Posted on 01/16/2024 2:28:26 AM PST by Red Badger
The NFL Playoffs are finally here, and the first weekend featured less-than-stellar matchups. What looked to be good games on paper turned, for the most part, into one-sided, boring affairs. There were great individual performances, such as Jordan Love of the Packers again disappointing Dallas Cowboys fans and a great storyline with Christian quarterback C.J. Stroud becoming the youngest quarterback to win a playoff game. However, for the most part, the action on the field was sloppy and uninspiring.
The premier matchup of the weekend was the high-scoring Miami Dolphins traveling to frigid Kansas City to take on the struggling Super Bowl Champion Chiefs. Even that game was a dud, but did anyone see it? Considerably fewer people saw that game than usual due to a unique arrangement between the NFL and the NBC-owned streaming service Peacock.
For the first time ever, the league showed a playoff game on streaming only, severely limiting who could actually watch the game from the frozen tundra of Kansas City. While the game was broadcast over the air in Kansas City and Miami, the rest of the country was left to either stream or go without.
Peacock backed the truck up to the NFL and shelled out a reported $110 million dollars for exclusive rights to the game, which could be a harbinger of things to come. It is widely speculated that the league and networks plan to transition the NFL into streaming only as broadcast television continues to die. When the current television deal is up, the league could look to streaming moving forward. That prospect isn’t sitting well with many fans, including some more well-known ones.
New York sports talk legend Mike Francesa let his feelings be known on X before the game. He wrote: “Not only is the NFL’s greedy Peacock adventure a disgrace, but the quality of the telecast is equally disgraceful. Fix the technology.” There appeared to be numerous technical issues with the stream, including reduced resolution and buffering, causing a choppy picture.
Another issue with streaming is the delay. When games are streamed, if fans are listening to the radio broadcasters as many do or even following along on X, the action on the stream is considerably delayed compared to the live feed. It sounds like a small issue, but considering the popularity of social media and fantasy sports, the delay is a definite annoyance.
The cost for Peacock isn’t what was keeping most fans from signing up and watching. Francesca was harsh in his criticism of the league from a financial perspective. He said: “The Peacock Playoff exclusive. Nothing short of a complete greedy disregard for their incredible fans. The NFL banked 110 million for the game, and fans be damned.” At least one Chief agreed: defensive end Charles Omenihu purchased 90 subscriptions for fans and commented on X, “Us playing on peacock ONLY is insane I won’t lie.”
Money aside, fans seemed most upset about the 2010s quality of the stream. One fan snarkily wrote on X: “Great job, @peacock. Broadcasting an NFL playoff game in Pixelvision was a stroke of genius. Maybe add a server or two before you try to hold fans hostage with your janky service.,” while another said, “Your streaming is AWFUL! Jerky, buffers and the color washes out.”
Perhaps the narrative would be slightly different if the game had been more competitive. The Chiefs froze out the Dolphins 26-7 in a game that didn’t seem that close. However, fans are going to demand a quality stream, especially if they have to pay, and this time, Peacock fumbled the ball and $110 million dollars.
I'm already a Peacock subscriber so I didn't have to make a decision, but I would have spent the $6 for a playoff game that I was highly interested in.
I've had some ups and downs regarding my interest on the NFL, mostly when all the Kaepernick stuff started. But in the last few years, I have enjoyed the league, and watch football each weekend. I live in St. Louis, and we hate Stan Kroenke, who moved the Rams back to LA, so I am sort without a team, so I tend to follow players that I think are exceptional. This season, I have liked watching Josh Allen and the Bills. A lot of St. Louisans have jumped aboard the Chiefs bandwagon, as it's in our home state, and only a few hours away. I do like them, but I like the Bills more.
I understand a lot of the negativity around the NFL, and their desire to walk the line of wokeness and the fact that their fanbase is mostly white men. But I can easily disregard all that silliness.
The reality is that broadcast television has lost a great deal of its popularity in the last few years, as streaming offers a lot of flexibility in programming and availability. Live events are the last area where broadcasters had an advantage. It's not a surprise that the streaming networks are now going after that market, as well.
Same for NCAA National Football Championship between Michigan and Washington. I hate ESPN and refused to buy a subscription to watch the game.
Many of the complaints are poor picture quality, not in HD, jerky motion, bad color, freezing up for extended periods, poor on field production, camerawork was amateurish, and dropping out.
These had nothing to do with deciding to go with it, but they will next time.................It’s a technology that’s not ready for prime time...............
I didn’t want them to be there either........................
I didn’t notice any of that while I was watching.
The NFL is considering on going to full pay per view. This was just an experiment to see how well it would go down.
Eventually they will bid out individual games to ESPN, FOX, ABCNNBCBS, etc so the TV schedule would be a mess..............
I suppose it all depends on your IP. The bandwidth is dependent on how many are on at any given time, and that was substantially more than usual.............
I don’t watch the NFL, but since taxpayers pay for most of their billion dollar playpens,the games should be broadcast for free.
23 million viewers, most for a streamed event in US history (whatever that means):
The US history piece is very important here. As noted in this web report, cricket streams draw millions more views then this game. This report puts the game at
11th place: 16.3 Million: (***with a BIG caveat and maybe should not be on the list): Nielsen says the NFL Wild Card game of the Chiefs and Dolphins on January13th, 2024, had an AMA of approximately 23 million viewers across Peacock, NBC stations in Miami and Kansas City, and on mobile with NFL+. But that number includes TV in two local markets. So the number I am using for this list is the 16.3 million concurrent devices for Peacock. However, the 16.3 million number does not include viewers who streamed the game via NFL+ and vMVPDs like YouTube TV. So the total number would be a little higher, and NBC Sports used the term concurrent devices, not AMA for Peacock, so it’s not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison to data from other events.
Not explained in the NBC press release is that I think the difference in concurrent and their claimed 23 million is their guess on how many total people were watching the streams.
All of the other streaming events that did better are Cricket matches, a 2018 eSports League Of Legends event and one soccer game.
Streaming of events is far more common in Asia.
“How was the picture quality?”
I get good picture quality. It all comes down to bandwidth, which is the biggest drawback of using a firestick.
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