The final day of the Premier League season is a battle of TV, radio, notifications, streams, group chats and misinformation.
Arsenal fans will be listening to news from the Etihad Stadium that means they still have a chance of winning the Premier League. City fans will be worried about what will happen in north London if they are forced to draw with West Ham United.
While many of these clubs' supporters will be watching from inside the stadium, many others will be confined to their homes. They'll watch the game on TV, stream it on Sky Go, find an alternative route to the game or, for certain fans, listen to it on the radio.
But each of these experiences comes with its own pitfalls and problems. Due to the nature of the internet, there will be delays in what is streamed. Fans may hear their neighbors screaming or be flooded with messages before anything happens on screen. Radio can be difficult to parse. And for those who don't have the route to watch it, waiting for the highlights on a day like Sunday may be impossible.
To prepare us for such an experience, The Athletic We heard from a variety of people who watched Tuesday's title decider between Tottenham Hotspur and City on a variety of platforms. They reported on their respective realities and how it affected their view of the game.
Watch on Sky Sports (via satellite)
“No, I can’t wear Bluey…why? Because daddy is watching soccer.
“I'm at work… Yes, I'm at work… Anyway, it's almost bedtime. Please don't touch that remote…”
Yes, the chance to watch the big game live is slim, considering the family's TV is dominated by a 6-year-old girl and her 4-year-old brother obsessed with Sing 2, Disney+, and incredibly frustrating YouTube videos. It's quite rare.
Guardiola being chased by cameras (Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)
In fact, since the Premier League's inception more than 30 years ago, expensive subscriptions to Sky Sports, home of the English Premier League, have typically meant that cricket broadcasts (in the background) while you're at school. and maintained for golf. boss) or asleep.
So the opportunity to sit on the couch and watch a contest with results was very enjoyable and actually very relaxing.
The piece comes with too many slick pre-match video packages and too many arguments from pundits that Spurs didn't let City win (we think they won). (I didn't think so, guys), and there was a disappointing lack of Roy Keene self-parody. A pre-match cameo by Sky veteran Martin Tyler is welcome and, crucially, the sense that it's happening live. No risk of buffering, no lag, and no worries about spoilers being distributed on social media.
Oh, and I have to remember to set up the series link for House of the Dragon. Thanks for the reminder, Kelly Cates.
Steve Madeley
Watch on Sky Sports (via Sky Go – while avoiding social media)
After a quick ad for Matalan, I pulled out my iPhone at 8pm knowing the game wouldn't start on Sky Go until a minute later. I happily live in a world of blissful (slightly retarded) ignorance with fashion advice thrown in.
You could minimize the action and leave it on the screen while you scroll through socials as an act of spoiler self-sabotage, but why bother? It's small enough to just look at it on the screen.
Subtitles are easy to choose, with commentator Peter Drury playing the lyrics in white, Gary Neville in yellow saying “Oh” and Jamie Carragher in blue saying “There”. If you're multitasking, doing the washing up, or, as Aston Villa's John McGinn flagged in a post-match interview, leaning your phone against your mug at the end of the club's season, it's more It has advanced features. . It was probably placed on top of a bottle of champagne.
The first chance went to Rodrigo Bentancur, and Drury's excitement caused his son, who was nearby, to rush over and ask, “What's going on?” Instead of having to wait for a slow-motion replay, I could simply tap the 10-second back option and watch it unfold “live.” My job is done.
If the eerie, pandemic-like atmosphere inside Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has you drifting away, there's another smart thing to do. That's a “summary”. When you click on a tab, you'll see a mini-highlight list at the bottom of the screen, such as 'Haaland's goal' or 'Son chance', so you can be prepared before live action resumes (Poolside After a brief advertisement for the summer games) ).
adam lebenthal
Watch Sky Sports (via Sky Go – with social media checks)
Our return flight from Stockholm to Heathrow was delayed by 45 minutes, making it a desperate race against time to get home in time for kick-off.
I wanted to see the entire match unfold, but I burst through the door 15 minutes before it started. I quickly turned on my PlayStation 5, loaded up the Sky Go app, and raided the cupboard for a snack.
We are well aware of the dangers of watching matches on Sky Go. Armed with this knowledge, I kept my phone facing down for the first 20 minutes of his visit to avoid spoilers. Things were complicated by the injury to Brentford's club record signing Igor Thiago, as I had to pick up my phone to write about the news.
Fans watching the match on Sky Go (Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)
I saw a bunch of messages from a WhatsApp group, which turned out to be false alarms. Then my mum called and I pretended I wasn't secretly watching the game, but my reaction to Bentancur's flying tackle on Phil Foden probably made me forget.
I resisted checking social media when Erling Haaland scored the first goal, but I had to when Stefan Ortega saved Son Heung-min's shot. His part of the fun of football is sharing messages with friends, but watching him play one of the biggest games of the season while actively ignoring everyone was a strange experience.
Jay Harris
Watch illegally
So my spouse, whose father's spouse is, has a “danger box,” or, for the uninitiated, a modified streaming device that is pre-loaded with live feeds of all the channels you want to watch. device, all for an affordable annual fee.
Yes, this is illegal. Granted, this violates the Eighth Commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” but I always thought of it as a reference to the neighbor's cow rather than intellectual property.
Either way, you get what you pay for. There will be occasional buffering and moderate lag, but checking your girlfriend's Twitter or chatting on WhatsApp while gaming is a privilege afforded to honest, law-abiding members of society. You'll see that right away.
Therefore, the usual rules apply. Set your phone to Do Not Disturb mode and resist the temptation to check it. I wish it were that easy. Immediately after the start of the second half, which could be described as a karma, the first thing I noticed when I took a quick look at Twitter was a series of tweets saying “1-0 Haaland.''
Then, by chance, he flicked through again, long before Son Heung-min ran into Ortega's goal, and it looked like something big was about to happen. Thankfully, what I saw kept things vague enough.
Still, I ended up ruining two defining moments of the game for myself. And if anyone in the police intellectual property crime unit is reading this, let's agree that that's punishment enough.
Anonymous
Watching on USA Network
NBCUniversal has been the American home of the Premier League for more than a decade.
At this stage, this is a well-oiled machine. The bumper music remains the same, the graphics maintain the league's unique brand code, and the pundit's desk is established. No feed cuts or audio and video confusion. Adapting from the commercial's London-accented presenter, he attempts to steer viewers toward the upcoming NFL schedule announcement rather than the weekend's upcoming games.
What the major broadcaster, which aired the game on its basic cable channel USA Network rather than the major commercial broadcast network NBC, can't handle is the mandatory delay of the game.
Tim Howard is an analyst for NBC's Premier League coverage (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Modern mobile apps are competing to keep you up to date with match updates as quickly as possible. As a result, we will know about the decisive goal 24 seconds before it is aired on the broadcast. Unless you go into the app and mute the notifications (which, to be fair, is a 10-second task), it also ruins the suspense of all subsequent sequences.
Still, it was a day of sharp commentary for John Champion, a typical “NBC Premier League” piece.
jeff router
listening to the radio
“Can I borrow your phone so I can watch the team news, Dad?” my 12-year-old son asks.
“No, wait until John Murray tells me,” I replied.
“But I need to make sure the players on my fantasy team are in. Is Alvarez playing?” Ahhhhhhh.
I'm a fan of BBC Radio 5 Live and have Sky subchannels mainly for golf, cricket and rugby league, but I also regularly watch soccer over the radio. As a sports journalist who covers soccer, mainly the Premier League, he believes that watching soccer is a busman's day off, and that the picture painted with words by the radio, commentators and reporters enriches the experience even more. Masu.
“We scored a goal at Goodison.'' My eldest blue-blooded son gets nervous as he waits to see who scores. Tuesday night was no different, with Tottenham Flash on 5 Live and the Dad Taxi service in full swing.
The cross for Tottenham after Haaland's opener was tense – and Murray, as usual, fired.
Most people reading this will think I'm mad, and so will my sons, but I'd rather watch someone else watch TV and shriek on a Saturday. Give me 5 live sports anytime. Even if I'm not at the game, there's nothing like going to the game. And remember, for those listening, radio is always more up-to-date than television. Don't start buffering the stream…
craig chisnall
Ignore the score and watch the highlights
It felt strange to sit in a quiet apartment cooking and waiting for the highlight, not caring about Erling Haaland's replacement.
A fellow Tottenham supporter sent me a message in the group chat before the game saying, “Come on Blue Moon,” but my phone was silent during the game as score notifications were turned off.
It was safe to open Sky Sports' YouTube channel at 10.30pm as I opened Twitter and my FPL page without thinking and immediately closed them.
Guglielmo Vicario's save had two great angles, deft transitions between incidents, and audio overlap without obvious dissonance.
Consuming games on YouTube is a completely different experience (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Watching a replay of Haaland's first goal, you could closely observe Van de Ven's mispositioning and De Bruyne's perfectly timed run — the video was paused. Slightly onside — all the nuances you might have missed during the game.
Jamie Carragher's line, “Arsenal fans watch the TV with two feet'', was also great, layered over Pep Guardiola's outrageous touchline failure.
All in all, a decent and smoothly edited option to check goals and chances if you miss a match. However, the experience ultimately was like having ice cream for dinner and was less than satisfying.
The authentic atmosphere, the ups and downs, the joy on the face of 16-year-old Mikey Moore as he made his senior debut…you'll miss all of it when the match is condensed into just 180 seconds.
Max Matthews
(Top photo: Getty Images)
