Saturday’s game between the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers was only televised on Amazon Prime Video, and it was a total disaster, and hopefully a reminder to the NFL not to do it again.
Not only is the league making a game incredibly difficult to be watched by airing it only on Prime, but the quality of the stream was embarrassingly poor depending on where you were watching.
Watching on my tablet, the quality of the stream and game was good. Watching on my TV through the Prime Video app on my Roku stick, the feed was atrocious.
There were glitches and lags in the action. The latency was terrible. Player movement was choppy. When the football traveled in the air, the ball had a trail to it because of the delays in the picture quality. The game was a play or two behind where it was on my tablet. Both were using the same internet connection.
Plenty of viewers experienced the same issue with the feed.
This broadcast is amazingly horrible…great job #NFLonPrime pic.twitter.com/aDeJPjkJaF
— Giannis Antedogwifahatpo (@BABYBOOSE) December 26, 2020
Is anyone else watching potato quality football #NFLonPrime @amazon pic.twitter.com/3n6NhXEZme
— TikiTimeTaylor (@TikiTimeTaylor1) December 26, 2020
The @amazon feed of the #49ers-Cardinals game is so choppy, blurry and even outright frozen that I missed nearly all the second quarter. Not sure if anyone else has this trouble, but from my house it’s a disaster for the @nfl.
— Jeff Domingues (@jeffdomingues) December 26, 2020
The picture and streaming quality Amazon Prime sucks so far for this game. It’s hard to explain, but it’s seems choppy, not fluid #NFLonPrime #NFL #SFvsAZ
— Ben White (@whiteyb11) December 26, 2020
@NFL whose bright idea was it to stream a game on Amazon Prime??? Cuz so far this is what I’ve seen or maybe NOT seen…Poor quality of picture, frequent loss of signal, freezing of broadcast AND the color analyst is NOT pleasant to hear. Come on MAN!!!!! pic.twitter.com/LBMuFoAICe
— LJWynonnaEarpBe Authentic (@Lj_e4l) December 26, 2020
NFL fans are used to finding most games on over-the-air channels like CBS, NBC and FOX, where the connection is great, the feed is nearly perfect, and the production value is as high-quality as it gets. The announcers are fantastic too. Putting a game on Amazon Prime only gives it a second-tier feel, as if it’s some third-rate combat sports league. This is not what the NFL should be.
It’s also a complete joke and disservice to paying customers of the “Sunday Ticket” package to tell them they spend hundreds of dollars and now aren’t getting one of the games.
