During the NFL’s season opener between the Kansas City Chiefs and the New England Patriots last week, a lack of audio during the first quarter for people tuning in from Canada using the streaming program DAZN resulted in an uprising of online anger. And it it hasn’t let up.
Audio problems, trouble connecting to the service, poor video quality and some delays of more than a minute between viewing it on the stream compared to cable TV have left many Canadians feeling underwhelmed and furious.
“I want to be able to watch everything live in true HD. This is something DAZN does not offer. It offers time-delayed [games] and with a far, far inferior picture and sound quality,” said Sean Meade of Port Coquitlam, B.C.
New streaming service
DAZN — pronounced Da Zone — secured the exclusive digital broadcasting rights to all National Football League games beginning this season. People who sign up for the service can watch any game live.
In the past, Canadians could sign up for a cable TV package known as the Sunday Ticket that would give them access to all games or sign up for the NFL’s Game Pass, another streaming program. However, that’s no longer possible because DAZN has the exclusive broadcasting rights in Canada.
DAZN is supposed to allow subscribers in Canada to stream any NFL game live, but the service has more than a few glitches, viewers report. (DAZN)
Kenneth Conrad, who lives in Halifax, says he’s experienced some of the issues that have plagued other DAZN users, but said it hasn’t been enough “to make the experience unwatchable.”
However, Conrad, who has a background in public relations, said he wasn’t impressed with the way DAZN handled the online furor when the audio wasn’t working for the Chiefs-Patriots game.
Thinking of getting @DAZN_CA, @NFLCanada fans? DON’T. No audio commentary and, well, this. #DAZN #NFL #PatsVsChiefs pic.twitter.com/Yl6PJfuYbC
— @Whisky_Jean
“I feel like had they got out in front of it and said early on, ‘Yes, we’re experiencing an issue and we expect it to return soon,’ that would have been better than just letting it linger and having comment after comment after comment saying ‘I hate this service, there’s no audio, I’m going to cancel, this is a scam,'” he said.
Meade was so infuriated by DAZN’s service that he started a Twitter account with the handle @DAZNSucks after the Chiefs-Patriots game.
In the week since then, he’s been airing his grievances and retweeting the complaints of others, many of which have included sharing videos of the issues they’ve experienced, such as a game being shown vertically.
Sign up for @DAZN_CA if you want to experience The @NFL like this… pic.twitter.com/wS7leYwJj2
— @shauntomko
In another case, most of the first quarter of a game between the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills was actually showing a game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Redskins.
DAZN’s debut ‘did not go as planned,’ says company
In a written statement, Alex Rice, DAZN’s managing director of rights and strategic development, said the issues many subscribers faced last weekend have been resolved.
“Our debut in Canada did not go as planned. No excuses — it is not how we wanted our journey to start in a country of such passionate fans,” he said.
“Our top priority has been getting to the root cause of the issues and giving fans the viewing experience they expect from us.”
DAZN says improvements have been made
Rice said the audio issue with the Chiefs-Patriots game and a late start to another game were the results of human errors, and additional checks and measures have been put in place to prevent the problems from recurring.
He said while most people are connecting to DAZN in HD, some people have been unable to due to connectivity issues, but he noted some solutions will be put in place this weekend and further enhancements will be made down the road.
“We’re committed to fixing the current issues and delivering on our goal of providing the best sports viewing experience possible for Canadian fans,” said Rice.
As a fantasy football fan, one of Meade’s biggest beefs with the service is that because of the time lag, he’s learning about what’s happening in the game from his fantasy football app, not the game he’s actually watching.
“I’m watching my fantasy scores on my tablet and I’m seeing one player score a touchdown and it hasn’t even happened on my screen yet,” he said.
‘Spoiling the surprise’
Meade is fed up.
“It’s not only spoiling the surprise, it’s ruining my NFL experience,” he said.
Rice said the company is working to reduce the lag time on its broadcasts.
Meade would like to see the Sunday Ticket brought back and said he can’t understand why the NFL tinkered with something that in his eyes wasn’t broken.
“The fix is the actual thing that’s broken it,” he said.
CBC News contacted the NFL for comment, but did not receive a response.