Not everyone is a fan of the new-school broadcasts.
Former Super Bowl champion Chris Long felt a generational disconnect with the first-ever YouTube NFL broadcast for Friday’s Chiefs-Chargers game in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
“I watched the YouTube broadcast of the game in Sao Paulo, and I felt immediately like somebody who was being ushered to, like, an early grave,” Long, 40, said on his “Green Light with Chris Long” podcast on Tuesday. “It just felt like, ‘Hey, time to die, boomer. You don’t know who Deestroying is? Time to die. You don’t want to see MrBeast’s, like, giant f–king pearly white smile as he ‘Squid Game 2’ NFL fans through a f–king goal post? No problem. Just go to bed, you’re old anyways.’”
The NFL has branched out in recent years in an attempt to diversify its broadcasting, airing games on YouTube, Netflix and, of course, the famous Nickelodeon broadcasts.
The Nickelodeon broadcasts, complete with SpongeBob SquarePants references, are obviously designed for a younger, child-oriented offense.
Friday’s broadcast of the Chargers’ 27-21 win over the Chiefs tapped more into those in tune with social media by featuring famous personalities in MrBeast, Deestroying, IShowSpeed and others.
Not everyone is going to know the name of popular streamers, but YouTube and the NFL clearly are attempting to appeal to an audience beyond the diehard football fan.
“The whole thing to me, it’s jarring. And I understand like what old people feel like when programming changes because, like, I just don’t get it. But I’m old. And nobody wants to be the guy that’s like, is s–tting on, like, streamers, like, I don’t want to s–t on young people,” said Long, who played for the Eagles, Rams and Patriots after being drafted with the second pick in the 2008 Draft.
“But I’m like, ‘Man, I really felt it the other night.’ I’m not going to throw a fit. I’m still going to watch the game. Saying the YouTube is inherently an old man thing, and I called it the YouTube.”
While Long may have had his issues, YouTube touted the game as a massive success.
The streaming giant said it set a record for most concurrent viewers of a livestream on YouTube, and had a 17.3 million average-minute-audience (AMA), per a press release.
That AMA featured 16.2 million in the U.S. and 1.1 million from outside the States, which included fans from more than 230 countries and territories.
The Chargers’ triumph marked the lone YouTube-only game of the NFL season.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
