CFL Plus/Preseason Live

[cromartie]

Great news about Pre Season games streaming live on CFL Preason Live. Now, I'm not the most tech savvy guy, but where do you sign up? I see the directions (including providing your email) but I can't find a link to enter. Do you have to wait until the game starts?

Some league decisions are so stupid, you can't help but wonder if they aren't made that poorly or hastily on purpose.

"Let's stream our non-brodcast games, for free to American audiences. But they have to watch it live, or they can't see it at all." would have been a great strategy in, say, 2000.

It is 2023.

Last year, every game was available on ESPN+, both live and as a replay.

Now, I have to subscribe to a different service to see some games, while I have to go to a website to see others, and can only do so when it's actually happening.

Who on earth thinks this is a cohesive global strategy that's going to increase exposure and generate revenue?

Why are you waiting until mid May to announce this?

Is your league app developer so bad that you can't even embed a streaming video player in the app and charge people?

Astounding incompetence.

[Dusty]

One of the longest CFL Pre-season "telecasts" in recent memory. The game was delayed at the start and then at half time while weather moved in and lightning was nearby.... Since they are using the stadium feed and the radio broadcast combination, you had the strange listening experience of the game announcers talking to each other during the commercials.... apparently their mice don't have mute switches.... Oh well....

Still, it was nice to see CFL football again... even though the game was mostly uninspiring....

[KnightofCydonia]

Last year, every game was available on ESPN+, both live and as a replay.

Only about half the games were on ESPN+. The rest were on either ESPN2 or ESPNEWS, which are cable channels.

For me the new system is much more convenient and significantly cheaper, requiring only a CBS Sports subscription for less than half of games and CFL+ for all others (or, a VPN to get everything on CFL+ for free).

I will miss VOD and replays, though.

[Qman]

I thought this was fine for preseason. The cfl isnt spending a cent on this. Home teams make a home production for the scoreboard. Pipe in radio over top and you have a production. Like hearing other announcers than TSN guys.

Sometimes I pause TSN 20 seconds to match radio on my iPad, so I get local radio feed for lions games.
TSN needs keep adding new voices its crew. Bit tiresome to get same voices for 81 games.

[Toppy Vann]

Not sure why they have to have all of this rule.

Why not a recording?

You will not be able to rewatch the game, pause, or rewind/fast forward through any point in the stream.

[Islander]

I'm a die-hard Lios fan living in Portugal with my wife and 2 kids, and we moved here just under two years ago. I was very happy the CFL had the International streaming service through Visaic, which I happily paid for. I think it was something like 40$ to watch only Lions games, which didn't include the playoffs.

The important point for me was I could watch them on demand the next day. Given that most games occur between midnight and 2:00 in the morning start time, it's essentially impossible for me to stay up and watch the game if I work and take care of my small children the following day. I mean, on the one had I appreciate the CFL making it a free service, but who is it going to benefit exactly? If you're an international follower, such as myself, you're going to be in a different time zone. The inability to watch the games on demand really makes the service much less desirable.

Thumbs down CFL.

I can only hope that someone puts the games up on a youtube channel the following day.

[Toppy Vann]

I'm a die-hard Lios fan living in Portugal with my wife and 2 kids, and we moved here just under two years ago. I was very happy the CFL had the International streaming service through Visaic, which I happily paid for. I think it was something like 40$ to watch only Lions games, which didn't include the playoffs.

The important point for me was I could watch them on demand the next day. Given that most games occur between midnight and 2:00 in the morning start time, it's essentially impossible for me to stay up and watch the game if I work and take care of my small children the following day. I mean, on the one had I appreciate the CFL making it a free service, but who is it going to benefit exactly? If you're an international follower, such as myself, you're going to be in a different time zone. The inability to watch the games on demand really makes the service much less desirable.

Thumbs down CFL.

I can only hope that someone puts the games up on a youtube channel the following day.

You make a valid point, especially in light of the Commissioner's desire to grow the CFL globally.

I struggled for 8 years in Hong Kong ('07-'15) trying to find feeds that people put up in Canada for CFL games and always there were a mix of locals and other fans across the globe (Asia, Europe, Central America, USA, etc). Not only that I was still paying for cable including TSN at our home in Canada.

I paid for a streaming service that was legit but it wouldn't work for me in Hong Kong.

Sometimes giving the product away is a good idea or ignoring the streamers as viewers are getting the commercials anyway.

[cromartie]

Last year, every game was available on ESPN+, both live and as a replay.

Only about half the games were on ESPN+. The rest were on either ESPN2 or ESPNEWS, which are cable channels.

For me the new system is much more convenient and significantly cheaper, requiring only a CBS Sports subscription for less than half of games and CFL+ for all others (or, a VPN to get everything on CFL+ for free).

I will miss VOD and replays, though.

Not sure what you were doing, but I got every single game, either live or VOD, through ESPN+ last year.

This is a joke by comparison.

[Lui05]

I definitely agree the lack of VOD is a downside to this switch. Especially for those not in North or south America where timezone is an issue.
But I'll say this. ESPN+ was horrible except for the VOD. Any attempt to display the video on a TV from an iPad would render it broken. HDMI caused an error, airdrop caused the video to go black so it was audio only.
Being in the MST time zone, I prefer CFL+ as I can stream on my TV instead of having to watch on a smaller screen.
I suspect this will evolve to a non-free platform with VOD in the future.
With CFL+, the content is in CFL control. So when they move from CBS to some other platform for US, the streaming will not change.
I definitely agree that in 2023, not having VOD to start seems odd - but I take what I can get. And before the ESPN contract, it was pretty bad. One of the channels they had back in the early ought's was just horrible. America 1 or something like that.

Could this have been better? Yes. But for the price (free - I had the CBS sports channel already), I won't complain. Yet. If my guess that we'll see improvements next year (or even in the next month or 2 if I'm being hopeful) proves to be incorrect, my opinion will change...