https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goals_on_Sunday Not sure there's a big reason for it since NBC usually has Goalzone covering this content a lot earlier. And PL Review available to digital subscribers on Sunday. Sky can't show any Premier League goals til Sunday, hence the reason for the show. And Sky Sports News has been added as some nice news filler to the middle of the day on NBCSN, probably more for team, transfer, controversy, etc storylines to fill in a bit of a weekday. That is not a place you want to look for highlights.
As I'm sure you know (perhaps more than you would care to know?) I would gladly trade just one of their five hours of 11am SkySportsNews "filler" for a quality 1hr EPL wrap-up show. You know which one I prefer! But just about anything out of the UK promises to be better than NBC's GoalZone, which I find very weak as compared to something like IMG's PL Review show. (Personally I'm not looking for less ambient crowd noise and more talking heads analysis that GZ provides... I like extended highlights with original match commentary) With that said, and having never watched Sky Goals on Sunday, this final sentence from the link you posted gives me slight pause:
Not big news but for the few of you who have Android TV... ... NBC Sports app is now available for download.
Saturday's games start 1 hour later than usual and the Europeans change their clocks. From Saturday March 30 through Monday April 8, 9 of 10 days will have Premier League games. Three weekends will begin with a game on Friday. This weekend is normal with 7 games on Saturday, 2 on Sunday, and 1 on Monday. The weekend of April 6 and 7 had games moved because of Manchester City vs. Brighton and Watford vs. Wolverhampton in the FA Cup Semifinals. Of the 4 games that were moved, 3 were moved forward to midweek, and Tottenham vs. Brighton was postponed. There will be midweek games with 2 on Tuesday April 2 and 3 on Wednesday April 3. There will be 1 game on Friday April 5, 3 on Saturday April 6, 1 on Sunday April 7, and 1 on Monday April 8. April 2 through 8 will have 11 games, with Chelsea and Crystal Palace playing twice and everybody else playing once. There are 6 games that need to be made up. That week will make up 2 games and postpone 1 to leave 5 that need to be made up. 1 will be on Tuesday April 16, 2 will be on Tuesday April 23, and 2 will be on Wednesday April 24. After April 24, every club will have 3 games left. That's an improvement from last season, when 12 clubs had midweek games before the final weekend. From April 13 through 27, Brighton will have 5 games in 15 days. As for TV, on Saturday Man United vs. Watford will be on NBCSN at 11:00 A.M., with Man United being the only one of the big six to play then. On April 2, it was an easy choice of Wolverhampton vs. Man United over Watford vs. Fulham. On April 3, Chelsea vs. Brighton, Man City vs. Cardiff, and Tottenham vs. Crystal Palace will be at the same time, with Man City vs. Cardiff on TV. On April 6 at 10:00 A.M. there will be 3 games, with none of them having a big six club. Newcastle vs. Crystal Palace will be on NBCSN over AFC Bournemouth vs. Burnley and Huddersfield vs. Leicester. There won't be games at any other time that day, so I don't expect a game on NBC. Saturday at 1:30 P.M., West Ham vs. Everton has near equal clubs, with West Ham 2 points ahead and Everton with the better goal differential. That will be on NBCSN, not NBC, so including last weekend with no games there will be three consecutive weekends with a game on NBC. West Ham will play the last Saturday game in two of three weekends, and when they go to Man United on April 13, I expect it to be on NBC.
Brighton vs. Southampton will be on CNBC tomorrow at 11:00 A.M. It's nice for CNBC to show a game without a big six club. That was chosen over Burnley vs. Wolverhampton, Crystal Palace vs. Huddersfield, and Leicester vs. AFC Bournemouth.
Was debating whether to watch the my team live now on NBCSN or NBSSports.com. I ended up opting for conventional TV, partly because the stream is a full 40 seconds behind my cable feed. Why would they do that? I can see maybe 2-3 seconds would be understandable/prudent. But 40 seconds??? (and yes I did make sure I was actually "Live" on the stream)
Streams are normally behind TV. It's not a choice by NBC. It's how long it takes something to get online compared to on TV. Trying watching something on WatchESPN or another way of streaming games that are on TV to see how the lag compares to whatever ESPN channel it is on TV.
I watched a lot of streaming over the years, from a variety of providers and sources. 10-15 secs lag seems fairly typical, but 40 secs? That's extreme! And if you have any ideas of doing any kind of real-time social media, that kind a lag is like a cold shower.
FWIW, the SiriusXM internet feed lags behind the satellite feed, but as a bonus, it continues to play when the internet connection is lost. If the internet connection is regained, the stream comes back up. I used to partake in online chats where we'd listen to a game and be in the chat room... if you didn't have an AM/FM radio, the delay was terrible.
When I watch Hofstra in NCAA Basketball, I don't know if the lag is over 40 seconds, but it's certainly over 15. The drop-down menu called Window includes whatever title each site uses, which includes the score during games, so it can tell me what happened before I see it. I agree that the lag is bad, but I'm not shocked by 40 seconds.
Watching Spurs-Palace right now in Chrome browser. The lag is exactly 35 secs. Apparently this is a thing with NBC. Hopefully with time they'll be able trim that lag down to something more reasonable like 5 secs. Edit: the stream was pretty solid & steady for first half, but for some unknown reason it went to sh1t in the second half... tons of dropped frames and buzzing sounds. And that's even while NBC reports my stream bitrate at 7.0 current & 5.17 max (go figure), which IIRC is even better than I was getting in first half. Ah, streaming.
All streams lag behind live. I use FoxSportsGo a lot and that's often 30-60 secs behind. It's the processing and distribution via the internet. And I don't like NBC's browser stream delivery either. The video page is too heavy with graphics, ads, etc. Gold streams like Goal Rush run cleaner for me because of the lighter display. Apps (Roku, mobile) work much better too.
I've streamed live/sports events which have only lagged by a few seconds compared to TV. So I know it's doable. I just hope the various providers invest more money going forward to improve in this area.
In the past week, I've found myself thinking about NBC's Premier League staff, and in particular Arlo White, who I think is due a shout out. I've praised virtually all of them in the past from Rebecca to Kyle to the Robbies to Derek to Lee, etc. They are all professionals at the top of their game. But Arlo doesn't seem to get a lot of love around here from what I've heard. But I think he's right up there with the others. A very good PBP guy, even if he comes from the chit-chat school of broadcasting, but he knows his stuff. And doesn't dumb down the game too much for all the American noobs. Sure I've been critical of NBC's coverage, especially their increasingly inconsistent programming decisions in recent years. But what is clearly one of their biggest strengths is the team they have assembled to cover the matches live. I'd be hard-pressed to find a weak link (OK maybe that Ahmed guy who pinch-hit for Rebecca last week is a bit too green for that job) Whoever put their EPL team together, and kept them together, should be congratulated. And Arlo has in a way become the voice of the EPL in our country. And we could do so so much worse than him. Thanks Arlo!
What I don't like is when after the games he thanks Lee and Graeme for their time making it sound like Lee and Graeme work for him rather than all of them working for NBC.
Interesting development today - I guess as a result of their new partnership with Sky Sports, NBC is broadcasting the Sky Sports telecast of today's Leicester-Newcastle match rather than using the world feed. The NBCSN logo is alongside Sky Sports' in the upper right, but unfortunately they're plastering their usual large score/clock bug over Sky's smaller, less intrusive one. Otherwise, we're getting all the regular Sky Sports graphics so I look forward to seeing how they deal with Sky promoting future matches on their network (seems like we may be on a slight delay for this reason).
A few months ago I mentioned an impending move to the UK that has since come to fruition. I've maintained that in the U.S. we have it pretty damn good when it comes to soccer (or sports in general) on TV even with the fragmentation that we see due to streaming/apps/etc. and corresponding subscription costs. While this may only interest me, here are some bullet points on what it's like to try to follow televised soccer in the UK (with further details TBD): - Weekend afternoon TV blackout: I didn't know about this until I got here, but since the '60s there has been a rule in place that UK matches kicking off between 2:45 and 5 p.m. on weekends cannot be broadcast live on TV in the UK. So that block of matches that kickoff simultaneously each weekend of the Premier League season at 7 a.m. west coast and 10 a.m. east coast...well, those can't be watched on TV live via any legal means here in the UK. It is patently absurd. There have been studies in recent years to point out that the reasoning behind the blackout (don't want people to not go to local stadium because a big match is on TV) is BS in 2019. There are four EPL matches being played right now - none are airing live on UK TV. - "Free" TV requires a £154 TV license: Another item I was completely in the dark about before arriving. In the UK, you can connect your TV to the coaxial outlet in the wall for "free" TV. It's actually a wider selection of channels than you'd get over the air in the U.S., but unless you want to watch the news or wait until the evening to watch a good show on BBC or Channel 4 it's not especially helpful. That said, I did watch the FA Cup Semifinal between Man City and Tottenham on BBC last weekend. The license covers the household and must be purchased if you want to watch "free" TV inclusive of the BBC iPlayer streaming app. It's the equivalent of $202 U.S. and watching without paying earns a £1,000 fine if caught (and they do send people around to inspect homes and ensure nobody is cheating the system). - League coverage is split between carriers: Long story short, imagine if most EPL games shown on U.S. TV were on DirecTV and the remainder were on Dish Network, which carried all the UEFA matches. That's about how it is here. Sky TV shows most EPL matches with the remainder airing on BT, and the two are completely separate TV service providers. Fortunately, there are some workarounds, but they aren't great. You can buy a day/week/month pass to the Sky Sports channels via NOW TV (which is a streaming app that carries movies and shows from various channels and itself costs about £10/mo.), but it's £8/day, £15/week and £34/month. BT Sport channels can be added to your Sky TV subscription...but not yet. This goes live sometime mid-2019 and for an unknown cost. You can get mobile access to BT Sport or Sky Sports, but only if you get mobile or broadband service from either/or. - Streaming services are AWOL: There are streaming apps, but mostly for specific channels. There's no equivalent to YouTube TV, Hulu Live, PS Vue, etc. It's like being back in the U.S. a couple years ago. Hopefully the streaming options will open up here soon. So, uh, yeah, it's a weird mix of old and new and WTF over here when it comes to TV service. I've been able to make due thanks to a VPN and a mixture of my existing subscriptions - NBC Sports has worked fine, YTTV in part, and ESPN+ not at all. I also watched the FA Cup semifinal mentioned above on "free" TV and the other through aforementioned nefarious means due to it being carried by BT Sport. I've only been here a couple weeks, so I'm relying on those U.S.-based options and Reddit for now, but once I've settled in I'll figure out the best UK TV configuration, none of which will help me follow U.S. sports of course. So, trust me, we have/had it damn good in the U.S. And I don't even have a clue about finding televised La Liga, Bundesliga, etc. matches here. Just tracking the EPL is convoluted enough!
Yeah I saw that last night on my DVR. It made me wonder what the impetus was. Technical or staffing problems in Stamford? Needing to save a few $'s? Just trying something new strategically, with an eye towards the future? I found it interesting, but not being a huge fan of the announcers standing on the pitch (whether it's Sky or NBC or whomever) I probably favor NBC's coverage. Also, their personnel... as much as I've generally liked Kelly Cates (almost as much as Rebecca Lowe) I've never cared much for Gary Neville, and have some sort of aversion to Jamie Carragher. So on personnel alone, NBC wins in my book. NBC seems to be doing more with Sky (e.g. the 11am SSN on weekdays, which has quickly become part of my daily DVR fare), and they clearly are cross-marketing each other to an extent, so it'll be interesting to see how their programming changes.
Interesting. I did know about the Saturday 3pm blackout. It's perhaps the main thing I've always thought differentiates coverage in USA. What I think one would do to get around this, at least for the EPL, is to leverage your $50/year NBC Gold subscription. But to watch the mainstream NBC TV stuff online you'd still need a way to login with a valid cable/satellite account. Presumably all this would work and NBC wouldn't block you because of your IP address location or something?
Bundesliga is on BT. La Liga and Serie A are both on Eleven Sports. I've heard that foreign leagues are also blacked out in the UK during this time frame. Any idea if this is true or is it strictly matches from the UK (which I assume also includes the Scottish Premiership)? This is more nitpicking than anything else. But isn't the comparison of Sky/BT (which are subscription sports networks rather than TV providers) more akin to, for example, games being split between ESPN/Fox or HBO/Showtime? Or perhaps I'm over-thinking things here. Otherwise, good post. Always wondered how things worked over there and in other countries. I knew about the TV blackout but was under the impression that leagues outside the UK were also subject to the blackout time frame.
Sky Sports is owned by Comcast now, so NBC is free to use the UK channels content and they are doing just that. I imagine there will be a bit of a limit on that because a lot of Sky UK broadcasts have British specific sponsorships and commercials built in. Yeah the on pitch stuff can be cheesy but it's essentially free live content for NBC so it makes sense to get perspectives from the likes of Gary Neville if its there for them.