View full size photo »

Welcome to BFTB's first ever sponsored post.  Sprint has teamed up with SB Nation to make their NFL Mobile Live feature even better, and in return we're helping them to promote it.  Lucky for me, they haven't given us any guidelines on how they want it promoted.  Story time!

Let's start a few weeks ago.  I had an iPhone and thought I was perfectly content with it.  I had been an avid iPhone user/advocate for about a year.  "It can literally do anything!" I used to say.  To help me in promoting the NFL Mobile Live application, Sprint went ahead and sent me a free Palm Pre to test out. When I heard it was on it's way, I was skeptical.

I've stated on several occasions that I'm a geek.  I play video games, I have 3 computers (and at one point each had a different operating system) and I love my gadgets, especially cell phones.  With that being said, let me officially say that the iPhone sucks in comparison to the Palm Pre.  I had forgotten what life was like without dropped calls and I had never experienced a phone that could handle more than one thing at a time.

In the last couple of weeks, my wife (I guess she'd be obviouswoman?) and I have bought a house after a lot of house-shopping.  So on top of phone calls to and from realtors, mortgage lenders, home owner's insurance agents and the like, I've been doing a lot of texting and e-mailing with family and friends that have experience with the home-buying process.  Not only have I been able to handle everything at the same time (and my texting has gotten faster now that I have an actual keyboard), but I have yet to have a single dropped call or text message that goes off into space and never gets to me or whomever I was sending it to (a huge issue I could never fix with the iPhone).

So, to start (we still haven't gotten to the NFL application!), I'd highly recommend a Palm Pre or any future phone Palm releases with webOS.  Although they're still playing catch-up with the iPhone in terms of the number of applications they have, it's a wonderful system to manage your life with.

This is getting lengthy, so I'll split up the post.  A story about how the NFL Mobile Live application saved my life this last Sunday, as well as how you could win tickets to this year's Super Bowl, is after the jump.

How NFL Mobile Live Saved My Life: I'm a bitter person, especially when the Chargers are losing.  After the first quarter of the Pittsburgh game, obviouswoman (I don't know if that works...) left the room because I was being "grumpy".  I think I was acting appropriately, given the 0-14 score and the Steelers shredding of the Bolts' run D.  During games like that, neutral commentators drive me crazy.  Although I typically like Cris Collingsworth, I would've strangled him on Sunday night if I could've.  Luckily, I was able to do the next best thing....

My favorite part of Sprint's NFL Mobile Live application is the streaming radio.  After the first half on Sunday night's game, I opened my NFL Mobile Live app and was given a choice.  I could listen to the San Diego radio broadcast, or the Pittsburgh one.  I'll take Josh Lewin and Hank Bauer any day of the week.  Those guys are great.  (Side-Note: Strangely enough, for most of my training camp trip in August I was within ten feet of Lewin but never got the chance to talk to him.  He's a busy, and wildly popular, guy during camp.)

Anyways, I muted my television and listened to the radio commentary for the rest of the game.  It was much better and I calmed down quickly.  Although there weren't many nice things to say about the Chargers, I probably would've killed myself if I had to continue to listen to the TV commentators talk about how great Ben Roethlisberger was when he was clearly throwing against no pass-rush and weak zone coverage.  On Monday night against the Broncos, I'm definitely going to start the game listening to the Chargers radio broadcast on my phone.  If you have a Sprint phone, I suggest you do the same.

The NFL Mobile Live application also works as a live scoreboard, which has helped me keep an eye on what the rest of the league is doing when I'm not near a television on Sunday.  No refreshing is necessary.  Just open the application and voila, you've got up-the-the-minute scores of every game.

The first time you open the application, you'll be asked your favorite NFL team.  If you happen to select the Chargers (I would hope you would), every time you click the "My Team" button at the bottom of the application you'll be brought straight to news, schedules, photos and video highlights dealing with the Chargers.  On top of that, from that "My Team" screen you'll have a direct line to Bolts From The Blue so you make sure not to miss any of our wonderful insight.

Finally, let's get to how you could win tickets to this year's Super Bowl in Miami.  Sprint has partnered up with the NFL to give out 17 trips to the 2009/2010 Super Bowl and all you have to do to be a part of it is vote on Sprint's Can't-Miss Plays of the Week. Every time you do, you are entered for a chance to win one of those 17 Super Bowl trips.  Unfortunately, the Bolts have yet to be involved in any of the Can't-Miss Plays to date, but I'll let you know if they are in the future.

To summarize: Don't have a Palm Pre?  You should probably get one.  Want to listen to Chargers radio no matter where you are?  You better get to a Sprint store on the double.  Interested in winning a trip to this year's Super Bowl?  Vote, vote, vote!!