Viewers lament Super Bowl video lags. Can streaming really handle big scale live events?
Viewers lament Super Bowl video lags. Can streaming really handle big scale live events?
Paramount+ gave cord-cutters an easy way to tune into the Super Bowl on Sunday. But the livestream left some viewers longing for the good old days of cable as extended buffering and crashes interrupted their feeds.
According to consumer-reported incidents on the website DownDetector, issues with the app spiked during pre-game coverage and continued throughout the bowl. Paramount+ says that only a small number of users were affected. But that streamer and its competitors are making big bets that live sports offerings will draw subscribers.
It’s easy to get grumpy about buffering when you’re watching your favorite show for the 100th time, never mind a highly anticipated live game.
During Usher’s halftime performance on Sunday, a group of watchers, including TikTok user sagi_luv08, were singing along when all of a sudden Ludacris froze, and the dreaded spinning buffer wheel appeared on screen.
Ross Benes, an analyst with eMarketer, says those kinds of glitches are a real bummer, but the big streamers have come a long way on this front since, say, five years ago.
“You would see a guy running and the screen would freeze and then, like, it’d reload and he’s 30 yards down the field,” said Benes.
Livestreaming is not what these services were built for. And especially when millions of people are watching at once, that puts pressure on their technical infrastructure, says Eric Sorensen with Parks Associates.
“You know, when you think about bandwidth and bit-rate and acquiring enough data to provide a livestream,” it’s actually kind of a miracle there aren’t more disruptions, said Sorensen.
But Sundus Alfi with Oxford Economics says subscribers are expecting a seamless viewing experience.
“It’s so easy to get frustrated these days with, um, a service just not getting something right,” said Alfi.
Ross Benes with eMarketer says streaming is a competitive market right now.
“The audience isn’t going to follow and the advertisers aren’t going to pay to be in front of the audience if the viewing experience sucks,” he said.
Benes says streaming companies are hoping that sports and other live events will be the thing that makes their subscription a must have.
But one bad livestream can sour their viewers.
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