ESPN calls time out on score alert text service on Sprint due to fees 21
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:56 am EDT
You might have unlimited text messaging on Sprint, but ESPN doesn’t, and because of that Sprint customers are no longer receiving ESPN score alerts over text message. The carrier has decided to enforce a per-message fee on commercial “aggregators” like ESPN that are responsible for sending billions of text messages across the network (customer plans aren’t affected at all by the decision). ESPN, being a business, isn’t happy about having to pay charges that they previously didn’t and has decided to stop delivering free score alerts to Sprint customers rather than pay the fee. It’s a strange situation, considering that ESPN is a channel available in Sprint TV.
While this isn’t a huge deal to ESPN fans on iOS and Android where they have ESPN apps (heck, iOS just got an app that lets you watch ESPN), here in webOS land we have no such app. We don’t see a resolution for this tiff anytime soon, so we’ll point you to some of the available sports news apps on webOS instead.
First up are the Sports Live! apps from More Solutions. The overarching Sports Live! ($7.99) lets you select your favorite professional and college teams across a wide variety of sports to get the latest score alerts delivered right into your notification area. If you’re just a fan of one sport, More Solutions has less expensive sub-apps available for European and UK football, international soccer, the NBA, WNBA, MLS, NHL, NFL, and NCAA baseball, football, and men’s and women’s basketball.
Apart from the Sports Live! quasi-suite, there are several other sports news apps available. Sports by SpeedyMarks ($0.99, free ad-supported) gives you a countdown to upcoming games in a variety of sports, Sports Calendar ($1.99, free one-team version) easily adds your favorite teams’ games to your calendar, and NBA Scores, NHL Scores, and MLB Scores all let you check in on the latest scores for all games. All of these aren’t even taking into account to dozens of team- and region-specific apps, as well as the sports news available through several full-coverage news outlets. Sure, you might not be getting ESPN alerts on Sprint anymore, and you might not have an ESPN app on webOS, but that doesn’t mean you can’t know what’s going on in the wide world of sports.
Source: Sprint; Via: Android Central
21 Comments
I've always been pretty happy with 4Info's NFL text messages: http://alerts.4info.com/browse/category/sports/
I don't know if the Sprint increase affects this or not, however.
or just, you know, espn.com's mobile web site that's pre-loaded in the bookmarks (sprint Pre-)
Never needed or wanted anything else :)
So much for Dan Hesse not limiting anything on Sprint. While he can say there's no limits on the customer usage stopping the message from the source is pretty much a back door limit.
BTW, I love the Rex Ryan shot. J*E*T*S-JETS-JETS-JETS!!!
Hey, you forgot my two apps:
http://www.precentral.net/1-bundesliga-live for Germany's 1. Bundesliga (Football)
http://www.precentral.net/la-liga-live For Spain's LaLiga
I feel so lost without these texts. I've tried to replace it with Yahoo and CBSsports and they've failed horribly. Hopefully I can find a solution for this because right now I've lost out on a closer already because I wasn't up to date on the latest league news.
Nothing is better than espn breaking news alerts...... Not just for scores!
Go to a platform that's not for all intents and purposes defunct. Then, you'll have an ESPN app and all will be right with the world.
This kinda makes sense to me. Whoever sends the text, pays.. Should be the same with phone calls as well. You call me, you pay. This is how this stuff works in most of Europe.
ESPN just needs to start sending these out using GMail instead of their own domain though, and no one would know.. Or alternatively, send these alerts to a GMail address or something and set up an auto forward to your SMS email address..
Derek, I typically love your articles, but you missed it on this one!! You're clearly not a fantasy sports geek.
It's not the scores! You can get that anywhere like you mentioned. It's the breaking player news, injuries, trades, etc. from ESPN Alerts that we all valued. ESPN has been the leader in providing this type of information.
An equivalent alert package through fantasyalarm.com is $30/month.
I hope someone else sees this window of opportunity and provides a similar service for free or a low cost.
You absolutely get it man. Especially for those that are in money leagues, these texts were essential to having a chance to make FA pick-ups before everybody else.
Couldn't agree more... I'm using htc evo and nothing replaces these alerts.... I loved the breaking news alerts for my specified sports.
You're right. Derek's a nerd, he doesn't get this stuff.
Just use yahoo or msn instead
Does not work the same.....
I get alerted before the game, everytime the score changes on a football game, the quarterly scoring and the final score. If i need anymore I just go to the web.
The Baseball Live! app is for MLB, not the NCAA. I don't think More Solutions even has an NCAA Baseball app.
I'm gonna ask for a clarification on two grounds: First, as I said, it's wrong. Second, the MLB Baseball Live! app, along with the all-inclusive Sports Live! app, was a Hot Apps contest winner. It deserves to be mentioned.
ESPN released an app that streams live espn. I want. Must have app. http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/07/watchespn-ios-app-lets-some-people-wa...
HP needs this. That said they've never been able to get ESPN to make even a radio app.
My Winmobile 5.0 phone had an app that streamed live ESPN. It was called Slingmobile. Almost two years later every other platform has it except WebOS. That's the reason I'll be on the EVO 3D come launch day.
don't you need a sling box though for that? i'm not buying new devices anytime soon. Regardless, many just don't care. they don't like sports and care more about other things. i just don't care about angry birds, or blogging, or whatever the processor speed is. i just want what i want. App variety is one of those things. So not having apps is a big hurdle for me.
i need more then scores.
news, i need videos, interviews, fantasy league access, streaming, radio. Sadly we don't even get apps like march madness. Hell the events are over before we get an app.
I'm going to give http://alerts.4info.com/browse/category/sports/ a shot. The adds with each text are annoying but I can still get updates on the Cubs scores.