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AirPlay Lets Cell Phone Users Play Along Live with NFLNov 3, 2006 NEW YORK - Cellphones are about to gain several yards on the media convergence field with the launch Friday of a service that enables phone users to play games along with live NFL matchups. Technology company AirPlay will unveil license agreements with the NFL and the NFL Players Association for NFL AirPlay Live. "We're marrying live TV with mobile games to create a new experience," AirPlay CEO Morgan Guenther says. Before each play in a game, Sprint PCS Vision, Power Vision and Nextel customers who download AirPlay's software can pick from a menu what they think will happen. For example, they may be asked whether the offense will run or pass, where or how far they'll go or who will get the ball. Play begins this weekend, and any NFL game can be played. Phone users score points for correct answers and can compare their tallies with friends, a group of strangers or all players nationwide. In some games they'll be able to compete against Chester Taylor of the Minnesota Vikings. The service will cost $3.99 a month or $9.99 for the season. AirPlay, Sprint and the NFL will split the revenue, as well as any income from advertisers who might develop ways to get players to engage with game commercials. There'll be no data charges for Sprint customers who pay $15 a month for the Sprint Service Pack. Others will be charged 3 cents for each kilobyte of data usage. "We'll be pushing this thing hard," says Kris Davis, Sprint's general manager for games. "We get about 1,000 games pitched to us per year, and there isn't a lot of originality. When we saw a demonstration of this, we were very excited." While the players initially will win only bragging rights, executives say they might offer prizes as they explore games and applications for other sports, as well as programming, including concerts and political debates. "We will produce any live event that lends itself to a community experience," Guenther says. One challenge in any event will be to determine when to cut off the voting: Cable and over-the-air TV customers typically see the action three seconds before the images reach satellite subscribers. With football, AirPlay will stop when the center puts his hands on the ball. The company currently can handle 200,000 simultaneous users, although Guenther says it will be easy to add capacity. |
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