It’s been a week since the NHL & MLBAM launched NHL.TV. The response has been lackluster to say the least.

My experience has been pretty similar to most other fans. Poor streaming quality. Frequent buffering. Missing core features.

Bob Bowman, President of MLBAM, told PuckDaddy that it was an issue with the CDN.

“We had a glitch last night. The game states changed, the config went down, and by the time you re-launch another CDN, it takes 20–30 minutes to re-launch that thing.”

While I think that may have caused certain users not to be able to view streams on Day 1, it doesn’t explain why the service continues to have issues a week later.

As someone who builds technology products for a living, I’m more interested in how this happened. I wanted to take a look back at where this went wrong, how it could have been handled differently, and where MLBAM and the NHL can go from here.

Launch of GameCenter Live 2015

In September 2015, the NHL announced the latest version of GameCenter Live.

Overpromise. Underdeliver.

To a fan this reads — “you will have all the great stuff you already have, but you’ll also get a better video player, a better way to view stats, and more.” Basically, you are getting GameCenter Live, but with better video.

The Reality

Instead, fans got less reliable video, lost condensed replays, and can no longer watch games on some devices (e.g. Chromebook).

So what happened?

How did we go from “GameCenter Live with better video” to “GameCenter Live with worse video and fewer features.”

There has been some sentiment that this is like Facebook introducing an update to the News Feed. People don’t like change, but in the long run they’ll learn that change is good.

The changes to NHL.TV aren’t simply just giving the users what they had in a different (possibly better) way. It’s more fundamental than that. Fans are upset because a service that they had before consistently worked and worked better.

It comes down to four things:

The expectations were not properly managed

The product was poorly prioritized

The product was not widely tested

The changes were not effectively communicated to fans

And the response shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Some features were removed, some don’t work as well, and there is no indication that things will get better this season.

In six months, MLBAM tried to rebuild & redesign apps on all major platforms and migrate all the video streaming technology. It’s insanely difficult to migrate a website, let alone apps on phone, tablet, connected TV and an entire video streaming platform. Unless their tech is a turn key platform (and let’s be honest, every turn key platform still requires customization), six months feels rushed. Oh, and on top of that, they went ahead and launched NHL Premium (watch the last 5 min of games).

They simply tried to do too much and focused on the wrong things.

What They Should Have Done

While I still firmly believe the correct answer was to wait until next season, I do think it was possible to pull off this year. To do it though — it required much, much better focus.

Focus

What would have made the fans happy? It doesn’t sound like there was a single second spent trying to find out.

Fans didn’t need a new website

Fans didn’t need a new app

Fans didn’t need a single new feature

Fans wanted one thing:

high quailty and reliable video streaming

That should have been the primary mission of the launch. While some fans would be upset with a few missing features, the core would have been satisfied with being able to watch live games with no issues.

Prioritizing the Product

One of the hardest challenges building a product is determining how to allocate your resources. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices including scrapping existing features to meet a launch.

One thing that can be helpful is breaking down features into four buckets.

Must Have (e.g. we can’t launch without) Good to Have (e.g. important but could come in our first update) Nice to Have (e.g. useful, but can come in a future update this year) Backlog (e.g. useful but can come in a update at a unknown time)

Must Have

Same video quality on platforms as NHL GCL

Adaptive streaming with limited buffering

Accurate blackout restrictions with better messaging

Good to Have

DVR Controls

Start game from beginning (or jump to any point) while in progress

Nice to Have

Reduction of video streaming delay

5 MBPS video quality at 60 FPS on mobile

Intermission broadcasts

Markers on mobile to jump to start of period, goals, saves, and plays

Ability to manually change stream quality

Backlog

Stream pre-game shows

Remove NHL Network game blackouts

Deeplink to NBC Sports App if installed instead of showing a blackout message

Remove in-market blackouts with cable authentication

New mobile app and website

Brand new features that didn’t exist in GCL

Given that the focus should have been on video streaming, I would have ignored rebuilding the app and focused completely on the in-app video player.

“It could be five separate issues. You go from a lab of 50 devices to the real world of, like, 100,000 different devices with different operating systems and connection speeds,” said Bowman.

In early January, prior to officially launching on all platforms, I would have focused on the one mobile platform that gets the most usage. Since mobile has the most variabilty in connection speed, I would have swapped out the video player on that platform to get feedback on performance, quality, and stability. This wouldn’t give all the answers, but at least would get some real world feedback prior to officially launching.

The Right Way to Launch

But they didn’t. So let’s assume that we had to launch on Feb 1 on all platforms knowing full well that features would be lost. Given the expectations — communication is key.

What is different about the new NHL.TV?

Why did you get rid of or change certain features?

When will I expect to have the features I loved in GameCenter Live?

For example, they should have included a message like:

“In order to bring you higher quality, more reliable video, we had to make some sacrifices initially. While you can still access DVR features and game markers on web, we will be bringing them to mobile in late February”

To their credit, they did create a customer support service on Twitter, @NHLTVSupport, but it’s been about as helpful as @ComcastCares.

Where to Go From Here

Unfortunately, the service hasn’t gotten better and probably won’t be back to GCL standards until next season. Fans are annoyed, disappointed, and losing faith in the service. In order to win back fan trust — this would be my plan of action.

Immediately

Triage video streaming issues. Focus all technical resources on why users don’t have reliable and high quality streams across platforms, devices, and different levels of bandwidth?

Provide insight into video quality improvements. Provide a side by side analysis of video quality before and after to show fans the improvement in the service. Show why features were sacrificed to make the switch.

Reinstate features that require no technical change. Focus on content like condensed broadcasts, extended highlights, NHL Vault, and showing intermission during streams.

Communicate near-term road map. Provide an overview of features that will be coming back to NHL.TV this season and what will have to wait until 2016–2017.

Offer full refund. The NHL collected a full season of money for a service that is radically less feature rich than before. Offer a full refund (no questions asked) to users or a 50% discount on next season.

Next Month

Reinstate important technical features. Reinstate features like DVR controls on mobile and starting games in progress.

Communciate improvement in streaming delays. Provide current expected delays in broadcast and path to improve to near real-time.

For Playoffs

Focus on Mobile Apps. Because live video streaming isn’t really a feature for the playoffs, focus on web and app updates that improve speed and access to scoreboard, stats, and news.

Create fan focus group. Build a fan focus group to learn about the features fans want for 2016. Start collaborating to build a product roadmap for next season.

Detailed product roadmap for 2016–2017. List must have, good to have, nice to have features for next season.

For Next Season

Build with fan input. Create a beta list of users both on iPhone and Android, so fans can test the new products ahead of launch.

Rebuild mobile apps. Create native views for all major screens (scores, news, standings, stats, etc.)

Innovative new features. Prototype new features that improve on the GameCenter Live experience. Imagine being able to customize your broadcast. Overlay stats live on the stream, clean broadcast feed (no graphics) with custom scorebug, watch TV broadcast with radio broadcasters, etc.

The Future of NHL.TV

Given all the issues with this launch, you would think I would have soured on the NHL/MLBAM relationship. I personally still think it was the right move by the NHL.

I think there will be issues with the product for the rest of the season, but I believe we’re going to look back a year from now and be extremely satisfied with the product.

What excites me most is having a sports technology company focused on bringing the NHL to the digital age. I think they’ll be able to innovate faster and bring a fresh set of eyes to the game.

Until then though, this launch should be an extremely valuable lesson to anyone trying to improve an existing product.

You must properly manage expectations from the start You must focus your product roadmap on the most essential feature set for launch If can’t meet expectations, over communicate to your users how you are going to improve the product

And remember, this isn’t baseball. Just because you build it, they don’t have to come.