SuperFooty Live HQ

Written by Motts on March 19 2012

OK first of all a disclaimer: the Herald Sun invited us to their offices to view this as a special preview for its grand unveiling tomorrow. While we were there I drank their beer and I had 2 cold rolls. I didn’t see Big Sexy eat or drink anything – he’s good like that.

We got invited to the HWT building last week to get a preview of the new SuperFooty Live HQ website. Here’s the invite:

“G’day Motts,

I’m writing to you on behalf of the Herald & Weekly Times/Herald Sun.

You may have seen/heard this week the Herald Sun unveiled its expanded multi-platform offering.

A key part of the Herald Sun’s premium online content is SuperFooty Live HQ, a second-screen experience for AFL matches. It will include a fully interactive match centre with scores, stats, fixtures, live chats, live SuperCoach points, news, video and social media interaction.

Live HQ launches this Tuesday, March 20 in preparation for 2012 season kick-off.

We’d like to invite you (and Duck and Big Sexy) to the Herald Sun for a special sneak preview of the site in action before it goes live.

Given your passion for and involvement in footy, I thought this might be something you’d be interested in?

Details are as follows:

DATE:  Monday, March 19

TIME:  6 pm for 6.15 pm

ADDRESS:   HWT Tower, 40 City Rd, Southbank 3006 (meet downstairs at Security in the first instance).

Joining us from the Herald Sun will be: Nathaniel Bane (Digital Editor), Peter Clark (Digital Director), Finn Bradshaw (Deputy Network Sports Editor at News Ltd). We’re also hoping for one of the Herald Sun sports journos to pop in for a chat as well (deadlines permitting!).

If you can come on Monday night – that would be awesome! Please drop me a return email or call on xxxx xxx xxx.

Also, do you mind letting me know the names of those attending?  Something tells me I don’t think the Herald Sun Security guy will let ‘Big Sexy’ in without a real name to go with it.”

So BS and I turn up tonight and in the room, amongst others is Walesy, mOnty, and Frankie Leach. On the HS side, Robbo drops thru, Jay Clark says g’day and I have a good old chat to Al Paton. There’s probably about 20 people there and I’ve never felt so comfortable in a room full of strangers.

I snapped off some shots but they’re not that great so I’ll just tell you about what went down. Finn Bradshaw did most of the presenting and for the attentionally challenged amongst us, I’m gonna dot point:

  • the functionality of the new site did look good. What really impressed me was the graphics that show the linkages to get to goal. You hover over a dot on the screen (ie a player) and it shows you what he did (eg play-on handball, effective handball, 2 points) and if that player is in your SC team, his dot on the screen has a green circle around it to indicate that.
  • you’ll get live updates of how your team is doing against whoever you’re playing, in whatever league.
  • there’ll be live chat.
  • there’s a match score predictor for the footy tippers amongst us
  • it won’t encroach upon anything SuperCoach Gold is doing at the moment – ie you won’t get player score predictions – the relationship between the HS and Virtual Sports is too tight
  • there’s social media integration – facebook and twitter
  • it won’t be offered free of charge through the other News Ltd masthead newspapers
  • there’ll be no end-of-quarter scores provided anymore – it’ll be end-of-game only. I spoke to mOnty and he’s hopeful of getting something but I wasn’t convinced. I do hope he does.

There was a lot of other stuff but I’d had 3 beers and to be honest was kinda distracted by Saint Frankly’s footwear – anyone ever seen those shoes before that kinda mold around your toes? – so I didn’t pick it all up.

You want to know if its worth it. Personally, I will probably pay for it. Yes, I know I’ve ranted in the past against the HS for doing this (and believe me I’m still angry about the costs) but what other choice do I have if I want the live experience? It IS better than what is offered via Dream Team. I probably won’t get it every week but right now I’d say the majority of weeks I will.

As a side note, I was alerted to a uni student offer while I was there tonight where you’re offered an annual subscription for something like $20 (correct me if I’m wrong on this one) where the Digital Pass is thrown in with that subscription. If you’re a struggling bohemian, it looks like you’ll get getting this stuff relatively cheaply.

For everyone else its $2.99 a week or $1 a week extra if you sign up for a HS subscription and have the paper delivered.

After the show, BS and I headed on down to PJ’s for a quiet couple of orange whips and a good chat with Walesy. I’ve never met him before but I can tell you he’s a great bloke. BS snapped off a shot of the 2 of us together but I’m struggling to add it to this post so I’m gonna tweet it.

Fair to say that the conversation was DOMINATED by SC and who we like and don’t like for the year. I won’t betray any confidences by revealing the details of that conversation but Jay Clark did tell me tonight that his smoky this year was Ben Jacobs. I know, go figure.

Anyway, they’re probably reading this, so feel free to let the world know how you feel about the paywall and anything else to do with the HS in general.

Cheers, Motts

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70 thoughts on “SuperFooty Live HQ”

  1. Great wrap up mate, wish i was there. Did laugh at the orange whips remark, as well as the disclaimer … i know how much you like free shit.

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  2. Accurate summary Mottsy, and for the record I had a little shepards pie :). Anyway, I concur the features looked pretty good, and should give punters the heads-up that because of the standardization SC uses it won’t be 100% accurate, and can vary a few % from the true scores as it does today with quarter by quarter. The only thing I pay for right now is the App, but I will certainly be tempted and if I recall correctly get a free trial, so can only make a true judgement after using, so would encourage others to form their own opinion. Should also mention all the folks ( inc HS) were very nice, though Monty seems to live life on the edge, and I couldn’t speak more highly of Walesy…. Great fella!

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  3. Ben Jacobs hey? Jay Clark knows nothin’ !!! Lol
    Thanks for the heads up Motts, guess I’ll have to wait to see if it’s worthwhile.

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  4. Good write up… up until the Ben Jacobs comment.

    Anyway, were there any DT Talk guys there? I mean since they write for Supercoach Gold I would have thought they would’ve received an invite.

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  5. Superfooty HQ sounds great but for me nothing will ever replace going to the game. You guys can have all your new fangled technological gadgets but I’m happy to take my seat at the game and watch it all unfold with my own eyes, with my iPhone, tweeting away, using the AFL app, and Fango. Yep stuff all this technology #oldskool

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  6. Cold roll and a couple of brews will do it every time. At least we get to see how the other half live 😉

    Personally I think it’s fantastic that the Hun are actually having a crack at giving us some genuine new content.

    We all threw the toys out the pram when we thought they were charging $3 a week for SC content, and with good reason. Now that the dust has settled it seems there might be a bit more to it.

    Online papers were never going to be free for long because the print industry is on its last legs and everything will be going digital soon enough. If the Hun got in first at least they are putting some effort in to enhancing the product. I’ll be in from the start and if that $3 gets me more than buying the paper two or three times a week then I’ll be a happy coach.

    Yours Sincerely,

    Fishtopher J Murdoch 😉

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  7. Love the frivolity within the invite:

    “Also, do you mind letting me know the names of those attending? Something tells me I don’t think the Herald Sun Security guy will let ‘Big Sexy’ in without a real name to go with it.”

    How did the HS know BS’s nickname was an oxymoron??? 🙂

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  8. For the tweeterers amongst us, some of the people who were there last night were:
    @SC_Talk / @Motts_Melb
    @tooserious_
    @m0nty
    @trevoryoung
    @glenny3972
    @alistairjhogg
    @finn_bradshaw
    @SaintFrankly
    @Danny__Bishop
    @al_superfooty
    @Robbo_heraldsun
    @ClarkyHeraldSun

    Most of them have had something to say about it so if you’re interested, drop past ’em and have a look.

    The new site should be live by 11am today.

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  9. R.I.P. Big Jim. Thank you for everything that you have done for the Melbourne FC and for football in general. Inspiration and Legend as word just aren’t quite big enough for you.

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  10. Nothing in the HS presentation has swayed this little black duck. I’ll follow DT live & read The Age. I’m not surprised that the HS has gathered the main SC peeps from internet land & offered them some sugar, it is a pragmatic business decision.
    My fundamental interest is in SC scores. Everything else is gravy. I would love to have them live, or quarter by quarter, but thanks to Rupert Greedoch, I’ll get them after, probably from SCT.
    The most interesting thing about Motts’ whole write up was the comment on other Scamdoch owned masthead’s inability/refusal to access the live figures from Moscow. I was on the Telegraph site recently & realised that they have the same interface as the HS, which got me thinking that they might be next to fall behind the Iron Curtain with this controversial premium content scam. The domino theory explains how when 1 News Ltd title falls to communism, it is inevitable that the rest will follow.
    $3 x 24 rounds = $72 a year for the average joe. I’m tipping that once you’ve gone live, you’ll do it most, if not every week. If 10,000 pay weekly that’s $720,000. If 100,000 pay, it’s $7,200,000. Excuse my cynicism, but, they are fleecing a lot of coin. It is especially galling because their site & apps have ads & the game itself is sponored by TAC. It isn’t that they are struggling for a dollar, they are ruthlessly shaking down their customers for some extra coin.

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  11. So I’m not too wrong in my assumption that all it is, is a re-vamped version of the AFL Game Day Live thing the AFL had on its site in previous years.
    Except this time around its in a proper webpage with SuperCoach stats instead of DreamTeam?

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  12. Thanks Motts-Whaa,

    Good write up and insight

    Maybe just sign up for the head to head finals, where it will be worth it and the max you’ll have to pay is for the 4 rounds.

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  13. Terrific write up Mottsy. Thinking i might have to give it a go….

    On a side note footytips.com.au SuperCoach Talk going again? I have just logged in and see its still there in my comps 🙂
    95 members at the moment! should be a good one

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  14. would love a poll on goddard verus goodes. reeason being i have 1 spot for my to fill in my mids and its either goodes to swap with my forward/mids or goddard to swap with my def/mids. both ave the same but what to do!!

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  15. Hot off the press:

    “non-subscribers will get SuperCoach scores at the end of games, but we won’t be doing the quarter by quarter updates like previous years”

    But it’s still free to play!

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  16. Hun has the NAB scores up and yes, of course they are behind THE WALL.

    If, hyperthetically speaking of course, I had a pdf version of said scores is there an easy way to share the wealth?

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