Does DirecTV’s Gametracker bring the web, NFL and TV closer together? Yes! Unlike many other TV blended with web apps which tend to be distracting, this application actually improves the experience of watching the football games on Sunday. In the past to experience the best action, web-savvy football fans had to refresh NFL.com (which usually crashes on opening day at least a few times) and/or randomly switch back and forth between channels to hopefully find the good parts of games based upon information gleaned from websites with varying latency issues; it was a distracting and somewhat futile endeavor. These power user football fans don’t watch one game at a time, no, we watch a half dozen or more, and surf the web at the same time. Fortunately, the brains at DirecTV noticed these fans and the technology gap that existed and granted us salvation in the form of Gametracker.

Gametracker is a new, free shockwave application that is part of (and requires) DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket sports package which costs $209 USD for the 2003 season or 4 payments of $52.25, conveniently added to one’s bill. For those who love the NFL, have DirecTV and can put this in their entertainment budget, this package is a must-have.

Ever since seeing their press release I’ve been looking forward to Gametracker. So much in fact that I kept visiting the teaser page that they put up, and even once called DirecTV to inquire about how I could actually download the Gametracker app. For a little while it seemed like this might be the ultimate phantom app as their customer service was somewhat clueless about how to actually download the software and had trouble forwarding me to a page where it could, at the time, ”in the future” be downloaded. To my delight, though, I found that DirecTV put a prominent link on their home page beneath their “Feedback” link.

Gametracker isa shockwave application that allows Sunday Ticket subscribers to get more interactive with the games by allowing real-time scores of all active games with what DirecTV channels the games are currently on, real-time news and updates about the games and player stats, NFL trivia challenges among all connected players, various chatrooms, and a picks menu so players can track their picks. DirecTV teamed up with Goldpocket to put together this sharp, interactive app.

Probably the best feature is that when something is happening in the red zone, Gametracker will alert — in bright red, outlined text — that you might want to switch channels. This is one application to keep prominently fired up in the laptop while watching the games. If it wasn’t for their overall poor marketing of Gametracker and the fact that you can’t use it if you don’t have the NFL Sunday Ticket this would be a must have for every football fan. Despite these minor shortcomings, if you have the Sunday Ticket then proceed directly to download, because this one is a touchdown. Grade: A+

Did this post make you go hmm?

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