The NFL’s first game streamed on YouTube featured the Los Angeles Chargers defeating the Kansas City Chiefs in São Paulo, Brazil.
The main broadcast team included Rich Eisen and Kurt Warner, while an alternate stream featured internet personality ‘IShowSpeed.’
The NFL’s partnership with YouTube is part of a broader strategy to engage younger audiences and expand its global presence.
Hope you enjoyed the Mr. Beast show – excuse me – the Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Los Angeles Chargers on YouTube Friday evening on the device of your choosing.
If you were lucky enough to be watching on YouTube TV, at least the option to rewind and fast-forward existed. For us mere mortals the pause button was the lone form of agency during the three-hour broadcast that ended with the Chargers victorious, 27-21, from São Paulo.
As far as first tries go – even within the seeming absurdity of “The Shield” airing a game on YouTube and fully leaning into the content-brained shenanigans that comes with the territory of spotlighting creators with large followings on the platform – YouTube and parent company Google have to be pleased with how the proceedings went.
The good news for YouTube/Google is that the basics were done well. The picture was clear. Nobody on social media reported outages or issues with the quality of the stream. The scorebug was simple without being minimalist (like FOX’s new one), although the characters of the team abbreviations seemed stretched and the font was sans-serif-adjacent. The camera work ahead of Patrick Mahomes’ miraculous fourth-down completion with three minutes left in the fourth quarter left something to be desired, but that’s not a YouTube-based issue. NBC Sports loaned production assistance for the show to give it a professional feel.
As far as the halftime show goes, shoutout Karol G. Some fans reported audio issues during her show. But it’s worth noting the halftime countdown clock inside the stadium was paused because the smoke from the performance wasn’t clearing in time for the second half to start.
Rich Eisen isn’t my first choice to broadcast any football game, ever, no knock on his hosting abilities. But we might not have a better line from a booth all year than his ‘interestingly wide right” comment after Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker missed an extra point in the third quarter to keep the Chiefs behind 13-12. (If you don’t get it, well, you’re not gonna.) He and Kurt Warner have become the soundtrack of NFL international games and there are worse options. Also better ones.
If the alt-cast with personality “IShowSpeed” – who actually did his day job instead of challenging professional athletes to races – was more your … speed … then more power to you. The host declared the Cincinnati Bengals as his favorite team and Lamar Jackson, of the Baltimore Ravens and an AFC North rival of his squad, his favorite player. Times certainly have changed. Marshawn Lynch being the best, however, carries over no matter the continent or viewing platform.
The Los Angeles-based pregame set was distracting with the chairs and former NFL quarterback Derek Carr left a lot to be desired during his telestrator demonstration (the Jon Gruden impression was decent at least). Peter Overzet, a fantasy-centric creator, was a bright spot during the pregame show (his joke about being let out of his mom’s basement played well).
What didn’t work was the emphasis on YouTube itself during the pregame show. Kay Adams is a pro, but when “Deestroying” and “Hayleyybaylee” joined her and Cam Newton on the desk, it all felt a little too self-promotional and contrived. The point of the debut should have been to familiarize NFL fans to a new platform, not trying to inject a brand and philosophy into the pregame show. Newton can hang out with Stephen A. Smith on ‘First Take,’ smoke his cigars on the podcast he posts on YouTube, but he probably should remain far, far away from the actual analysis-driven formats real fans desire.
Mr. Beast’s “challenge” between a Chiefs fan and Chargers fan who went viral a couple of years ago during another primetime broadcast felt contrived. The Chiefs fan being shot out of a cannon – they actually did this with the NFL’s blessing – was symbolic of the entire idea. Deestroying’s sideline report in the fourth quarter was just a meme, a “six seven” joke.
It’s worth noting that I’m probably not the target demographic – “six seven” has been a thing for months and I still have absolutely no idea what it means – for this type of experiment and broadcast. But this is part of the NFL’s effort to appeal to younger fans and stay ahead of the curve. This is where sports on screens is going, eventually. Get used to it. Or don’t. And remain in the venn diagram of confused and blissfully ignorant.
The NFL will cash the checks all the same while growing its global footprint on the way to world domination.