Content scheduling for fantasy gaming

• US 7,827,202 B2
• Filed: 09/21/2007
• Issued: 11/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Relyea, Don, Roberts, Brian, Stallings, Heath
• Primary Examiner(s): Cottingham; John R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rayyan; Susan F
• Application Number:
  US11/859,316
• Publication Number:
  US 20090083322A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,138 Days
• Field of Search: 707/999.1, 707/999.102, 707/999.107, 707/705, 707/793
• US Class Current: 707/793
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/951 Calendar or scheduling

Abstract

A user database includes information concerning at least one entity of interest. A program database includes multimedia content information associated with items of multimedia content and including a temporal interval during which the items of multimedia content are available. A presentation scheduling facility is communicatively coupled to the user database and the program database. The presentation scheduling facility is configured to determine a number of items of multimedia content that are associated with the at least one entity of interest based on the information concerning the at least one entity of interest and the multimedia content information, and configured to provide a scheduling screen containing identifications of the determined number of items of multimedia content.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a processor;

a user database including information concerning a fantasy game, the information representing players of interest engaged in a real-life competitive activity that forms a basis for the fantasy game;

a program database including multimedia program listing information associated with a plurality of multimedia programs, said multimedia program listing information specifying temporal intervals during which the multimedia programs are available; and

a scheduling manager coupled to the user database, the program database and the processor, the scheduling manager configured to direct the processor to;

determine, based on the information representing the players of interest in the user database and the multimedia program listing information in the program database, a number of the multimedia programs that are associated with the players of interest,

determine, based on performance statistics representative of performances of the players of interest in the real-life competitive activity, at least one media program from the number of media programs determined to be associated with the players of interest, and

provide a scheduling screen containing at least one identification of the at least one media program determined based on the performance statistics.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the scheduling manager is further configured to receive a request to use the scheduling manager, and wherein the temporal intervals are contemporaneous with said request to use the scheduling manager.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the scheduling manager is further configured to receive a selection of the at least one multimedia program, the selection indicating at least one of presenting the at least one multimedia program on a display and recording the at least one multimedia program.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the real-life competitive activity includes a sporting competition and the players of interest include at least one of a sports player and a sports team participating in the sporting competition.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said scheduling screen provides indications of media programs that are unavailable to a user.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein said multimedia programs that are unavailable to the user are unavailable because of a subscription level of the user, and wherein the scheduling manager is further configured to receive an indication from the user requesting a change to the subscription level of the user in order to access said multimedia programs that are unavailable to the user.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a real-time statistics manager configured to determine said performance statistics representative of the performances of the players of interest in the real-life competitive activity and present a real-time statistics display including said performance statistics.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein said real-time statistics display includes at least one of a user'"'"'s fantasy roster and an opponent'"'"'s fantasy roster.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the real-time statistics manager is configured to present the real-time statistics display at the same time that the at least one media program is displayed.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the real-time statistics display comprises a scrolling ticker display.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a player database including information concerning the players of interest, the information including a team with which each of the players of interest is associated;

wherein the scheduling manager is further configured to correlate the information concerning the players of interest in the user database with the information concerning the players of interest in the player database to determine the team with which each of the players of interest is associated, and to use the determined team with which each of the players of interest is associated to determine the number of the multimedia programs that are associated with the players of interest.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the scheduling manager is further configured to filter out, based on the performance statistics representative of the performances of the players of interest in the real-life competitive activity, at least one other media program from the number of media programs determined to be associated with the players of interest.

13. A method, comprising:

retrieving, by a computing device, information concerning a fantasy game from a user fantasy database, the information representing players of interest engaged in a real-life competitive activity that forms a basis for the fantasy game;

determining, by a computing device, based on the information representing the players of interest and on multimedia program listing information associated with a plurality of media programs, a number of the media programs that are associated with players of interest;

determining, by a computing device, based on performance statistics representative of performances of the players of interest in the real-life competitive activity, at least one media program from the number of media programs determined to be associated with the players of interest; and

providing, by a computing device, a scheduling screen containing at least one identification of the at least one media program.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the real-life competitive activity includes a sports league, the players of interest include a plurality of sports players, and the number of the media programs determined to be associated with the players of interest comprise multimedia representations of sporting competitions in which at least some of said plurality of sports players are participants.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

receiving, by a computing device, a request to initiate the scheduling manager;

wherein said number of media programs are further associated with temporal intervals during which said number of media programs are available, and wherein the temporal intervals are contemporaneous with said receiving of said request to initiate the scheduling manager.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

receiving, by a computing device, a selection of the at least one media program, the selection indicating at least one of presenting the at least one media program on a display and recording the at least one media program.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

determining, by a computing device, said performance statistics representative of the performances of the players of interest in the real-life competitive activity; and

presenting, by a computing device, a real-time statistics display including said performance statistics representative of performances of the players of interest in the real-life competitive activity.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

providing, by a computing device, indications of media programs that are unavailable to a user; and

receiving, by a computing device, an indication from the user requesting a change to the user'"'"'s subscription level in order to access said unavailable media programs.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein the determining of the number of the media programs that are associated with the players of interest includes:

correlating the information representing players of interest with information concerning the players of interest in a player database to determine a real team with which each of the players of interest is associated, and

using the determined real team with which each of the players of interest is associated to determine the number of the multimedia programs that are associated with the players of interest.

20. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

receiving, by a computing device, statistical criteria;

wherein the determining the at least one media program further comprises determining that at least one of the players of interest associated with the at least one media program is associated with performance statistics that meet the statistical criteria.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the statistical criteria specify a minimum performance-based ranking of a player of interest within the players of interest in comparison with other players of interest within the players of interest.

22. A method comprising:

determining, by a computing device, a number of players associated with a fantasy team included in a fantasy sports game, each of said number of players associated with a real team within a real-life sports league that forms a basis for the fantasy sports game;

determining, by a computing device, a number of media programs associated with the number of players, including using the real team associated with each of said number of players to query multimedia program listing information;

determining, by a computing device, based on performance statistics representative of performances of the number of players in the real-life sports league, at least one media program from the number of media programs determined to be associated with the players;

presenting, by a computing device, on a display, a media program presentation schedule including at least one identifier of said at least one media program; and

receiving, by a computing device, a user input to select said at least one media program, wherein said selection indicates at least one of a request to view said at least one media program or a request to record said at least one media program.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising:

displaying, by a computing device, a media program at the same time as the presenting of said at least one identifier of said at least one media program.

24. The method of claim 22, further comprising:

filtering, by a computing device, said at least one identifier of said at least one media program based on user criteria.

25. The method of claim 22, further comprising:

displaying, by a computing device, real-time statistical information representative of the performance statistics of the number of players at the same time as the presenting of said at least one identifier of said at least one media program.