I’ve been trying to ditch cable in favor of the Internet for a while now. My biggest hurdle comes every September when I turn to the Internet to watch NFL games. This year, thanks to the federal government, my options are dwindling fast. No more Ilemi.com. No more Channelsurfing.net. Even Justin.TV and uStream are coming up empty.
A quick search turned up NFL.com’s Preseason Live service. After watching a couple games I almost want to take back all the bad things I said about the NFaiL…almost.
For $20 I have access to every NFL preseason game live or on-demand and in HD. Additionally I can view up to four games at once, have access to a guide for all the games currently playing, and other tools such as game stats, scoring plays, and in-game chat. For a Bears fan living in the East this is a pretty sweet deal.
All the on-demand functions are there: pause, rewind, fast forward, and start over. The guide and stats view are great. Plays view is OK (I’m guessing it’s supposed to show all plays, but it only shows scoring plays). And the chat tool is meh; a novelty that wears off after a few seconds. The only wonky bit I encountered was the HD setting. At times I had to hit the :10 skip forward button to get the best quality stream.
The Future of NFL Streaming
This is what NFL fans have been trying to get for years. Unfortunately, DirectTV still controls the NFL Ticket and the regular season. It’s a shame. The NFL has a fantastic setup and I’m willing to bet people would pay $150/year for access to all 384 preseason and regular season games (just as MLB.TV users do for all 2,580 games). For now, all that’s available are preseason games. Anything more will have to be watched through other means until the NFaiL pulls their head out.
Got thoughts on NFL Preseason Live? The NFaiL? NFL streaming? Share ‘em below or send me an e-mail at me@y2kemo.com.
