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Volta Football is exactly what 'FIFA 20' needs
I still remember it like it was yesterday. Back in 2008, I would spend hours and hours playing FIFA Street 3 on the Xbox 360, mostly because I loved being on the sticks pretending to be Brazilian superstar Ronaldinho. His dribbling skills, flair and overall playstyle made him the perfect player for a street soccer game. This is why I was pumped when EA Sports revealed it was bringing back its recreational Street series with a new game mode called Volta Football that's debuting in FIFA 20. And while Ronaldinho is now retired from the world of soccer, there is another gem from Brazil who will be featured in Volta: Vinicius Jr., the 19-year-old wunderkind who plays for giant Spanish club Real Madrid.
Edgar Alvarez09.19.2019
Facebook Watch gets more NFL highlights, news and analysis
The National Football League isn't done teaming up with tech companies. Today, the NFL announced it is extending its partnership with Facebook, a deal that began back in 2017, which will continue to bring highlights of all 256 regular season games, playoffs and the Super Bowl to Facebook Watch. In addition to these recaps, this year the league is serving even more snackable programming on Watch, including news and analysis clips, video versions of podcasts, classic game archives from NFL Films and special videos dedicated to 100th NFL season. Facebook says that, in 2017 and 2018, over 22 million people watched at least a minute of an NFL recap, a sign that people on its site have an appetite for this type of video content.
Edgar Alvarez09.12.2019
'PES 2020' isn't perfect, but it's good enough to rival 'FIFA 20'
It was only about a year ago that I thought Pro Evolution Soccer was basically dead. That's how I felt right after Konami lost the licensing rights for the UEFA Champions League, the most important club competition, to its archrival FIFA from EA Sports. Despite this major setback, Konami hasn't given up on its beloved franchise, and that's great for soccer fans everywhere. At E3 earlier this year, I played a demo of the newly named eFootball PES 2020, which surprised me thanks to gameplay improvements, a redesigned menu system that's easier to browse and better visuals of players and stadiums. And while I have no doubt having the Champions League in PES 2020 would've made the game significantly better, there's still plenty to like in the full version of the title, which arrives September 10th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Edgar Alvarez09.09.2019
The NFL's new TikTok account is all about highlights and sideline moments
The National Football League is hyping up its 100th season with a TikTok partnership. Today, the NFL is launching an official TikTok account with packaged highlights, sideline moments and behind-the-scenes footage. To get things started, it's promoting a #WeReady challenge. Today through September 5th, the NFL is asking fans to share videos about their favorite teams with the hashtag.
Christine Fisher09.03.2019
Alexa adds in-depth NFL stats ahead of the new season
Alexa's football knowledge is now decidedly more profound. Amazon has added a slew of info to its voice assistant's repertoire that includes "comprehensive, in-depth" stats for NFL teams and their players. If you want to know your favorite player's rushing yards or how many penalty yards the team has racked up, it's just a quick question away. You can even ask about fantasy football scores if your reputation is on the line.
Jon Fingas08.27.2019
NFL celebrates 100th season with Snapchat AR Lens that comes to life
The National Football League and Snap have made another augmented reality experience together. In celebration of the NFL's 100th season, which kicks off on September 5th, the companies are unveiling an AR Lens that lets people scan an NFL 100 logo and bring it to life inside the Snapchat app. The feature uses Snap's Marker technology, introduced in 2018, to let people use their Snapchat camera to unlock a special video created by the NFL. After scanning an NFL 100 logo, the video will show historic highlights between the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers, the two teams that are playing the first game of the 2019-2020 season next Thursday. And right beneath the video, as pictured above, there's a clock counting down the days, hours and minutes to the beginning of the NFL 100 season.
Edgar Alvarez08.27.2019
Twitter and Adidas are bringing back their high school football series
Friday Night Stripes, the livestreaming series of high school football games on Twitter, is coming back for a second season later this month. The show, which was created by Adidas, Intersport and Twitter, debuted in 2018 and focused on broadcasting eight football games from high schools across the US. And it turned out to be quite a success. According to Twitter, Friday Night Stripes generated more than 32.6 million total views and had over 15.6 million live viewers tuning into the series, which are great figures for what was essentially a social media experiment.
Edgar Alvarez08.15.2019
EA is finally improving Career Mode for 'FIFA 20'
Even though 'Street' soccer will be the biggest addition to FIFA 20, hardcore fans of the franchise know the importance of Career Mode. And this year, with the new game launching on September 27th, developer EA Sports is promising to make the feature more authentic and customizable than ever before. Not only will you be able to change the body type, skin tone, clothing, hairstyle of your managers, but in FIFA 20 you'll now have the chance to create and choose female characters. In addition to that, taking a cue from Football Manager, your coach will be able to have a direct impact on team morale based on his or her press conferences, squad rotation, chats with players and more.
Edgar Alvarez08.07.2019
What we're listening to: 'Soccer 101' and 'Athletico Mince'
In this month's installment of our audio IRL, we're getting ready for European football with a podcasts. The season starts this week, after all. Senior News Editor Billy Steele is getting a proper soccer education while Senior Editor Dan Cooper takes a more comedic route.
Billy Steele08.05.2019
How to stream college sports without losing your mind
Thanks to all the services that let you stream live TV, it's easy to watch sports without a commitment to cable. The channel lineups vary, and some are more limited than others. What's more, the television rights for college sports, especially football, are tied to the conference, so you'll need to find out which channels have the deal covering your favorite schools. From there, it's a matter of making sure the service you choose has all the channels you need so you don't miss a game. Lucky for you, we can help.
Billy Steele07.23.2019
Amazon has bought yet another soccer documentary
Amazon is getting to set to stream the Premier League this year, and even though it only has 20 mid-week matches, it wants to multiply the impact as much as possible. To that end, it announced that it has acquired a four-part documentary on BVB Borussia Dortmund's quest to capture the German Football League (Bundesliga) championship. Called Inside Borussia Dortmund, it will air globally starting in August, coinciding with Amazon's first round of Premier League streaming.
Steve Dent07.17.2019
Fox Sports created a USWNT Snapchat AR lens for the World Cup
The United States women's national soccer team laid down a clear statement of intent to their World Cup rivals after a record-breaking 13-0 win over Thailand in their opening game. Alex Morgan grabbed the headlines by scoring five goals against the Asian side in France, and now the co-captain of the defending champions is taking on another starring role.
Kris Holt06.14.2019
Things are looking up for ‘Pro Evolution Soccer 2020’
After Konami lost the UEFA Champions League licensing rights to EA Sports in 2018, I was quick to count out the future of the Pro Evolution Soccer franchise. That's because, for me, having that European club competition was the only thing keeping from playing FIFA almost exclusively -- even if I do find the PES gameplay more fluid and realistic at times. Thankfully for PES fans, though, Konami isn't drowning in its sorrows over losing the Champions League to FIFA. And this year, the company is moving forward with eFootball PES 2020, which doesn't only comes with a shiny new name but also plenty of exciting features.
Edgar Alvarez06.12.2019
'FIFA 20' is a lot more than just street soccer
For the first time since 2012, street soccer is coming back to the FIFA franchise. Today, at E3 2019, EA Sports revealed a new mode called Volta that will bring small-sided play to FIFA 20, which takes a cue from the FIFA Street series that launched in 2005. While we saw a glimpse of street football in FIFA 18, as part of The Journey campaign, this year's game will feature a fully fledged mode. In Volta, you can create your own character and play in cages and futsal pitches all around the world, including London, Amsterdam and Tokyo. The teams will be made up of three-to-five players, which you can play with your custom character or professional players, and you'll have both story and league modes.
Edgar Alvarez06.09.2019
Fox Sports will stream every Women's World Cup game in 4K
Fox Sports offered 4K streams for the 2018 FIFA World Cup last year, but in order to watch them, you had to own a HiSense TV. For the Women's World Cup that begins Friday in France, those higher quality streams will be more readily available. The network told Engadget that for the first time 4K broadcasts will be available inside the Fox Sports and Fox Now apps. They'll still be somewhat limited though: You'll need an Apple TV or Roku device to watch the action on the pitch in 4K (2160p).
Billy Steele06.05.2019
ESPN+ is the English-language home for Copa America in the US
If you want to watch the hottest soccer (or rather futbol) tourney in the Americas, you'll have to pony up for an ESPN+ subscription. The service has struck a deal to become the sole home for English-language coverage of the 2019 CONMEBOL Copa America in the US, with every game streamed live. That's not hot if you were hoping to watch elsewhere, but it is a rare chance to see games with several of the world's best footie players in one place, including Messi, Neymar Jr. and Suarez.
Jon Fingas05.28.2019
Nike's latest Snapchat Lens shows support for USWNT
With the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup drawing closer, fans of the US Soccer Women's National Team have one more way to show their support. The creatives at Nike have put together an AR Lens that slaps a team jersey on you, and of course links to Nike.com for a quick purchase. The USWNT soccer Lens will only be available tomorrow, May 9th, and the timing is close enough that users can snag a jersey in time for the team's "Send-Off Series" of matches begin on the 12th against South Africa, followed by Belgium and Mexico. Meanwhile, Snapchat is trying to deal with its identity crisis, but Lenses people like and using its login to power a popular new quiz app could help change the story.
Richard Lawler05.08.2019
'Madden 19' championship finale breaks series viewing records
EA's Madden esports ambitions appear to have borne fruit. The gaming giant has revealed that the Madden NFL 19 Bowl, the final match in the Championship Series, broke franchise viewing records to become the most-viewed event in Madden's history. In some cases, it wasn't even by a small margin. The simultaneous audience topped out at 97,000 viewers, or 650 percent more than for the 2018 finale, while total view count jumped a whopping 850 percent to 2.5 million. Those aren't records for livestreaming by any stretch (Ninja would have something to say), but they certainly put Madden on the map.
Jon Fingas05.04.2019
'FIFA 19' eChampions League group stages are underway
The inaugural FIFA 19 UEFA eChampions League just got serious. After weeks of online knockout play, the in-person Group Stages are underway at Manchester's Victoria Warehouse. The more definitive phase has 64 pro FIFA 19 PS4 players challenging each other between April 26th and April 27th to become one of just eight people who'll reach the league final in Madrid on May 31st.
Jon Fingas04.26.2019
Intel’s multi-angle cameras come to three Premier League soccer stadiums
Intel's work in sports can be found across the world's best leagues, from the MLB, NBA and NFL in the US to Spain's La Liga soccer tournament. Over the past few years, it has been trying to make games more immersive for fans, using camera technologies that offer people more viewing options than a traditional broadcast, like enjoying matches in virtual reality or watching 360-degree video replays. And now Intel plans to bring this to the English Premier League. Through a new partnership with Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City (three of England's biggest clubs), Intel will start utilizing its True View tech at their stadiums, which will capture "every match from every angle," the company says.
Edgar Alvarez02.07.2019