I couldn’t handle some of the criticism of Amazon Prime Video during their Thursday Night Football debut.
Believe me when I tell you there are valid criticisms. The audio at times was a disaster. The pre-game show was awkward. A bunch of former players doing television for their first time were significantly better than Tony Gonzalez, who’s been working as a TV analyst since Barack Obama’s first term. Public viewing, as detailed by WFAN morning host Gregg Giannotti, weren’t pleasant. All understandable and real critiques.
And yet, I couldn’t help but notice the reaction from many in sports media to criticisms that I’d equate to hypothetical problems experiences in made-for-tv products and infomercials.
You know the type. You’re scrolling through the channels at 12:41 AM and hear a commercial with that distinct voice: “ARE YOU TIRED OF BURNING CHOCOLATE CHIPS IN YOUR USUAL SKILLET AND NOT BEING ABLE TO WASH THEM OUT?”
Uh…no, I’ve never experienced that problem in my entire existence, and no one else I know has either. You’re literally inventing problems. I had that same reaction Thursday night.
“This sucks. How am I supposed to flip between channels during the commercials?”, I saw one user tweet. What else would you be trying to watch on Thursday that would have warranted a channel change during a commercial break? Were you actually torn between a re-run of Young Sheldon and Thursday Night Football? Oh my goodness, you couldn’t flip back and forth easily between Celebrity Family Feud and the game?! How tragic!
I continue to be baffled by this idea that streaming works for literally every other entertainment avenue outside of live sports. I legitimately know one person who still has cable. One. And he’s in his 50s. The overwhelming majority of people watch television through a streaming platform in one way or another. And yet an NFL game being on the platform run by the world’s largest retailer is somehow where the line should be drawn?
Listen, I understand as a country we’re pretty averse to change. New things are scary. But if you’re watching literally all your television through a streaming platform, the amount of consternation I saw last week was embarrassing. NFL coverage is about familiarity. People like what they know. So having to open up an app on their tv to watch Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit announce a game was a foreign concept for some reason.
Critiques of the video quality. Critiques of Herbstreit or Michaels. Critiques of graphics. They all fell on deaf ears for me. If video quality was an issue, that sounds like a “you problem”. I live in a county that has more dairy cows than people, and yet I have enough bandwidth to watch Thursday Night Football flawlessly with my wife simultaneously streaming Big Brother while those in major metropolitan areas complained of buffering with probably triple the megabits? That doesn’t seem to be a Prime Video issue.
Herbstreit was as good as he is on college games. Michaels was fantastic as always. Kaylee Hartung’s sideline reports were informative and helpful to viewers.
The Amazon Prime Video graphic package immediately leapt to the top of the heap in NFL broadcasts. If the ever-spectacular Fred Gaudelli had thrown an NBC logo in the upper right corner of the screen, you never would have known you weren’t watching Sunday Night Football.
And for a platform airing its first broadcast, facing unwarranted scrutiny, I think that’s as high praise as you can bestow on it.
Amazon Prime Video’s debut was a smashing success, and in my estimation, calling it anything but that reveals an inherent bias that the streaming platform was in a no-win situation with people to begin.
Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
