The communications revolution is changing everything—even how guys watch football games.
According to a fascinating article last week, younger guys today don’t watch football the same way we (gulp) older guys do. We sit in front of our televisions, and that’s pretty much that. But not the generation that has been raised with the Internet and with mobility.
They prefer to stream games on their phones, tablets, and laptops, and they usually have them all going at the same time. They’re watching one game on the TV, and another game on the tablet. They’re keeping up with other games and their fantasy teams through Twitter, and they’re communicating with their friends and fellow fans (and taunting their “frenemies”) through text messaging and tweets.
In fact, when asked which is more important to them during a game, the television or Twitter, several respondents chose Twitter over the television.
Clearly, this new generation of fans values quick access to facts, stats, replays and interconnection with others over the old ways. Most of them, in fact, say they don’t bother to watch the pregame or postgame shows. With all this power at their disposal, they can do the analysis themselves, faster and deeper than the experts on TV—while using apps to order their pizza delivery.
Mobility has become as important inside as it is outside the home.
Those changes mean the TV is losing its place as the center of the home media delivery system—it’s just one component. The mobile, broadband and wireless components are at least as important, and in some cases more so.
And if our nextgen fan has eaten too much junk food or if his team has gotten his blood pressure rising, he can test his blood pressure, blood sugar, and other parameters during halftime using mobile health accessories, and send them along to a monitoring center.
But of course, all this tableting and Twittering, fantasy football fact-checking and taunting require spectrum, which is starting to run short. So, unless we want a revolt of younger football watchers in man caves across America, we’d better start taking some steps to free up additional spectrum, and to make sure there’s plenty of unlicensed spectrum as well for all those connected devices in his home.
You can learn all about the new connected media home, mobile health, what we’re doing to free up more spectrum, and even government plans to tax all of this great stuff at IPI’s Fifth Annual Communications Policy Summit this coming Tuesday, October 22. We hope you can join us.
According to a fascinating article last week, younger guys today don’t watch football the same way we (gulp) older guys do. We sit in front of our televisions, and that’s pretty much that. But not the generation that has been raised with the Internet and with mobility.
They prefer to stream games on their phones, tablets, and laptops, and they usually have them all going at the same time. They’re watching one game on the TV, and another game on the tablet. They’re keeping up with other games and their fantasy teams through Twitter, and they’re communicating with their friends and fellow fans (and taunting their “frenemies”) through text messaging and tweets.
In fact, when asked which is more important to them during a game, the television or Twitter, several respondents chose Twitter over the television.
Clearly, this new generation of fans values quick access to facts, stats, replays and interconnection with others over the old ways. Most of them, in fact, say they don’t bother to watch the pregame or postgame shows. With all this power at their disposal, they can do the analysis themselves, faster and deeper than the experts on TV—while using apps to order their pizza delivery.
Mobility has become as important inside as it is outside the home.
Those changes mean the TV is losing its place as the center of the home media delivery system—it’s just one component. The mobile, broadband and wireless components are at least as important, and in some cases more so.
And if our nextgen fan has eaten too much junk food or if his team has gotten his blood pressure rising, he can test his blood pressure, blood sugar, and other parameters during halftime using mobile health accessories, and send them along to a monitoring center.
But of course, all this tableting and Twittering, fantasy football fact-checking and taunting require spectrum, which is starting to run short. So, unless we want a revolt of younger football watchers in man caves across America, we’d better start taking some steps to free up additional spectrum, and to make sure there’s plenty of unlicensed spectrum as well for all those connected devices in his home.
You can learn all about the new connected media home, mobile health, what we’re doing to free up more spectrum, and even government plans to tax all of this great stuff at IPI’s Fifth Annual Communications Policy Summit this coming Tuesday, October 22. We hope you can join us.