As Saturday’s qualifying for the first race at the Shell/Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston was abut to start, I did as always and pulled up the IndyCar timing and scoring page. And much to my delight, I see this banner. It appears that IndyCar will have live streaming on NBC Extra. I’m excited because I’m eligible for NBC Extra, and used it to watch parts of the Canadian Grand Prix on my smartphone when I was traveling. It’s great!
Since my daughter is watching Frozen and keyed up for a birthday party later today at Chuck-E-Cheese, I decided to watch the stream on my laptop. Except that there is no stream, only a static image saying that the broadcast has concluded for the day.
What? According to the schedule, qualifying was about to start! I mumbled a bit and started the stream of IMS Radio and fired up the Twitter machine. Here’s the result.
@IndyCar is promoting live streaming of quals on NBC Extra from T/S page: http://t.co/Z9JAPCA21F No live streaming to be found. #GPHOU #FAIL
— John The Race Fan (@JohnTheRaceFan) June 28, 2014
@JohnTheRaceFan Streaming isn’t live until their broadcast window this afternoon at 2pm ET.
— IndyCar Series (@IndyCar) June 28, 2014
Ummmm. OK. That’s not what the banner at IndyCar’s own website says, so I point that out.
@IndyCar So it’s not LIVE streaming like the banner on racecontrol says? #GPHOU #IndyCar pic.twitter.com/y1MZK0v0AE
— John The Race Fan (@JohnTheRaceFan) June 28, 2014
@JohnTheRaceFan the race will be live. Qualifying is not.
— IndyCar Series (@IndyCar) June 28, 2014
I have to admit. Whoever handles the @IndyCar Twitter account is always polite and professional, even in the face of harsh criticism during an event when they’re at their busiest.
@JohnTheRaceFan Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, it’s out of hour hands. You can watch on your laptop at 2pm ET.
— IndyCar Series (@IndyCar) June 28, 2014
@IndyCar Understand the issue is more a disparity between what the banner says is available & what is actually available. #GPHOU #IndyCarWx
— John The Race Fan (@JohnTheRaceFan) June 28, 2014
It’s pretty lousy of IndyCar and NBC to imply that live streaming would be available and not have it be. Oh well. Maybe this will be the impetus of improvements in the availability of live coverage. Maybe not. At least someone’s listening.
#RaceFanProblems
