Bill Maher Has Beef With NFL Games Airing on Streamers: “Kids of All Ages Hate This S***”
Bill Maher misses when NFL games only aired on cable television.
The host of Real Time went on a long rant during his latest “New Rules” segment about why he believes “streaming is ruining football.”
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“Enjoy the Super Bowl this weekend while you can because it’s probably one of the last ones to be shown on broadcast TV, which is a shame because streaming is ruining football and that’s Taylor Swift’s job,” Maher quipped.
“What’s so bad about streaming football, you ask? Well, for one, I used to be able to switch between two games in just a second, just one second by hitting previous on the remote,” he continued. “But on YouTube TV, I have to go back to the home page, go to sports, go to NFL, then scroll across to find the second game you want to check on, [and] wait for the circling thing to calm down. I’ll tell you, it’s easier to switch sexes in America than it is to switch between football.”
The comedian said he was fine when football games first started airing on streaming platforms because he thought, “At least there’ll be no commercials.” However, he quickly realized he was wrong.
“No! Plenty of commercials, except, unlike old TV where I may have DVR’d the game to watch later after it’s over and I could zip through the commercials, streaming purposely makes it so you can’t do that,” Maher explained. “They don’t let you see what you’re fast-forwarding through, so there’s no way to tell where the commercials end and the action resumes. The start of the third quarter, it’s harder to find than the G-spot.”
“And good luck finding a game a full day after it aired, it’s just gone, like an FBI agent who investigated [Donald] Trump,” he quipped before adding, “So what I have now is the worst of all worlds: I have to watch it when it’s on, I’m paying for it and I’m still watching commercials and I can’t zip through them.”
“Well, isn’t it great that things are better than the old days when we had to sit through commercials and watch shows right when they aired? Yeah, so much better,” Maher said with a laugh. “And unless you think this is only a boomer bitching? No, I checked Reddit. Kids of all ages hate this shit.”
In recent years, the National Football League has turned its attention to streaming services. Last year, the sports league and Netflix unveiled a massive three-year deal that will see the streamer run live games on Christmas. Amazon Prime Video also took over exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football from Fox in 2022. The NFL has also given Peacock, the NBCUniversal-owned streaming service, exclusive games.
The guests featured on the latest episode of Real Time included Chris Hayes, Rep. Byron Donalds and Tara Palmeri.
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