Is Watching NFL Sunday Ticket in Bars and Restaurants About to Become Much Worse?

NFL Sunday Ticket for businesses is about to join the future. Starting in the 2024 season, bars and restaurants will gain the option to provide a streaming version of NFL Sunday Ticket that doesn’t require a DIRECTV satellite dish. It’ll be a far more convenient option for many establishment owners, but it could mean the rise of an old but dreaded issue that accompanies livestreamed events: delays that cause the audience to be far behind the live-action on the field.

Key Details:

• EverPass Media has acquired UPshow, a tech platform that will allow it to offer Sunday Ticket via streaming.
• Streaming has often proved a less reliable way of watching sports broadcasts for fans who want to avoid delays.
• Prime Video is hard at work on anti-latency technology, but UPshow’s credentials in this regard have yet to be seen.

Earlier this week, it was announced that EverPass Media — the joint venture created by the NFL and RedBird Capital to distribute Sunday Ticket commercially — was introducing a direct-to-consumer option for the out-of-market games service this year. Commercial establishments can still buy Sunday Ticket through DIRECTV for Business if they wish, or they can choose to go the streaming route instead. EverPass will build out this streaming option using tech acquired in its acquisition of UPshow, so unlike for residential customers, the package won’t be available to stream through YouTube TV.

But increased distribution options for NFL Sunday Ticket could well mean that fans who watch the package at a bar or restaurant that chooses to offer it via streaming will be forced to grapple with major delays. The broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII in February 2024 was streamed on multiple services, and most were a full minute or more behind the live action on the field.

Such delays can mean that fans who are scrolling social media for reactions during games will find out the result of a play before they have a chance to see it on their screen. Or even worse, TV screens running on different streaming devices in the same restaurant can show plays at different times, leading one side of the bar to cheer before the other even sees the play in question. That can quickly sap the fun out of a game-watching experience, and it could be exacerbated as the number of options for watching Sunday Ticket via linear means dwindles.

Are Other NFL Streaming Partners Working on Latency Issues?

Amazon’s Prime Video has gotten very serious about trying to cut down on the number of delays created in the retransmission of streamed content. Prime Video’s goal is to bring streaming delays to 10 seconds or less, which would be a big plus for fans as they head to the service to watch NFL football, WNBA basketball, or any of the other various sports events available on the streamer.

Unfortunately, the new platform being readied for distribution to bars and restaurants by EverPass and UPshow is unproven, and services that start from scratch rarely hit the market at 100% operating efficiency. There will undoubtedly be a period of growing pains for NFL Sunday Ticket via streaming in commercial establishments in 2024, and latency could be one of the biggest issues that confronts fans as they head to their favorite sports bar to try to watch out-of-market games.

Even streaming services with plenty of experience offering on-demand content struggle with the transition to live events. In April 2023, Netflix tried to livestream a reunion episode of its popular reality series “Love is Blind,” but the attempt quickly dissolved into a nightmare. Most customers were unable to access the live broadcast and had to wait for the special to end before they could watch it on demand. Netflix’s engineers are assuredly working to make sure a similar issue doesn’t befall its Christmas Day NFL doubleheader, which it won the rights to in May.

Streaming delays could be among the least of the NFL’s worries regarding Sunday Ticket going forward, though likely not this year. In late June, a jury ruled that NFL Sunday Ticket’s high price and lack of alternatives for watching out-of-market games constitutes a violation of American antitrust laws. However, an appeals process that could take years to play out means NFL Sunday Ticket is almost certain to continue as normal in 2024.