YouTube TV Hasn’t Revealed its Plans for Combating Latency Issues on Sunday Ticket
As fans get more details on YouTube TV’s plans for NFL Sunday Ticket this season, there’s one question the service still has yet to fully answer: how will it keep transmission delays from having too big of an impact on games every Sunday?
Those lag times, called latency in the broadcasting industry, can be a big detriment to viewers. It can lead to big plays being spoiled by fans when they scroll social media during what is still a TV time-out for them, and it can also cause sports gamblers to bet on a play or series with incorrect or delayed information. Given that YouTube TV will now be streaming 10 to 15 games every Sunday thanks to its ownership of Sunday Ticket’s broadcast rights, it needs to do whatever it can to keep latency times low.
The service has some work to do on this score, according to interactive video firm Phenix. The company’s data shows that YouTube TV was an average of more than 54 seconds behind the linear TV broadcast for this year’s Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles. FOX, which livestreamed the game on its FOX Sports app, was able to slash that delay time to about 24 seconds.
YouTube executives are likely just as unsatisfied with that 54-second number as fans who watched the game on the service, but whatever they have planned to do about it is still under wraps for now. The Streamable reached out to YouTube TV representatives for details on the service’s plans to combat streaming latency on NFL Sunday Ticket broadcasts, but has not yet received a response.
It’s important to note that not all latency that users experience is due to issues on the provider’s end of the streaming equation. The device a user employs to stream the content they’re watching, as well as the stability of their internet connection, factors heavily into latency times as well.
Still, there are technological advancements in the works that are aimed at reducing latency. Amazon, for instance, is hard at work attempting to develop streaming technology based on user data protocol that will bring the experience of streaming live sports much closer to what fans are accustomed to when watching on traditional broadcast TV in terms of transmission delays.
Other platforms are finding ways to slash latency times as well. Updates to the NBA app in October brought streaming delays down to about 12 seconds, a 70% reduction in latency over what the NBA app offered in the 2021-2022 season. There are clearly ways of keeping latency as low as possible on streaming services, but it remains to be seen what YouTube TV plans to do about its relatively large transmission delays for its first season offering NFL Sunday Ticket.
NFL Sunday Ticket
NFL Sunday Ticket is a subscription video streaming service that allows football fans to watch every live out-of-market NFL game on Sunday afternoons on YouTube or YouTube TV.