While Sunday Ticket was marred by litigation and pricing disputes, it’s easy to forget that the viewing experience on YouTube TV was pretty great during its first season. After switching from DirecTV in a billion-dollar deal, YouTube TV was a notable upgrade for the service, as streams were reliable and fans had more options and access than ever before.
One of the revelations of the YouTube TV Sunday Ticket experience was the multiview feature, which has become an increasingly important and fantastic feature in the age of sports streaming. Fans could enjoy not just one, but two, three or four boxes on their screen to combine live games and NFL Redzone.
The multiview feature wasn’t fully customisable though, with only preset game combinations available, so if there was one feature Sunday Ticket viewers were hoping for this year, it was the ability to unlock all of those multiview options.
Fortunately, that will change for the 2024 NFL season, according to reports from SBJ and FOS Tuesday morning.
Instead of being offered a pre-determined selection of two to four multiview options, fans can now choose which games they want in their own quad box, which is a great development. There is just one catch, which was evident with many of the pre-determined combinations last season. The game that is being broadcast on your local broadcast networks (Fox/CBS) will only be available in limited multiview capacity. How limited that will be will only become clear in Week 1. Why that has to be this way is difficult to understand, since all games are broadcast the same on the streaming service.
What’s interesting is that YouTube TV accepted fan requests for unlimited multiview capabilities early last season, but publicly stated that they didn’t need infinite combinations to satisfy Sunday Ticket viewers. Clearly, YouTube has responded to those requests for more customization. And if this is the case with the NFL, hopefully we’ll see more customization options across all sports, where multiview has been great in college football and even this summer when fans were able to watch NBA and NHL playoff action simultaneously on some nights.
While it won’t quite look like the subscription will be unlimited for the 2024 NFL season, for those who pay extra for the product, it will at least represent a huge upgrade.