NFL...

NFL...
Dove Larson

Here we are at the turn of the streaming revolution. Whatever you want to watch at your finger tips is finally a reality. This advancement to have any form of media at your beck and call does come with a major flaw we all should have seen coming: capitalism. The NFL has always been a major model of capitalism both macro and micro, and their new streaming service is right on time to keep with the trends. While I will not blast the NFL for trying to make money, I will not fall over myself complimenting them for the lack of work on NFL+, or as you may understand later NFL... (blinking ellipse).

The positive is the ability to watch games on your phone without a huge cable contract. At $4.99 a month, the price is low enough when considering the average streaming service is around $15.00 a month. The streaming of games is incredible and extremely helpful for those of us who can’t guarantee a spot on the coach every moment our favorite team is on the field.

In principle this should be a simple handy app for people on the go, but the execution falls short in a few places. First, you have to read the fine print of the app’s agreement and understand you can basically only watch the games that your local market can watch. While that is not the worst setup, you can not watch one second of pregame. Seriously, you probably will not see the first play unless you time things perfectly because it will just be unavailable and show highlights until after kickoff.

To be totally honest, using this app in the preseason was a nightmare. The games would not load at all, just a blinking ellipse indicating loading. You knew something was about to be on, but it just would not ever show. That has been improved, but I have still noticed games freezing while I am at home on my Wi-Fi experiencing no other issues with connection for any other devices.

If you want to just look at other scores, good luck. The app has font and spacing settings that are just bad. Actually, they are not bad, they are the absolute worst. The app shows the first number of the score for each team, and then hides the second number in a non-visible location on the box score [Check out the image to the left]. If you just want to see the box score itself and see how your favorite player did, well too bad again, you must watch the games highlights if they are ready. So no box scores in a simple location, like connected to the score.

When the game you are watching ends, the app may just close all together, but if your lucky it will just quickly move to the next games highlights. It is a little jarring how quickly it cuts out, no post game, no player interviews, just silence or a quick switch.

Lastly, the app markets the ability to re-watch ANY game or see a condensed version following the game. No surprise, it costs extra for that. Also, it will take up to 24 hours for those to be available. At that point, you have probably seen enough highlights of the game and do not need to re-watch.

There is a lot of potential. I have wanted a way to watch games on a device for a long time. I do not have cable, and sometimes bad weather means your antenna might miss a play or two. The idea is great, but the app needs a lot of help. Let us watch the full local coverage, we pay for the app, we see the ads, so we essentially pay for the right to watch either way. Clean it up NFL. It is your first season streaming, but you are a multi-billion dollar organization and you have seen the streaming wars like the rest of us and have more than enough resources to make sure your app works. Simple things like font and box score size should just be fixed after the first five seconds in beta tests. Lastly, do not try to resell old games; we already paid for that and condensed games are not that interesting.

We all have heard the dumb jokes from previous campaigns, and I admit to be one of the many to say HBOMax was more like HBOMin. I would like to pile on the NFLMinus campaign, but I have reason to believe this is too lucrative for the NFL to not fix, I feel like it is a season or two away from making a few fixes. Thus I feel like NFL…(with the ellipse blinking) is fitting as the app has the potential, but for now is still loading.