LeBron James, just like almost every other basketball fan in the country, had his eyes glued to the TV as the Hornets defeated the Heat 127-126 in a nail-biting matchup to proceed to the qualifier game against the loser of tomorrow’s fixture between the 76ers and the Magic.
In a game that went to overtime, Amazon Prime came under scrutiny in its first year of exclusively broadcasting the play-in tournament on the streaming service.
James, just like several other NBA fans, was baffled to see the broadcast interrupted for nearly a minute in a crucial matchup that eventually eliminated his former team, the Heat. He took to social media and expressed his opinion on the error by Amazon Prime.
“Tell me the game didn’t just cut off?!!? Am I trippin?? WTH 🤦🏾♂️” wrote James on X.
James nearly missed the heartbreaking moment when his former team was eliminated from the NBA play-in tournament. They also incorrectly showed that the Heat had a timeout in the final play when they in fact did not.
Among other issues, the audio and the video were also out of sync once the stream resumed. Several NBA fans also took to social media and scrutinized Amazon Prime for their errors that ruined the experience for a lot of the spectators.
“Not only did Amazon have “Technical Difficulties” at the end of a tightly contested play-in game that was in OT, but they also screwed up the graphics and showed Miami with a timeout remaining when they didn’t actually have any. Amateur hour all around.”
“I was wondering why Miami did not call the timeout.”
“We all just sat there staring at the screen like Did that really just happen???”
“Also, the broadcast audio is ahead of the gameplay on every single broadcast they do.”
“I literally thought they had a timeout because of the score bug 😬 Prime has been on some BS this year.”
As per the new NBA media deal, the postseason broadcasting rights are shared between the Disney networks (ABC, ESPN), NBCUniversal (NBC, Peacock), and Amazon Prime Video. But the play-in tournament was exclusively on Amazon Prime.
There was a rampant debate that local TV networks should have retained the right to broadcast some of the playoff games. These errors by Amazon Prime have only strengthened their case for it.
But since this is the first year of an 11-year deal that they signed with the league, hopefully, they will learn from experience and not let such an incident repeat itself. The NBA will revisit its media rights deal in 2035, so until then, the fans will have to be patient with it. Prime will certainly improve its coverage or risk losing a lot of spectators, including the Lakers’ star.
