Tech notes

So I've lost one of the outlets for my witless ramblings about sports media and tech. Things change. What are you going to do? So I guess I'll try to start using this space to do what I'd been doing elsewhere. And I'll be using more words here. Because it's my blog, and I can.

• XM and Sirius are trying to merge. Tell me you didn't see this coming. I remain addicted to satellite radio. I listen on the way to work, which fortunately doesn't take as long as it used to -- nothing like the office moving closer to your house. I listen all day at work. I listen as I'm falling asleep. There's always something on worth hearing. So I'm looking forward to what happens when the two systems come together. Mel Karmazin, the head of Sirius, claims they're not going to raise the subscription price for the new company. I'll believe that when I see it. Actually, I'll sort of believe this whole merger when I see it. I think it's still 50-50 whether it gets regulatory approval. I like what I've seen from the Sirius music channels. Every time I've been in Best Buy and messed around with a Sirius radio, they always seem to have multiple channels playing music I like. And I love the idea of having access to all the sports broadcasts. But it sounds a lot like they're going to create different programming tiers and charge more money to get the sports content. That sucks. Hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised with the new lineups and prices, but I'm preparing to pay a few bucks more per month.

• NBA Street Homecourt came out a couple weeks ago. I messed around with the demo and it seemed pretty good. The tricks weren't impossible to learn, which was refreshing. There's nothing worse than being unable to really play the game the way it's supposed to be played because you can't master the button mashing. I had a chance to talk to Sue Bird, the former UConn star now with the Seattle Storm of the WNBA. She's one of six WNBA players included in the game, which marks a first for women's basketball players. There wasn't room for me to use most of what I talked to her about, but it was an interesting conversation. She's got the hottie factor going for her. One Web site I saw referred to her as the Anna Kournikova of the WNBA, which I'm not sure is really a compliment, considering how infrequently Kournikova wins. Bird seems to take her off-court celebrity in stride. She doesn't seem to mind the idea that her appearance may bring guys to WNBA games, saying that the quality of the game will make an impression, even if that's not what brought someone in the door to begin with. And she understands that people either appreciate the women's game or they don't. But she was a little frustrated by the fact that there's a double standard when it comes to endorsements. She pointed out that a good-looking male athlete won't get those opportunities unless he achieves something on the field. And, of course, it didn't work that way for Kournikova. The really interesting part of the conversation, to me, was that she still hasn't had a chance to actually see herself in the video game. I figured at some point EA Sports would have given her a demo to check out. No such luck. She spends the winter playing in Moscow (which must be great fun, because that's where I want to be in the dead of winter). She came back to the U.S. to attend the NBA Street launch party in Las Vegas, a couple days before the NBA All-Star game. But there was a snow storm that week and she got stuck in New York and never made it. And she had to turn around and head back to Moscow because her team had a game. It must be a strange experience to see yourself in a video game. And even stranger when the game is out there and people are playing as you and you haven't had a chance to see it yet.
  
  
• SportsLine is gearing up for lots more of its live coverage of big events. Their March Madness on Demand set records last year as the most-viewed live event in Internet history. And they're going to be showing live coverage from the Masters on the Web too. I think this is a model other sports could follow. The reason this stuff works is because it's during the work day, when millions of office drones are tethered to their desks -- the perfect captive audience. The idea of playing sports events during the day is from a bygone era. For years, everything has been at night because that's when the TV networks can get their best audiences. But is the same thing going to happen for Internet broadcasts? The time to maximize the audience for a Web cast is in the middle of the work day. Now, it's true that the NCAA Tournament and the Masters are marquee events, and perhaps much of the interest is the result of their importance in the sports world. Would a routine regular season game draw an audience the same way? Probably not. But isn't that what everyone said about Monday Night Football at the beginning? It became a must-see event because it was packaged properly. And the same thing could be done on the Web.