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 to 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 livestreams 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.
A real stinker
The sports media had some fun with the question of whether ESPN’s Mike Ditka farted during “Monday NFL Countdown” last week. Ha-ha. A few jokes about what the old Chicago Bears coach eats before going on air then let’s move on, right? Wrong.
ESPN and Frank Caliendo took a joke that was nearly a week old and turned it into the worst opening for Sunday NFL Countdown I’ve ever seen. It’s ESPN at it’s most annoying: over-produced, fatuous, self-absorbed.
It was also tone-deaf since this unfunny skit preceded some classy, heartfelt comments by anchor Chris Berman on the roughly 300 ESPNers laid off last week due to budget cuts.
Boomer Esiason rips Ryan Mallett
Former NFL MVP turned CBS analyst Boomer Esiason had a scathing take on Texans quarterback Ryan Mallett missing a team flight Saturday. Mallett effectively benched himself.
“I’ve heard a lot of stupid things at the quarterback position. This is one of the dumbest ones I’ve ever heard,” said Esiason on “The NFL Today.” “This guy basically has a chance to be a player in the NFL and misses his flight? I don’t get it. i don’t understand.”
The great NFL beat writer John McClain broke the story that Mallet had to fly commercial via Twitter:
Texans QB Ryan Mallett misses team’s charter to Miami https://t.co/lR3zj8VSAw
— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) October 25, 2015
McClain proceed to hilariously torch the Texans during their 44-25 loss to the Dolphins Sunday:
What kind of soap will scrub off the stench of this Texans performance?
— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) October 25, 2015
Here’s was my favorite tweet from McClain:
Is it possible to cut an entire team? Can an entire team be traded?
— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) October 25, 2015
Indy’s fake punt fallout
Ex-NFL coach Dave Wannstedt blamed the Indianapolis Colts special team coach, rather than head coach Chuck Pagano, for the worst fake punt in football history.
“I’m firing him,” said Wannstedt on FOX NFL Kickoff.
Mets rotation better than 86?
SNY analyst Keith Hernandez helped lead the Mets to their last World Series title in 1986 over the Red Sox. But Hernandez has some news for his old teammates: The Mets’ starting rotation of Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Stephen Matz is better, he says, than the ’86 Mets rotation. That 1986 squad included Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling, Bob Ojeda and Sid Fernandez.
“The starting rotation of the Mets is nothing like I’ve ever seen. It’s just unbelievable. Four guys, all in their 20’s, so talented,” Hernandez told me in New York at an event announcing Major League Baseball’s signing of Sheraton Hotels & Resorts as a new sponsor. “Our ’86 bunch was very talented. I mean there’s no one who was better than Dwight Gooden. These guys are better. These four guys have a much higher ceiling than our (rotation) did. It’s an extraordinary group.”
SNY’s regular season Mets broadcast team of Hernandez, Ron Darling and Gary Cohen is one of the best in the business. Hernandez is funny, incisive and willing to say anything. Would he like to call MLB post-season games like Darling does for TBS? “Timing is everything," answered Hernandez. “Certainly I wouldn’t turn it down.”
FOX will broadcast the 2015 World Series between the Mets and Royals starting with pregame coverage at 7 p.m. ET Tuesday.
HBO’s ‘Kareem: Minority of One’
The competition between HBO Sports and ESPN in sports documentaries will reach another level with the premiere of HBO’s upcoming “Kareem: Minority of One.” HBO, the longtime gold standard in sports docs, has been strongly challenged by ESPN and its “30 for 30” franchise. Adding fuel to the fire, “30 for 30” godfather Bill Simmons has jumped to HBO from ESPN. Simmons said on his new podcast that he’ll help HBO take back its documentary crown.
Debuting at 10 p.m. ET Nov. 3, the new doc marks the first time the six-time world champion has cooperated with a TV biopic since retiring from the NBA. The film tells Kareem’s story from his upbringing in Harlem to his high school and college days and finally his six NBA titles with Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers.
But it also goes behind the scenes of Kareem’s relationships with NBA legends such as Wilt Chamberlain and Walt “Clyde” Frazier. And his more recent emergence as a writer and author. Set your DVR’s. It’s a must-watch.
