YouTube CEO Confirms NFL Sunday Ticket Will Offer Ability to Watch Multiple Games at Once

When YouTube TV walked away from the negotiation scrum with the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket in December, fans rejoiced. The live TV streaming service was by far the preferred destination for the league’s out-of-market games package, no doubt in part thanks to YouTube’s proven ability to innovate.

That pattern of innovation will indeed continue when Sunday Ticket launches on YouTube TV this fall. In a letter to users, new CEO and longtime YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan confirmed Sunday Ticket would offer the ability to watch multiple games at the same time.

That’s not exactly a new announcement, as YouTube executives indicated in early February that Sunday Ticket would be equipped with Mosaic Mode. This will allow Sunday Ticket viewers to watch up to four games at once in a grid, offering something similar to what fans grew accustomed to seeing on the NFL RedZone channel.

Still, the endorsement from Mohan indicates that YouTube TV users can absolutely expect the feature to be ready by the start of the 2023 season. Mohan said that Mosaic Mode would be available “later this year,” along with previously-announced social functions like comments, chats, and polls that will allow fans to feel fully immersed in the experience.

The ability to watch multiple games at once will be especially of interest to fantasy football players and sports bettors, but YouTube will have to ensure it keeps latency times low. Latency — a term for the delay between when action happens on the field and when it is shown on TV screens — can keep viewers from seeing the action from their chosen games at the same time as broadcast TV viewers see it.

Amazon is working on technology to reduce latency times for livestreams, and hopefully, YouTube is doing likewise. The ability to show four games at once is an excellent feature, but if the streams are significantly slower than what broadcast TV viewers are seeing, the action on the field could well be spoiled for Sunday Ticket watchers.

Mohan also spoke glowingly about the introduction of Primetime Channels on YouTube. Primetime Channels is an aggregation hub that allows consumers to sign up for subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) streaming services from directly inside the YouTube website and app. The concept is similar to Prime Video Channels, which allows viewers to have a centralized location where they can subscribe, browse, and watch TV series, movies, and sports in one place.

Finally, Mohan spoke about the further integration of AI into YouTube’s platform. This will allow content creators to virtually swap their outfits, auto-generate fantastical backgrounds, and much more. The use of AI could help aid content discovery and viewing recommendations on YouTube TV in the future, though there are no plans to develop that kind of technology on YouTube for the present.

Free video sources like YouTube are continuing to grow as a part of the average American's entertainment portfolio. The company must continue to think of new and innovative means of engaging users on both free and paid subscription services, such as the introduction of Mosaic Mode to the NFL Sunday Ticket platform.