Mobile digital television: Coming to a (small) screen near you

Mobile digital television as we’ll come to know it -- live broadcasts, designed for the smaller screen, and most important, free -- is step-by-step getting closer to becoming a reality.

There are a plethora of questions surrounding mobile digital TV. The biggest is simply whether it will succeed, the success of a free ad-based service depending entirely on widespread adoption -- the network TV model gone mobile. Another question is whether it will reshuffle the landscape of existing services, crippling subscription-based models (like Flo TV and Hulu, if it goes down that path, as rumored). 

Mobile digital TV is being promoted by the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), a group of more than 900 local broadcast TV stations. It aims to create a mobile digital TV standard to allow and provide live and on-demand video broadcasts.

The technology would allow wireless devices to pick up over-the-air local TV broadcasts, even when users are on moving trains, cars and buses. Mobile digital TV already exists in test markets such as Chicago and Washington -- and is already popular in Japan and South Korea -- and may soon be coming to a city near you.

ESPN's deal with Xbox continues trend of new distribution methods

This week’s announcement that ESPN had partnered with Microsoft to bring live and on-demand sporting events to Microsoft’s Xbox continued the trend of alternative distribution methods for live sports video.

The distribution of sports content has gone from TV to online streaming on PCs and laptops to wireless devices like smartphones and tablets. Now it is aimed for gaming consoles and other set-top boxes, in one way bringing the cycle full circle back to watching on a TV.

Xbox will reportedly carry more than 3,500 live and on-demand sporting events, bypassing traditional cable providers in the process. The live events will come courtesy of ESPN3.com and will include MLB, NBA, tennis, golf, soccer, college football and college basketball. Noticeable by their absence are the NFL and NHL.

MLB.com announced a similar deal with Sony in April to bring MLB.tv to  PlayStation 3 game consoles and the baseball package is already available on set-top devices from Roku and Boxee.

Will U.S. fans shell out cash for World Cup mobile TV?

As the first round of the World Cup progresses, it's providing an interesting petri dish on how U.S. fans consume the game.

Aside from the mainstay of watching the tournament on ESPN (and ABC), there are three main planks of the network’s strategy that bear watching.

First and foremost is whether U.S. fans will pay to watch on their cell phones. ESPN is breaking ground by offering live match coverage on mobile.

But are fans here willing to pay the price? Are they that devoted to the game, or the fortunes of the U.S. squad?

GoUSABid lays foundation for U.S. Soccer and World Cup

While the eyes of the world will turn to South Africa this week for the start of the World Cup, the USA Bid Committee has been working hard to ensure the eyes of the world will be on the U.S. come 2018 or 2022.

For a study on a website and an initiative done well, simply take a look at GoUSAbid.com, created by the USA Bid Committee. It is a separate entity from the U.S. Soccer Federation but it is working on behalf of the USSF.

The goal of the committee is to get FIFA to award the World Cup to the U.S. in either 2018 or 2022 (FIFA will award both in one round of bidding, an unusually efficient approach). The goal of the site is get people actively involved, grow their fan base, increase their database of names and capitalize on the surge in interest that comes with a World Cup.

GoUSAbid.com is a well-designed, well-planned, well-executed effort. It has already prompted more than 450,000 people to sign a petition to bring the tournament back to the U.S. (which hosted the tournament in 1994), a decision FIFA will make in December.