Last night wasn't pleasant for me, football-watching-wise, for a couple of reasons.
One, the Oregon football team played a crappy game against Boise State, an opponent they were favored to beat by 19 points, but ended up winning 37-34 on a last second field goal. This follows their crappy initial game against Idaho, a team they were expected to beat by around 50 points, but won by only 24-14.
Two, the Oregon - Boise State game was on Peacock, NBC's streaming service. We subscribe to Peacock for entertainment, so I had no problem accessing the game at 7 pm via our Apple TV device. That was my favorite part of the game: the few minutes at the start before the first series of commercials.
Now, I readily admit that because I almost always record a football game on our DirecTV DVR, then start watching it about an hour after the game started, I'm used to fast-forwarding through commercials and halftime. Sometimes I also use the 30-second skip-ahead feature to only watch the actual action, since that's about how long it typically takes a college team to go from play to play.
So I have a low tolerance for unwanted interruptions during a football game, especially commercials. I expected that Peacock wouldn't let me skip commercials, and that indeed was the case. Such was bad enough; worse was how many damn commercials there were, especially in the first half. There seemed to be way more than in a usual game on regular TV: ESPN, Fox, and such.
I recall that in the first quarter there were several "three and outs" when both Oregon and Boise State were having trouble moving the ball. The way that went on Peacock was: Oregon has three plays, punts the ball on fourth down, lengthy commercial break, Boise State has three plays, punts the ball on fourth down, lengthy commercial break.
Ridiculous!
I'm used to commercial breaks at the end of each quarter, with a few during each quarter, plus maybe during time outs. Also after scores. But when the ball simply changes hands... that made watching a game on Peacock frustrating, though it seemed to me that there were fewer commercials in the second half.
Also, while this may be a quirk of Apple TV, it was irritating to pause the Oregon - Boise State game on Peacock, shift our television over to HDMI 1 where I was recording the Oregon State - San Diego State game that started at 7:30 pm on CBS-SN, watch that game for a while, then find that the Apple TV device had shut off after that period of inactivity, which meant that Peacock showed me the current stream of the Oregon - Boise State game when I went back to it, not where I'd left off watching.
While I was able to rewind and advance the game on Peacock, I avoided doing this since I figured that then I'd have to sit through the commercials again. So I missed part of the game because I was trying to cram both the Oregon and Oregon State games into a few hours of evening football watching.
I guess that's a third irritation: how the demise of the Pac-12, leaving Oregon State and Washington State the only members of a Pac-2, resulted in the Oregon - Boise State game starting at 7 pm and the Oregon State - San Diego State game starting at 7:30 pm. This screwy almost-same-time scheduling never happened, so far as I can recall, back when both Oregon and Oregon State were in the Pac-12 conference.
Next Saturday Oregon plays Oregon State on FOX. It could be a close game, notwithstanding Oregon's #9 national ranking in the AP poll, given how bad Oregon has been playing compared to pre-season expectations. But regardless of who wins -- for sure it will be a team from my state -- I'll be happy both with the outcome and that the game wasn't on Peacock. The production quality of the game also was below par: shaky camera work, inexplicable black screen popping up from time to time.
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