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Microsoft Paid NFL $400 Million To Use Surface, But Announcers Call Them iPads

Posted by Soulskill on from the free-advertising dept.

mpicpp sends this news from Business Insider: Prior to the season, Microsoft and the NFL struck a 5-year, $400 million deal with one of the major components being that the Microsoft Surface would become "the official tablet of the NFL," with coaches and players using the Surface on the sidelines during games. But Microsoft and the league ran into a problem during week one of the season when at least two television announcers mistakenly referred to the tablets as iPads, giving a huge rival some unexpected exposure. The biggest blunder for the league came during the nationally televised Monday Night Football game when ESPN's Trent Dilfer joked about how long it took Cardinals assistant head coach Tom Moore to "learn how to use the iPad to scroll through the pictures." In a separate incident, Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints was spotted by Fox commentator John Lynch using a Surface on the sideline. Lynch remarked that Brees was "not watching movies on his iPad.

6 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. That's nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's nothing, I keep posting about the iPhone 6 on Facebook and people continually refer to it as the Nexus 5! Joke's on them.

  2. To be fair... by robinsonne · · Score: 5, Funny

    To be fair, have you listened to some of what NFL announcers say these days? Most of it is pretty damn stupid, even when they're keeping their remarks to football. I consider it lucky if they can tell the difference between a run play and a pass play...telling the difference between 2 gadgets? Nope.

    1. Re:To be fair... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Funny

      NFL: One of the many industries where smooth talking idiots can rake in millions spewing bullshit.

      Fixed that for you.

    2. Re:To be fair... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you want to really be fair, if the announcer would have said "Brees isn't watching movies on his surface" about 98% of the audience would have said "WTF is a 'surface'? Did the announcer just have a stroke and use the wrong word?"

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  3. Re:football can cause brain damage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Most of "the rest of us" do give a fuck if it's an iPad or a not-iPad :)

  4. Re:Hahahaha by TWX · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wait. You read slashdot and have been here long enough to have a six-digit user-id, but you're not nerdy enough to recognize a device versus an operating system?

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