Final verdict on Yahoo's NFL live stream: I'll take my big screen TV, thanks
Yahoo and the NFL will no doubt tout the success of Yahoo's first live stream of an NFL game Sunday. But strictly speaking as a viewer, I was disappointed. After watching the Jaguars 34-31 win over the Bills on Sunday, I'd rather watch an NFL game on my TV set than a smartphone or laptop.
Ok, I know most people had different experiences depending on where and how they watched the game and their level of tech savviness. But I had a lot of technical difficulties trying watch a lousy NFL game match up in a lousy time slot. If that was a sneak preview into the NFL of the future, then I'll take the present hands down.
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First the good news. When it worked, the picture was better, clearer and sharper than I expected. In fact, I had a better, faster experience watching the game on my iPhone than my Mac laptop.
The bad news? The livestream cut out several times leaving me with a blank screen. If I was watching at home, I would have been calling CBS and the NFL Network, asking what the hell was going on.
There were frequent pauses and lapses due to buffering problems. Plus, my fingers itched for the pause, rewind and skip buttons that are handy on a DVR. I didn't realize how much I used them during an NFL game until I was watching Jags-Bills on my laptop Sunday. I couldn't help thinking how much simpler and easier it would be for consumers to just watch the game on TV.
I know this was supposed to be a historic event. But it reminded me of a conversation I had with the late, great Frank Gifford about playing in the "Greatest Game Ever Played," the 1958 NFL Championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants.
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The longtime Monday Night Football announcer talked about how that game telecast set the NFL on a trajectory to eventually surpass Major League Baseball as the country's most popular sport. But he also talked about how pro football was the perfect sport for the TV screen. A game played on a rectangular field for a rectangular TV screen. A game where almost all of the 22 players on the field are visible before the snap. A game where the whistles and stoppages on the field create natural commercial breaks.
Fast-forward nearly 60 years later, and game telecasts are so good, the league's 32 clubs are having difficulties convincing fans to pay for tickets and parking for live games. Will live streams over the Internet be able to match, or top that, even if they are just part of the viewing experience?
From a business standpoint, Yahoo and the NFL won. Yahoo proved it can stream an NFL game with almost the same quality as a TV telecast. If this is the future of sports viewing, then Yahoo put itself in a great position.
The NFL can now use Yahoo, Google/YouTube and Apple as leverage when the league's TV deals with CBS, NBC, FOX and ESPN are up for renewal after the 2022 season.
That’s bad news for CBS, which has pleaded with the NFL to sign a long-term deal for Thursday Night Football. Instead, the league has kept CBS on a one-year leash for a lucrative $300 million a year, despite CBS throwing its top broadcast team of Phil Simms and Jim Nantz at often-lousy Thursday Night matchups.
Ultimately Yahoo's livestream proved it's still better to watch an NFL game on TV than the Internet. That won't change in the near future.
