By Brian “Newman” Rayl
The NFL regular season kicks off tomorrow, Thursday, September 8th, and Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) will be there covering the game in all of its glory. Every Game. Every Week. Everywhere.
One common complaint that some voice is the fact that Sirius XM is not very interactive. Sirius XM does not host any forums for fans of channels to join and only some of the channels have Facebook pages or Twitter feeds, which are generally set up by the on-air personalities themselves. The support from Sirius XM is limited, the content is limited, and the interactivity with the fans is limited.
It seems that they are working on improving their interactivity, and this year have begun to offer a host of services to get fans more involved, or at least for football fans. I wrote 2 weeks ago about the Fantasy Football league that is being run by the Fantasy Sports Radio channel. I also mentioned the “Smack Talk” videos that they are offering, allowing the user to get interactive and have a personalized “Smack Talk” message for one of their rivals.
Now it seems that Sirius XM has decided to get even deeper into the interactivity and host a Pigskin Pick ‘Em contest. For those of you not familiar with the concept of the Pick ‘Em contests, each week you pick the teams that you think will win. If they do, then you get points, and if you are wrong, you get nothing. You can also choose what they call “Best Bets,” where you pick 5 of the games that you figure are the best bets for being correct. You can get a significant number of extra points for being right, but here if you are wrong you lose points.
They even let you see some of Sirius XM hosts’ choices such as Raw Dog comedy’s Sunny Fox, comedian Ralphie May, Jim Breuer, Scott Ferrall, Jay Thomas, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, Bubba the Love Sponge, and many more. Sorry you die hard fans, as of yet Howard Stern is not on the Pick ‘Em list. Sirius XM is offering prizes for those who wish to participate. The Grand Prize is a trip for two to New York for 2 nights, attending a live taping of a Sirius NFL Radio show, a gift card, and a tour of the Sirius XM Radio Studios. The prize package is valued at approximately $2000. They are also offering weekly prizes to those who have the best performance for the week.
There is no cost to register for Pigskin Pick ‘Em, and you can also form your own league and invite people to play against you. Challenge your friends and family to a game of Pick ‘Em or join a public league and play against strangers. Satellite Radio Playground has started up a Pick ‘Em league and would like to invite you all to play against us. You can also play in our Fantasy Football League as well! Join us each week and see how you match up against us, then jump on over to our Sports Forum to post your smack talk!
We’ll see you on the Gridiron…
Disclosure: Long SIRI
Contact the author at Newman@SatelliteRadioPlayground.com
