Off The Posts: The good, the bad and the ugly of Sky Sport’s big streaming restart

Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford celebrates after scoring against Liverpool. Photo / `

OPINION:

The streaming era has started to feel like a reboot.

Netflix is ​​getting ads soon. The film industry, completely disrupted by streaming services, has evolved into making big bets on old remakes
Favor mindless nostalgia over telling unique stories. The so-called democratization of music on Spotify has made almost the entire sound library available in your pocket, while artists continue to be exploited and new music homogenized by fractured algorithmic incentives.

The financial freedom promised by streaming has quickly become an increasingly expensive hodgepodge of multiple subscriptions. Sport, at least in New Zealand, seems to be one of the few areas of entertainment that will endure in the streaming age.

The live aspect of sport remains one of the last remaining monocultures – and when it comes to live sport, Sky TV is still the best in the business.

This month the Premier League returned to Sky after four years of being ‘the home of sport’ without football’s most popular competition. Spark Sport, the streaming disruptor that changed New Zealand sports television for the better by breaking a virtual monopoly, has become a reliable host for football fans with its intuitive app and on-demand freedom – at least after a few early stumbles.

It sparked concerns about the Premier League’s return to Sky for streaming pundits, particularly due to the usefulness of on-demand watching due to time zone differences.

Sky’s streaming service, Sky Sport Now, had a somewhat dated platform that lacked the ease of use and on-demand options of its competitor.

Sky Sport Now is Sky’s sports streaming service. photo / sky

Two weeks into the Premier League season, Sky TV ditched its major streaming reboot, with a redesign and additions of key features like Watch from the Start/Watch from Live.

However, the late arrival of the upgrade suffered from some teething problems.

Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly of the new Sky Sport Now:

The good

The new look of Sky Sport Now across web, smartphone and smart TV apps is more aesthetically pleasing than the previous, almost drab interface.

But aside from the design upgrade, the streaming options are finally being expanded significantly, from the addition of the aforementioned Watch Live feature (it now plays automatically from the start instead of joining the action live to avoid spoilers) to to other useful features like a quick 30-second replay button if you’ve missed an important moment, and “Multi-View” that lets you watch up to four live channels simultaneously on the web app. However, the multi-view option doesn’t seem to be available on the smartphone and smart TV apps, which would be handy.

The streaming itself also feels a lot smoother, anecdotally, although the update has removed the ability to manually change the streaming quality.

From a Premier League perspective, individual match highlight packages so far seem better than Spark Sport’s offering, which has often been oddly trimmed with audio sync issues.

Overall, the web app is significantly improved, but is arguably the underused option for most fans. The smartphone app used to be the best way to navigate the complicated streaming platform, and it continues to do a good job while remaining one of the best ways to stream sports to your TV via Google Chromecast. Also, the smart TV app, in my case Samsung, has improved in general in terms of usability.

However, the revamped streaming service is far from perfect.

A screenshot of the Sky Sport Now web app homepage. photo / sky

The bad

As mentioned, there were several disruptions when the Sky Sport Now upgrade went live last week, just ahead of Manchester United versus Liverpool in what is perhaps the biggest game of the year so far. The Samsung TV app didn’t work in time for the game due to a lag, which wasn’t ideal either.

However, the main problem with Sky Sport Now remains the overly complicated user interface. Finding what you’re looking for in the app is far more difficult than it should be — across all mediums — and remains the most frustrating app I’ve used for any form of streaming entertainment.

The upgrades also took away some useful features such as B. jumping forward 10 seconds, making it harder to catch up with the live stream when you’re watching with a delay. There also seems to be a lack of consistency between the features of the web, smartphone and smart TV apps.

A golf fan using Sky Sport Now on the web app pointed out to me: “Golf is no longer delayed on Sky Sport Now. How are you supposed to watch five hours of golf without the 10 second fast forward button? “

While you can view up to 24 hours of past content in the app’s TV Guide section, reruns and highlights still take too long to arrive, which has been a major sticking point for football fans since the return of the Premier League.

Hi @skysportnz, it’s almost 7am, why isn’t any of the on-demand content (replays/highlights) available for games other than SOU v MUN? It’s been hours. Is this really an on-demand service?

— Cam (@RedFromNZ) August 27, 2022

The breadth of content available remains its strength and poses challenges when all presented as a streaming platform, but the app could be a lot better and more intuitive – and many others seem to agree.

Sky Sport Now is still the most expensive sports streaming platform in New Zealand, which makes sense given its unrivaled range of sports. But it makes it more expensive for football fans to follow the Premier League. Sky Sport Now costs $39.99/month versus Spark Sport’s $24.99/month, but Sky’s sports offering is significantly better than Spark’s.

Questions remain about Spark Sport’s future, especially as it has lost the Premier League and now only offers UEFA football, New Zealand cricket and F1 as its main attractions. However, Sky’s inability or refusal to innovate and adapt to consumer needs – a much-mocked trait of its monopoly and satellite-box era – remains a concern.

Sky TV Managing Director Sophie Moloney. Photo / Included

the ugly

Ultimately, the burning question underlying Sky’s streaming restart is why it has taken until now, when the Premier League returned, for Sky to make upgrades to its streaming platform. Don’t rugby and netball fans deserve the option to watch from the start?

Sky’s streaming offering, from sports to its entertainment streaming service Neon, rose 11 percent last year to an all-time high of 461,240 subscribers, quickly catching up with traditional satellite offering, which continues its decline to 529,521 from 554,690 subscribers last year.

And yet, streaming still feels like a second thought despite proving time and time again to be the future and, for many, the present of television. Sky Sport Now also appears to be trying to recreate the feel of satellite TV rather than tweak the unique streaming experience.

Streaming has always been a flawed concept that would never deliver a perfect product. But it still offers an invaluable service, especially for mobile and time-poor sports fans who want flexibility in the way they watch sports.

Sky has worked wonders in recent years, regaining public goodwill after decades of heavily arming its customers through market dominance. Continuing this in the streaming era will require a lot more than a delayed and ultimately unconvincing reboot.