy Basketball

DraftKings is one of many popular sites used for Fantasy Sports

Fanduel is another popular site used for Fantasy Sports

Fantasy basketball was made popular after the rise of the Internet in the 1990s and was inspired by the success of fantasy baseball. Players are referred to as "general managers" or "GMs" and draft actual professional basketball players in the NBA from a pool. There are two ways to draft players in fantasy basketball leagues. The snake draft allows players to draft in order in the first round, but the order is reversed in the second round. The last player to draft in the first round becomes the first player to draft in the second round. The following rounds follow this format and "snakes" its way until all rounds are completed. The other drafting method is the auction draft in which managers have a set budget for which they use to fill their rosters. This allows each manager equal access to all players in the pool.

Online fantasy basketball leagues are divided into two categories based on the point of entry: public and private leagues Public leagues are open to anyone and typically contain ten or twelve teams. Players in private leagues have to be invited by a "commissioner" (creator) of the league and the number of teams can vary. Most players in private league compete against friends or people they know. In addition to the accessibility of the league, fantasy basketball is further divided into free-to-play leagues (no prizes) and prize-eligible leagues where money is awarded to the top players. Categories used in scoring can vary from three to eleven. The main three statistical categories used to keep score of matchups are points scored, rebounds, and assists. Other categories include steals, blocks, field goal percentage, free throw percentage, three-point field goals made (or percentage), turnovers. Personal fouls are used as a scoring category in only a few leagues.

There are three main types of scoring in fantasy basketball. The rotisserie method awards fantasy points based on the ranking of each team in each category by the end of the season. For example, in a twelve-team league, the leading rebounding team by the end of the season will be awarded 12 points while the last place team in the category will be awarded 1 point with every other team in between receiving less than 12 points. The team with the highest points by the end of the season is the winner. The head-to-head scoring method allows a team to compete against one single team over the course of a week. This method can be separated into two styles. In one style of play, the team who wins the most categories with each winning category being worth one point is the winner. Another style values each category separately and awards points based on the number of points scored in each category. Statistics from each weekly match-up are accumulated, and the winner of the league has the best win-loss record at the end of the season barring additional playoff-formated matchups. The final scoring method is by fantasy points. The number of points each particular statistic is worth is pre-determined by the commissioner before the start of the season. Points are accumulated nightly and the manager with the most points by the end of the season is the winner. Fantasy basketball can also be made with temporary teams through daily competitions on sites such as Draftkings.com , where players draft a team just for one night and compete against other players.

Fantasy Baseball

Fantasy Baseball works in similar fashion to fantasy basketball. Fantasy Baseball begin early as 1922 by Lack Kerouac, who made his own fictitious fantasy team. Although this event was private, it encouraged computer developers to take further steps. IBM coded Fantasy Baseball in their Computer released in 1961. Two teams were allowed to verse each other in a battle to find out who has the better team. First public Fantasy Baseball was released in 1989. Fantasy Baseball encouraged other sports league to develop their own Fantasy league. Fantasy Baseball can be played in ESPN.com, MLB.com, well as Facebook.

At the beginning of the season, players will join a league of their choosing. There are two types of leagues: public and private. After there are enough players in the league, the league will be able to hold a draft in which General Manager has the opportunity to make their team. A cool feature of the draft is the ability to trade for draft picks. Players can negotiate a trade for better draft picks. The alignment of the lineup is similar to the actual game. Players will have one catcher, four infielders, and 3 outfields. You will also be able to choose your bench players. There will be five starting pitchers with supporting cast for the bullpen. During the season, the players will have the opportunity to trade for players within the league. However, once the trade deadline passed, players will have to stick with the players they have.

Fantasy Hockey

Fantasy hockey is a form of fantasy sport where players build a team that competes with other players who do the same, based on the statistics generated by professional hockey players or teams. The majority of fantasy hockey pools are based on the teams and players of the National Hockey League (NHL).

A typical fantasy hockey league or hockey pool has 8 - 12 teams but often have as many as 20. Other types of pools may have a greater number of teams, which may dilute the average talent making it more or less fun depending on the league, but also represents more closely the actual NHL, which currently has 30 teams. Other forms of fantasy hockey may allow an unlimited number of teams, whereby any number of owners may draft the same player(s). These typically have a restricted number of "trades" where one player may simply be exchanged for any other in the player pool, typically of the same position.

There are many types of fantasy hockey games. These include head-to-head, points, and rotisserie. However, the most popular is daily fantasy. In this game mode, players create a team composed of real league athletes. However, players can create new teams every day and are not stuck to one the entire season. Unlike daily fantasy football leagues, daily fantasy hockey leagues are more casual and require less attention from players. There is usually a minimum you must commit in order to participate.

Fantasy Soccer

Soccer is the largest sport in the world. As with many other sports, soccer also has one of its own fantasy leagues. One of the largest videos games, where stats and everything going around the world is, Fifa Ultimate team market. While the market for the game is meant to follow a style of the capitalist market, the games have its many flaws on that. People have games outside the rules and have gone to social website to create their own market where there is money being exchanged, in the hundred to obtain certain players. While EA, the game producers, have tried to track the sites that are meant to track illegal transactions. It is very hard to do so because of the large number of social websites that exist.

Bracketology

Another more recent phenomenon that has started fairly recently is the college basketball playoff month, also known as 'March Madness'. The buzz over this month is not only through the excitement generated by the domination of powerhouse teams and "Cinderella" stories in college basketball, but also through what is known as predicting the 'bracket' for the tournament. This is where various sporting websites like ESPN, Yahoo, NCAA, and etc, release a blank bracket in which fans try to predict the ending positions of each team before the tournament even starts. Because of the unpredictable nature of college basketball and the high frequency of upsets during the tournament, it is nearly impossible to predict the complete bracket correctly. Because of this, sports sites offer prizes to those who are fortunate enough to create the impossible "perfect bracket", or come close. ESPN has offered a $10,000 Best Buy gift card to the individual who scores the most points on their bracket . The Buffet Challenge started annually by Warren Buffet, offers $1 billion to anyone who could create a perfect bracket, which no one was able to complete. There are 64 teams in the NCAA tournament and that results in over 9.2 quintillion possible brackets that can be filled. The odds however to successfully have a perfect bracket range from one in 2.4 trillion to one in 9.2 quintillion. To put that in perspective on how hard this is to do, is that you would have better odds of winning the $750 million powerball. The odds to win that are only at one in 292.2 million. However, the top 20 scorers in his challenge still received $100,000 each, which is still a huge sum .

Fantasy sports, in general, has turned into a huge business. According to an article in Forbes magazine, in 2013 alone, Fantasy sports generated over $15 billion in revenue, $11 billion coming from the NFL.

Daily Fantasy

One of the most popular forms of Fantasy sports has just recently come to fruition, it is called Daily Fantasy. Industry leaders Draftkings and Fanduel revolutionized the way fantasy sports were played which showed to be immensely prosperous. These companies combined share about 95% of the daily fantasy business. The difference between Daily leagues and season-long leagues is the fact that you can pick a new team every week. It truly is a genius idea, especially if you drafted a poor team and aren’t having fun in your season-long league. The way it works is you are given a certain salary cap that you can devise a team out of. The best players in the league that achieve the most points each week cost substantially more than the players that score less. Once you created your team within the salary cap and entered a particular pool you can win money based on how well your team did compare to other teams. Draftkings and Fanduel are known to give out prizes upwards of one million dollars. According to Crain’s Cleveland Business, “The daily fantasy leaders reportedly spent a combined $26.9 million on nearly 8,000 commercial airings during Week 1 of the NFL season. DraftKings forked over an industry-high $16.3 million on NFL ads”

Both Draft Kings and FanDuel have had trouble operating in 2015. In the month of November the The New York State attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, ordered both companies to stop accepting bets from New York residents since gambling is illegal in the state of New York. This is a big hit for both companies because New York is a huge sports market, up to 500,000 people and that is a lot of money lost. However, some believe that fantasy sports have a very strategic aspect to it. Strategies include things such as which players to draft, trade, or drop and which lineups to setup for different weeks. FanDuel states“Fantasy sports is a game of skill and legal under New York state law. This is a politician telling hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers they are not allowed to play a game they love and share with friends, family, co-workers, and players across the country.” This has become a controversial topic in the world of fantasy sports. Both companies have filed their own lawsuit and hope to return their New York fans the experience they had before.

New York lifted the ban on these daily fantasy sports sites in June of 2016. This is due to the New York legislature reaching a deal which would allow daily fantasy operating sites to resume their own operations in the state of New York. They were shut down for the most part of 2015 and 2016 because it was a violation of New York's gambling laws. This is not just happening in New York, but in other states as well. States including Arizona, Nevada, and Washington never permitted the operations of daily fantasy sports in the first place. Those states were banned from the very beginning. Daily fantasy sports is a huge part of New York because of Fanduel and its headquarters operation in the state. The state also had 300,000 active players on these sites on a daily basis. The bill passed the legislation for daily fantasy is a huge step forward into legalizing daily fantasy in other states as a precedent for the future measure. The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, signed the bill a week later to make it official. New Yorkers can now relax and rejoice with daily fantasy back in their state.

On November of 2016, Fanduel and DraftKings surprisingly agreed to merge with one another. "DraftKings co-founder Jason Robins will become the CEO of the new company and FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles will serve as chairman of the board," according to USA Today. The two sites have been actively trying to pursue the same goal for a number of years. With the two sites merging, they will have a combined entity that will own almost 100% of the daily fantasy sports marketplace with fewer players on Yahoo and ESPN. Merging will help in these companies in fighting the state regulations of daily fantasy in various states that currently ban players from playing in the state.

A completed bracket

Television and Sports

People watching sports on the television

Millions of people worldwide get together with friends and family, either at home or at a place of interest, in order to watch and cheer for their favorite teams. The television set has been one of the most common and oldest mediums for which people receive their sports entertainment outside of the playing field. From satellite users to cable users, from casual viewers to die-hard fans, the television has been the most reliable way to watch sports from home, that is unless you forgot to pay the cable bill.

Baseball, football, soccer, and basketball are all prominent channels for companies to reach out to their target audiences, but football definitely holds the crown in that discussion. Due to the games being played only once a week, football games are highly awaited for those who follow the sport. The televised popularity of this sport can be expressed through the value of a commercial on a Sunday. Going into 2017, the cost of a 30 second commercial on NBC Network, specifically on a typical Sunday night, can range up to $700,000 . This is much more than any other sport in America; not to mention the costs during Superbowl Sunday.

In recent years, there has been a much higher investment by major media outlets to license European Soccer on TV as well as the World Cup. In 2011, FOX acquired the rights to the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups for a fee of $425 million, which is 4x the amount ESPN paid for the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. In 2012, NBC acquired the rights to the Barclays Premier League for $83 million a year, a huge upgrade from the $25 million a season that FOX paid. The television channels are making a huge amount of money from these games.

Advertisements and Sports

Cleveland Cavalier, Lebron James with NIKE

Cristiano Ronaldo's new NIKE soccer shoe

Since much of the advertisements on channels such as ESPN are geared towards young men to middle-aged men, they are very gender specific. The Coors brewing company is very prominent, and they sponsor many of the NBA highlights as their products are always advertised on and off throughout the day. Adidas and Nike also buy some of ESPN's advertisement segments. They advertise not only their products but the athletes that they sponsor as well. Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Cristiano Ronaldo, and LeBron James are all NIKE athletes who all have their own shoe lines that NIKE markets to basketball and soccer players of all ages around the globe. Lebron James just signed a lifetime deal with Nike. Lebron James has become so popular through new media outlets that Nike believes his apparel and advertisements will be profitable even after his career ends. Gillette has also recognized that their target for their products is the same audience that watches ESPN - young to middle-aged males, and they constantly advertise their patented razors. The Patriots home stadium is also named after Gillette as it is called Gillette stadium.

Another example of advertisement is NBA player Blake Griffin on KIA Optimum Car. The advertisement commercial was played during NBA game time and people watching the basketball game now know the player and have an idea of what kind of car it is. People usually associate the player with the advertisement. Since KIA is the number sponsor for NBA, it's commercials are usually played during game timeouts. These in between commercials with key iconic players in the leagues have become one of the major marketing tools for sports and media.

Beats by Dre headphones uses new media and sports athletes heavily in their advertisements.Some of the athletes including Kevin Garnett, Colin Kaepernick, Richard Sherman, Cesc Fabregas, Lebron James and Serena Williams. The use of these athletes in their advertisements is a key strategy they use to branch out their products to the many people who are heavily into watching professional sports. They use new media to display their products in many places including the advertisements before you watch a video online.

A 2013 Superbowl advertisement for Budweiser

More and more often, there is commercial breaks 'built-in' to game times, and there are always commercial time-outs throughout the game, whether it be a football or basketball game. It allows networks that are broadcasting the games to have guaranteed advertising segments that they can auction off to big corporations. The Superbowl has prominently been known for the great half-time performance as well as the advertisements on television. According to Jeff Stone, "CBS charged between $3.8 million and $4 million for every such spot" of advertisement during the game. . Considered as one of America's most-watched television broadcast every year, the Superbowl has become a breeding ground for major companies to advertise "high-profile television commercials" . In 2016, airtime for a commercial to play during the Superbowl hit a record high. An ad that ran for 30 seconds cost an estimated $5 million dollars. Many companies pay this premium since the Superbowl is the most watched program in America and hope to gain brand recognition from the audience. .

On top of this, just as sporting associations have started to transition into an online presence as well as a television power, the advertisements have transitioned as well. In almost all of today's major sporting events, there is an option to view highlights and analysis' on the sport's corresponding websites. Advertisements and sporting associations have recognized the popularity of the streaming of highlights, and have targeted accordingly. Now it is not a surprise if viewers are required to view 30-second advertisements or promotions before being able to see a replay of the sporting match highlights. These 30-second advertisements add up when you consider that in the 2009-2010 basketball season there were 1.1 billion video streams from the NBA alone .

NFL Jerseys

Smartphones and Sports

An example of the iPhone app for ESPN Sportscenter

With the advent of smartphones and data plans, the sports world realized that they could capitalize on this new market by further distributing their product. ESPN has one of the more popular free applications, available on iOS, and Android, which allows users to keep up with games with live updated scores and play-by-play commentary. This application is not completely free to watch certain sports channel you need to have a subscription. It also helps sports fans by providing team news and updates. These live streaming applications ultimately help fans stay connected to the games if they are unable to watch it on TV or other forms of the video stream.

Recently, leagues like the NBA and NFL have released respective apps, like NBA League Pass and NFL Sunday Ticket that stream live games over an internet connection on numerous devices. These new apps may be a little costly, but they are absolutely essential to those diehard fans who want to be able to support their team when they are not near a TV. Available on iPad, smartphones, laptops, and other devices, users can watch live sports anywhere, anytime. The MLB (Major League Baseball) and NHL (National Hockey League) also have their own apps respectively (MLB.TV and NHL Center Ice.)

In addition, ESPN and Yahoo! have released mobile versions of their fantasy sports web pages, which allows fantasy owners to update their lineups and make trades while they are on the go. Instead of rushing home and looking at updates of players and changing your lineup, people can just do it on their phone. With the apps, users are able to get information on players instantly and change their lineups to stay in competition against their opponents. This creates an attachment to this game and people are always ready to participate because of the little effort it takes. It takes the casual players who do not always want to go on the computer to see updates and gives them an easier way to play. Ultimately, it branches out to more players and creates a new market of users.

To take daily fantasy sports to the next level, there is an app called FantasyLabs. It provides daily fantasy sports players the tools and data to create an optimal lineup for one of the top daily fantasy sports sites in DraftKings and Fanduel. Players can filter it between different sports, slates, and players for that specific day. The app would give you ratings on each player for that day due to his matchup, trends, and pricing on these sites. The highest rated players have the most upside and have a higher percentage of giving you the most points for the day due to him having a favorable matchup. You can take out players whom you don't like or lock in the players you like. In addition to doing that, you can optimize your lineup with a lineup generator which would provide you with the most optimal lineup for that day. In order to gain premium access to expert's top players and picks for the day, you have to pay and subscribe to their app or site.

For breaking news, updates, and scores to games of different sports, Bleacher Report can do it all. This website and app focus on sports trends, and analysis of different sports on a daily basis. You can select your favorite team from each sport to follow them and get notifications when a trade happens or when their game is about to start. This app is very convenient for sports enthusiasts who like to get their latest update from their favorite teams as quickly as possible. These updates can range from injury news to tip-off to breaking news.

ESPN and MLB have also come out with apps called ESPN Streak for the Cash and Beat the Streak. ESPN Streak for Cash is a game that allows you to pick between the results of listed sporting events and the goal is to get each pick right to continue your streak. The options for the picks can be straight up like NFL - Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs or prop match up like NFL - Tom Brady Pass Completions vs. New York Jets 1st Down. The prop match up adds to the intensity of the pick when you have a team that is heavily favored so to even out the odds a bit more there is a prop set up. There is a cash prize of $30,000 for the monthly leader in pick. Beat the Streak is an app where you pick MLB hitter during the regular season and the goal is to make 57 correct picks in a row and you will win 5.6 million dollars. The number is 57 the longest hit streak in MLB history is 56 which Joe DiMaggio did in 1941. If no one reaches the 57 game hit streak, $10,000 is awarded to the player with the longest hit streak.

Social Media and Sports

The NBA Twitter Profile

Twitter has also taken some role in the sports world, with athletes, and beat writers and analysts all "tweeting" live updates, breaking news, as well as musings and the latest.

Twitter has become the place for breaking news such as live scores when the game is over, team news(such as injuries and ejections) and other team-related news. An example would two teams playing each other. When the game is over, each team's twitter will post a tweet, either saying " We Won! Final Score 98-87 #GOCAVS" or "Knicks lose 98-87 to Cleveland. Final Score". Many teams have official twitter feeds, advertising combination ticket deals, as well as promoting upcoming games. These team twitters are highly valuable because they also can give notice for delays of games, and also other important information, i.e. what color to wear to support the home team.

Twitter is used so much for sports updates in today's society it can lead to inaccurate information to spread instantly. This past summer many professional sports writers tweeted about an agreement on a trade between the New York Mets and Milwaukee Brewers in which Wilmer Flores and Zach Wheeler were being traded to the Brewers for Carlos Gomez. This rumor of the trade being official spread like a wildfire, however, the trade was not completed and was still pending a physical. Even the players involved in the deal thought they were being traded, Zach Wheeler who was injured at the time of the trade started to google the Brewers roster to see who his new teammates would be, Carlos Gomez was in a picture with his teammates which was posted on twitter as a goodbye tweet. The biggest of them all Wilmer Flores broke down in tears as the fans of Citi field gave him a standing ovation as they had all seen the trading update on twitter and knew that he was being traded to a new team. the deal ended never going through because of review of the medicals. The social media sites took over that night and everyone was using them as their source of news. this is just one example of the many times social media especially twitter is used as a news source. Social Media outlets are always the first to announce a trade, an injury, a firing, or anything related to team and its transactions. These media outlets like Twitter have members who are analysts that all their job is, is to announce important information regarding a team or an entire league. They will report the information before the team even announces what has happened. They even write "unofficial" just because it has not been confirmed yet. A major person in this form of information leaking is NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski who always is first to report unofficial moves which people like to call Woj Bombs.

Athletes that have taken to Twitter have done so to connect with fans on a more intimate level. Fans get to see firsthand pictures that athletes post, and can have a look-in on lives of athletes. Some of the more prominent superstars, like Shaq or LeBron, have held contests on Twitter for last-minute tickets to see their games.

Also, athletes are starting to use Instagram to document their daily lives for fans to see. Kobe, in particular, has been using Twitter as well as Instagram to document his injury recovery from a torn Achilles tendon. Teams and even the league will use social media networks to connect with fans. Fans can tweet out something tagging a certain team and that team will sometimes respond. For example if you say its your birthday there is a chance the team you sent that to responds saying Happy Birthday. Teams and leagues also use hashtags to gain control in a cause or to gain the attention of fans as well. There has even been twitter polls set up during all star games for fans to select who can be the MVP of the game.

Several athletes have also made it a point to open Facebook fan pages so fans can 'like' their pages and share opinions with similar fans regarding the athlete at hand. The Facebook pages are also used by the athletes as a way to update the fans on their progress, their activities and hobbies, and even as a way to remind the fans that athletes are humans too. This is seen every day through the athletes' posting of family pictures, inspirational quotes, and as a way to demonstrate frustration or elation over the day's performance.

The media personnel that uses Twitter use it to give commentary on ongoing games, or analysis of past games and upcoming games. This analysis also helps fantasy sports players to advise them on which players to pick up or which players to drop.

ESPN also has a Facebook page where they post highlights and opinions, and it always garners a lot of attention regarding rivalries and exciting matchups. This is shown in the comments, where Facebook users either have heated debates, depending on a topic or agreeing with fellow fans. ESPN also has a host of analysts present at every game, and on Sportscenter programs, and these analysts are mostly coaches, former players, and color commentaries and they all have personal twitter accounts that they post game analysis on. On ESPN’s NBA page, they even have a twitter feed that streams all the latest tweets from their NBA Analysts .

All the new intertwining of social media and sports comes with warnings of course. Just as every professional analyst and athlete have to keep their presence in front of a rolling camera to a level of professionalism, the same is expected on whichever social platform they decide to use. This means that prominent sports figure will create a huge stir if something that is posted or tweeted is deemed inappropriate to the general public. There have been many instances where sports athletes have received fines and reduced playing time for something posted on social media . Minutes before the 2016 NFL Draft was supposed to take place, Laremy Tunsil, an offensive tackle from Mississippi who was widely considered by many experts in a number of mock drafts to be the No.1 pick posted something controversial on his twitter account. A photo of a person who is believed to be Tunsil was seen smoking from a mask that was equipped with a bong. While it was taken down quickly after it was posted, the damage was done. Many teams who needed offensive tackles passed on Tunsil, who eventually slid all the way down to No.13 in the draft where he was selected by the Miami Dolphins. That one twitter post caused Tunsil millions of dollars had he been drafted earlier, but questions about his character came up after that post. .

NBA Twitter Header

One of the most active social media campaigns across the major North American sports leagues came from the NBA with then-Clippers owner Donald Sterling when most NBA teams took their avatar and posted "WE ARE ONE" with their respective logos to show the unity the league was under against not only Donald Sterling but any racist GM and ownership executives.

NBA team shirts were produced with the "WE ARE ONE" logo, and worn by the Los Angeles Clippers in protest of their own pre-game uniforms while NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, was handling the situation.

While many athletes use social media as a means to further their brand and market their endorsers' products, they remain reluctant to speak out on popular political issues. For example, in the past year, several African American teenagers have been involved in situations with the police that resulted in their death. Twitter is often used as a discussion board for these instances, where users will say their condolences and express their displeasure with the police. Athletes, who often times come from a similar background of the teenagers killed, do not use their status to increase awareness of the causes. Many athletes choose to not get involved as their stances can interfere with their endorsements and result in the public backlash.

Coaches just like the athletes the coach can face repercussions from their social media actions as well. On May 4, 2016, the receivers coach for Texas A&M University, Aaron Moore, had sent out a twitter regarding loyalty after one of the top 2017 prospects Tate Martell decided to rescind his commitment to play for the university. Shortly after Moorehead's tweet, another player Mannie Netherly also took back his commitment to play for the school, citing that he didn't want to play for a person like Moorehead after reading the tweets. Furthermore, a player who wasn't even committed to the school but was being recruited by the university, Tyjon Lindsey tweeted he would no longer be interested in the university as a result of Moorehead's tweets as well. .

There is even a Social Media platform devoted entirely to sports enthusiasts. The social media startup "Fancred" is a way for fans to connect with one another, sharing the latest stats, deals, trades, or jaw-dropping plays. According to FanCred’s CEO, Hossein Kash Razzaghi, “There are 3 billion people connected to the internet globally, including more than 500 million sports fans on mobile daily. There is no larger vertical niche than sports – fans have a deep, emotional, and cultural connection to their teams. Being a fan is part of their identity. The same way sports has carved a vertical for itself in other communication platforms (i.e., print, radio, and TV,) it will do the same with social and mobile.” This shows yet again that sports are one of the biggest platforms for new media because enthusiastic fans are some of the most passionate people on earth. These fans will spend countless hours observing the sports that they care about so deeply, and that is a major reason why Fancred is one of the quickest going Social Media apps on the planet.

Real MVP

Athletes are humans too. They are entitled to have and express their feelings just like anyone else is. This does not seem to be the case as they are often fined for their comments and opinions on public issues. They are fined for insulting language or expressing themselves in which that their leagues do not appreciate. As reigning NBA MVP, Kevin Durant said when referring to teammate Russell Westbrook, "Outsiders see him as a basketball player first and a human-being second, if at all." Because they are widely known public figures, athletes are left vulnerable to critiques and mockeries through social media. During his MVP acceptance speech, Kevin Durant acknowledged his mom as "the real MVP". While he was being genuine and expressing true emotion, he became the face of very popular meme.