The highly-touted match between Portland Thorns FC and the Western New York Flash on Saturday ended up being a dud (although the 0-0 draw sets up one wild final weekend), but if you weren’t one of the 7,606 fans at Sahlen’s Stadium, you wouldn’t really have known better.
The stream cut out at some points, and the audio was non-existent for large (like, half-hour) stretches. Alex Morgan, who sprained her left MCL three days earlier and watched the game from Portland, had something to say to her former team:
Can you figure out your shit @WNYFlash live stream. Apparently commentators have been MIA searching for that cat the last 30 minutes.
— Alex Morgan (@alexmorgan13) August 11, 2013
Guess what — she has a point. I stand firm that people complaining that they have to pay for the Breakers’ livestream are out of touch — this league is a product. You pay for it. If money isn’t intelligently invested in it, then it goes away, just like WUSA and WPS did. Welcome to the world. But complaints about the quality of a product are totally warranted (though harder when it’s free). The streams should be better.
The Flash ap0logized for Saturday’s stream struggles, and they shouldn’t be singled out; every single team (yes, even Portland) has had some issue with their livestream at some point this season.
In general, improved livestreams and more TV time (which, by the way, what happened with Saturday’s graphics?) is certainly a big point to address in the offseason. And if the league’s biggest star calling it out on Twitter expedites the process, I’m all for that.
We’ll have a full look at NWSL livestreams and their futures coming later this week.