“WHATS [sic] NEXT? THE STREAM GOES OUT IN GAME 7 OF THE FINALS FOR THE LAST SHOT?” a Reddit user wrote in the title of a thread that they created, which has 314 upvotes as of this writing.
The post may seem dramatic, but it’s notable that this isn’t the first time that Prime Video has dropped the ball for sports fans. The streaming service’s 2022 debut of Thursday Night Football, for instance, had technical difficulties, where the stream sometimes froze and the audio was out of sync for some viewers.
The latter point is especially concerning because, after four years of this, viewers are still complaining about audio syncing problems—but now instead of with football, it’s with NBA games that are airing on Prime Video this season. We’ve experienced this firsthand at Ars Technica and have heard commentators announce a completed three-point shot before the stream shows it happening.
“The entire year the audio has been a split second ahead of the video on half of the Amazon games we’ve watched,” Bill Simmons, a former sportswriter and current host of The Bill Simmons Podcast, said in today’s episode: “The three-pointer’s halfway toward the basket. It’s like, ‘BANG! It’s good!’ And you hear the crowd, and it’s, like, the ball hasn’t even gone in yet. How have we not figured this out yet? You guys, [Amazon], have 8 kajillion dollars.”
Broadcast channels have also experienced technical difficulties during live events. However, streaming services’ problems face extra scrutiny as streaming providers are aggressively gaining exclusive rights to sporting and other live events. As these companies look to build subscribers and secure advertising dollars through such deals, they’ve also struggled to deliver consistent, reliable live streams at notable times.
For those still wondering about the end of the game, the Hornets won by one point.