Blue Bombers Forum

As reported in the GDT, the CFL+ streaming site was having big problems for many people today.

I texted my buddy when I was at the game to remind him to watch and he said the site was broken.  Returning 504 and other errors.  He's a casual fan, and casual fans will see this and just turn it off.

I'm home now and trying to get the streams up to watch all 4 games.  One game took 60s to load.  Another one wouldn't load at all: 504 bad gateway.  After 2 more tries it finally loads.

Embarrassing and bush league for the CFL.  Any casual fan will just give up, and probably not bother trying again next week.  This is not how you build hype going into the new season.

The first game is a WPG/SSK rivalry and you don't plan for a lot of streaming viewers?  There are no excuses for this in current year.

How many other people had trouble?

No problems for me. I queue up the games early.

CFL Communications sent out a notice that games would also be streamed on YouTube due to the technical issues for some.

Riderfans also had big probs with CFL+.  Tons of "doesn't work" reports there.

I think it was Aards who said on the GDT that TSN5 was open, why not show it there?  It's a WPG/SSK game which is always the biggest viewership draw, and they could cut the load on their streaming servers down by like 40% by make use of something we call "broadcast".

Anyone want to place odds on CFL+ having a solution for this by next week?  It's another WPG/SSK game!

Quote from: Stats Junkie on May 25, 2025, 02:49:11 AMNo problems for me. I queue up the games early.

Ah, you found the secret!  I will try that next week for sure.

From what I saw, the problem doesn't seem to be the streaming server, the problem is the pages that host/embed the stream.  So if you can load the container page you'll be fine with the stream.

Quote from: Stats Junkie on May 25, 2025, 02:49:11 AMCFL Communications sent out a notice that games would also be streamed on YouTube due to the technical issues for some.

Ya, that absolutely zero people on this forum and zero people on the SSK forum got wind of.  Real effective communications!  If you use some format no one is checking then it's useless.

The place for that message was/is:
https://www.cfl.ca/plus
right where you try to click on the feed link.

Who's responsible for the filming - the League or the home team?  Seemed like the league just said "you guys got this"

You're signing up, for free, to watch the in-game stadium feed overlayed with a radio broadcast.

...of course it wasn't flawless.

Quote from: TecnoGenius on May 25, 2025, 02:12:07 AMAs reported in the GDT, the CFL+ streaming site was having big problems for many people today.

I texted my buddy when I was at the game to remind him to watch and he said the site was broken.  Returning 504 and other errors.  He's a casual fan, and casual fans will see this and just turn it off.

I'm home now and trying to get the streams up to watch all 4 games.  One game took 60s to load.  Another one wouldn't load at all: 504 bad gateway.  After 2 more tries it finally loads.

Embarrassing and bush league for the CFL.  Any casual fan will just give up, and probably not bother trying again next week.  This is not how you build hype going into the new season.

The first game is a WPG/SSK rivalry and you don't plan for a lot of streaming viewers?  There are no excuses for this in current year.

How many other people had trouble?

This is on Comissioner Stewie's plate!  We'll see how quickly he moves to clean it up for week 2.

Quote from: Throw Long Bannatyne on May 25, 2025, 03:46:24 PMThis is on Comissioner Stewie's plate!  We'll see how quickly he moves to clean it up for week 2.

The Lions / Stamps game last week went well. This week was off to a bad start.

My biggest take away from yesterday is, let's appreciate the fact that we don't have to listen to the Calgary radio crew. I get that it is pre-season for everyone but that was a different level of bad.

They struggled with ball spots all game long...
-    Off by 5 yards numerous times
-    Wrong side of a yard stripe (i.e. 29 vs 31)
-    Wrong side of centre (i.e. E45 vs C45)

They identified the wrong player several times.
-    I can forgive it when they call a TD for #88 when it was #86 – sometimes the numbers do bunch up which makes it hard to read. I would have expected a spotter to correct them at some point rather than continuing to identify the wrong player.
-    How do you mess up #81 (Hyman) vs #17 (Echols), both are veteran players.
-    Apparently #24 Cody Grace did all of the punting for Edmonton until late in the 4th quarter. #70 and #26 alternated the punting duties for most of the game.
-    It seemed like they just picked a random player for a knockdown at the LOS.

Late in the game, they called an Edmonton pass as caught but the receiver was out of bounds. The pass was incomplete with a Calgary defender knocking the ball away.

TSN is playing the Milt Chaz High School Prospects game on Monday.

How can they play that, and not replay the CFL+ coverage of the other 3 preseason games?

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 25, 2025, 12:21:03 PMYou're signing up, for free, to watch the in-game stadium feed overlayed with a radio broadcast.

...of course it wasn't flawless.

The first game between BC and the Stamps last week was done much better and streamed perfectly, maybe because there wasn't as big an audience trying to watch it online.  Interesting point the Lions filled up a lot of those monotonous commercial breaks with their own action videos, pushing ticket sales and merch,. which made them more bearable.

Crazy hearing all the issues while the Bomber game and the Ottawa game both streamed immaculately for us. Bomber game on the TV browser and Ottawa on the computer.

Quote from: Blue In BC on May 25, 2025, 03:49:55 PMThe Lions / Stamps game last week went well. This week was off to a bad start.

1 game vs 3 games being streamed in 1 day.  And waaaay more fans interested in this week's game compared to the CGY/BC game.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 25, 2025, 12:21:03 PMYou're signing up, for free, to watch the in-game stadium feed overlayed with a radio broadcast.

... By a league desperate to modernize and draw in the young fans and streamers.  Young fans with a 3s attention span who will click on the next interesting thing the instant the CFL site gives an error.

Don't make excuses for them.  This is pretty bad.

Also, consider that last year they had none of these problems... how do you get worse?  And if they were just overloaded this year due to double demand year over year then that's something they should have anticipated.  If they are trying hard to grow the audience, then actually succeed, then they should be ready for it.

Even worse is before this streaming stuff they used to have around half the PS games shown on TSN.  Whoever took that away should also be fired.  5 channels mostly showing useless nonsense and they can't show their main/franchise commodity: CFL?

Quote from: BomberFan73 on May 25, 2025, 12:17:59 PMWho's responsible for the filming - the League or the home team?  Seemed like the league just said "you guys got this"

I've heard it's still the TSN camera crews.

Lets review the facts: It's a free stream. You're not owed top-tier production for CFL pre-season games. No one promised you crisp HD broadcasts on demand. Your weird logic to justify your annoyance is silly. Fans with three second attention spans aren't watching CFL pre-season games.

You're free to get in your car or hop on a plane and buy a ticket. Too expensive? Stupid idea? Unrealistic? Guess why the league doesn't have cameras and crews with Dazn level streams for all the games? Duh.

Why isn't it: look what a cool thing the league was able to do with a very small budget and almost no infrastructure so super fans could see some of the preseason? But no -- it's fire somebody what a joke, it didn't work the first time. 

The tight shots on every play were horrible. Can't see what anyone but the QB is doing. Give me a much wider angle please. 

It may be free but its still representing the cfl. Just a few suggestions vs criticisms
1 get 1 more camera angle, right now when theres a field goal they show a picture of a helmet
2 instead of showing the same commercial (how many times di we need to see McManus flex) just keep the camera on field.
3 fix the timing issues theres no reason to cut back late from "this is a commercial break"
 I do appreciate being able to watch the games and kudos to the cfl for that
 

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 25, 2025, 11:52:46 PMLets review the facts: It's a free stream. You're not owed top-tier production for CFL pre-season games. No one promised you crisp HD broadcasts on demand. Your weird logic to justify your annoyance is silly. Fans with three second attention spans aren't watching CFL pre-season games.

You're free to get in your car or hop on a plane and buy a ticket. Too expensive? Stupid idea? Unrealistic? Guess why the league doesn't have cameras and crews with Dazn level streams for all the games? Duh.

Why isn't it: look what a cool thing the league was able to do with a very small budget and almost no infrastructure so super fans could see some of the preseason? But no -- it's fire somebody what a joke, it didn't work the first time. 

People are allowed to complain about something that didn't work and also chime on what they think could be improved.  Continous improvement is important even for a free product.  Constructive criticism helps anyone improve.  Yes don't expect the world but also needs to work at a certain basic minimum acceptable standard.  I didn't try but would have been frustrated if it didn't work for me.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 25, 2025, 11:52:46 PMLets review the facts: It's a free stream. You're not owed top-tier production for CFL pre-season games.

Why isn't it: look what a cool thing the league was able to do with a very small budget and almost no infrastructure so super fans could see some of the preseason? But no -- it's fire somebody what a joke, it didn't work the first time.

In my world and in my philosophy, if you're going to do something, you do it right.  You don't half-butt things.  I do stuff like this for a living and I would have never let this occur.  And I have probably 1/100000 the budget the CFL had for this.

If your philosophy and job let you produce failure, good for you.

Maybe part of the ire is we used to get half the games on TSN, as it should be.  Now reduced to 2.  Generally leagues work to improve their product.

Saying "not owed top-tier production" (which I never even said) is a straw man, because the main beef here is people couldn't even get on the stream, some for 30 minutes!  Read the GDT here, and then in Riderfans, this was the reality.  I couldn't care less about the production, I just want myself and others to be able to get in.

And clearly more than just the "uber forum fans" were hitting the stream, otherwise the web server wouldn't have been overloaded!

I'll never not understand not airing all preseason games. It's not free. We all pay for TSN to watch these games. The CFL is the only reason TSN gets my money.

If these specific games draw less eye balls and sponsors, you can scale back the production value a bit, but shutting it off completely is pretty unacceptable.

I'm semi-grateful to the CFL itself but putting something online, but it's a joke that it came to this at all.

Quote from: TecnoGenius on May 26, 2025, 06:15:58 AMIn my world and in my philosophy, if you're going to do something, you do it right.  You don't half-butt things. I do stuff like this for a living and I would have never let this occur.  And I have probably 1/100000 the budget the CFL had for this.

If your philosophy and job let you produce failure, good for you.

Maybe part of the ire is we used to get half the games on TSN, as it should be.  Now reduced to 2.  Generally leagues work to improve their product.

Saying "not owed top-tier production" (which I never even said) is a straw man, because the main beef here is people couldn't even get on the stream, some for 30 minutes!  Read the GDT here, and then in Riderfans, this was the reality.  I couldn't care less about the production, I just want myself and others to be able to get in.

And clearly more than just the "uber forum fans" were hitting the stream, otherwise the web server wouldn't have been overloaded!

Here's the crux of the entitlement. Of course you could. But you don't. So you come here to complain. People who say this never can, by the way. The more you know the more you realize things are complicated and budgets are important and there's usually good reasons for issues and most of the time it's a strategic tradeoff between money, time and payoff.

But of course, you're the expert in this scenario.

I am not complaining about the scoreboard camera, better than nothing which is the other option. The feed should be able to handle the demand though. Easy to predict it would be hammered, 2 games on at the same time, the entire province of Sask tuning in and most of Manitoba. This is where there are a lot of hardcore fans, the casual fan being less likely to stream.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 26, 2025, 02:54:25 PMHere's the crux of the entitlement. Of course you could. But you don't. So you come here to complain. People who say this never can, by the way. The more you know the more you realize things are complicated and budgets are important and there's usually good reasons for issues and most of the time it's a strategic tradeoff between money, time and payoff.

But of course, you're the expert in this scenario.

I believe you are on the losing side of this argument and others have made some good points on why.  Never settle for good enough, always push to be better.

No need to take shots at techo, he had a legitimate concern backed by others.

We want this league to grow and will help point out the warts along the way that if cured could help build this Canadian institution.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 26, 2025, 02:54:25 PMHere's the crux of the entitlement. Of course you could. But you don't. So you come here to complain. People who say this never can, by the way. The more you know the more you realize things are complicated and budgets are important and there's usually good reasons for issues and most of the time it's a strategic tradeoff between money, time and payoff.

But of course, you're the expert in this scenario.

The CFL is a professional organization.  Their business is to provide entertainment that draws fans to the games.  Issues like this do the opposite.

Its a free stream, sure.

If you aren't going to put out a top notch product, or at least put an effort into it, why do it at all?

And while a tone of potential new fans are streamers, I would suggest the vast majority are not.  You have multiple TSN feeds with actual paid commercials, why not ultilize them?

And, CFL, why would you put 3 games on one day?  If you want to stream, or televise, that is bad.  If they are not to be broadcast at all, put them all at the same time if you like. But choose one or the other.

Preseason is just that, preseason.  Its a free spot on the bingo card, you can run games in Ft. McMurray, Victoria, Halifax, Quebec City, London, even Toronto, to try and get new eyes on the game.  Compensate teams for reduced gate and travel costs, and actually promote the league.

Quote from: theaardvark on May 26, 2025, 04:50:27 PMIts a free stream, sure.

If you aren't going to put out a top notch product, or at least put an effort into it, why do it at all?

And while a tone of potential new fans are streamers, I would suggest the vast majority are not.  You have multiple TSN feeds with actual paid commercials, why not ultilize them?

And, CFL, why would you put 3 games on one day?  If you want to stream, or televise, that is bad.  If they are not to be broadcast at all, put them all at the same time if you like. But choose one or the other.

Preseason is just that, preseason.  Its a free spot on the bingo card, you can run games in Ft. McMurray, Victoria, Halifax, Quebec City, London, even Toronto, to try and get new eyes on the game.  Compensate teams for reduced gate and travel costs, and actually promote the league.

Maybe next year they won't and we can all go back to listening on the radio.

Quote from: theaardvark on May 26, 2025, 04:50:27 PMIts a free stream, sure.

If you aren't going to put out a top notch product, or at least put an effort into it, why do it at all?

And while a tone of potential new fans are streamers, I would suggest the vast majority are not.  You have multiple TSN feeds with actual paid commercials, why not ultilize them?

And, CFL, why would you put 3 games on one day?  If you want to stream, or televise, that is bad.  If they are not to be broadcast at all, put them all at the same time if you like. But choose one or the other.

Preseason is just that, preseason.  Its a free spot on the bingo card, you can run games in Ft. McMurray, Victoria, Halifax, Quebec City, London, even Toronto, to try and get new eyes on the game.  Compensate teams for reduced gate and travel costs, and actually promote the league.

Agree on many of your points, problem is the CFL is too focused on just getting by, not preparing for the future.

Quote from: ModAdmin on May 26, 2025, 04:35:41 PMThe CFL is a professional organization.  Their business is to provide entertainment that draws fans to the games.  Issues like this do the opposite.

First, the CFL's main goal, like any business is to make money (you do that through maximizing profitable activities and minimizing costly ones, especially if there' s a low likelihood of ever seeing a return). Second, find me a single fan who struggled with the free pre-season stream and because of that has decided to cut back on their CFL spending as a result. You can't because the statement isn't true in the slightest.

What is true is that it isn't the best experience and the league knows it since it's obvious to literally everyone. You'll get no disputing of that fact from me. The key thing to understand is that it's very likely an extremely lightweight efficient way to get some sort of pre-season coverage for teams that play outside of Ontario since TSN doesn't want to fly people around for pre-season games because there's no money in it which is the crux of the issue.

The reality is the next best option is not to do it at all which is far and away a more likely outcome than higher production values. Guaranteed and without question.

The Rider game was still up yesterday and I was able to watch the game from the beginning. On game day I couldn't get the streaming until nearly half time.

If at 1st you don't succeed there is always that 2nd chance.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 25, 2025, 12:21:03 PMYou're signing up, for free, to watch the in-game stadium feed overlayed with a radio broadcast.

...of course it wasn't flawless.

Flawless?

It did not work at all for me till five minutes left in the first half. Not only is it not flawless, That is second rate, bush league.

If the league can't afford to stream a game, the league is in trouble.

They can and should do better.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 26, 2025, 06:53:00 PMFirst, the CFL's main goal, like any business is to make money (you do that through maximizing profitable activities and minimizing costly ones, especially if there' s a low likelihood of ever seeing a return). Second, find me a single fan who struggled with the free pre-season stream and because of that has decided to cut back on their CFL spending as a result. You can't because the statement isn't true in the slightest.

What is true is that it isn't the best experience and the league knows it since it's obvious to literally everyone. You'll get no disputing of that fact from me. The key thing to understand is that it's very likely an extremely lightweight efficient way to get some sort of pre-season coverage for teams that play outside of Ontario since TSN doesn't want to fly people around for pre-season games because there's no money in it which is the crux of the issue.

The reality is the next best option is not to do it at all which is far and away a more likely outcome than higher production values. Guaranteed and without question.

The bolded part is something you can't say with any certainty.  It is, however, more likely that inferior marketing would affect "sales".  I am hopeful that there has been a fix because streaming is another useful tool to promote the product.

Quote from: markf on May 26, 2025, 07:32:42 PMFlawless?

It did not work at all for me till five minutes left in the first half. Not only is it not flawless, That is second rate, bush league.

If the league can't afford to stream a game, the league is in trouble.

They can and should do better.

The Bombers made $6 million in profit last season, fair to say the teams and the league can probably budget more for streaming.  The fact they overlapped 3 games on one day, indicates they did not take the broadcasting of these games at all seriously.   I hope Super Stewie responds within the next few days with an acknowledgement, an explanation and a plan.

Quote from: Throw Long Bannatyne on May 26, 2025, 08:12:22 PMThe Bombers made $6 million in profit last season, fair to say the teams and the league can probably budget more for streaming.  The fact they overlapped 3 games on one day, indicates they did not take the broadcasting of these games at all seriously.  I hope Super Stewie responds within the next few days with an acknowledgement, an explanation and a plan.

Imagine what an American broadcaster would think of this, when our league negotiates with them for rights to the CFL?

How would an American broadcaster  sell its advertisers a league that can't stream a game?

And the idea that the CFL should run it as cheaply as possible, quality be damned cause the fans have no alternative is not one I support at all.

Some great points everyone, thanks for chiming in!

Quote from: ModAdmin on May 26, 2025, 07:46:56 PMThe bolded part is something you can't say with any certainty.  It is, however, more likely that inferior marketing would affect "sales".  I am hopeful that there has been a fix because streaming is another useful tool to promote the product.

This is where market segmentation and generally having some business sense comes into play. Because you can be reasonably certain (which is how most businesses operate on a lot of marketing based touchpoints.) You could also propose to do expensive research to confirm this and be laughed out of your bosses office.

Streaming pre-season games is not an effective or appropriate on-ramp to creating new fans. Even established fans often stay away. Tons of empty looking buildings around the league.

The argument is just used by angry super fans to support their anger that the free stream started 30 minutes late and they found that annoying.

If you want to suggest it's a bad idea to anger your die hard fans that's a better argument, but it's not going to, by their very nature, cause them to not attend games they otherwise would have. It just isn't. That's not how a segment of that profile would operate and believe me, that's who's watching the stream.

I think it's a cool bit of work the league has done to allow us to watch pre-season games using entirely assets that already exist (read: free for you and them). Stadium cams and feeds, radio announcers, etc. The alternative, believe me, is nothing, failing a negotiation with TSN to require they be shown, maybe.

My Dad always said "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right". If the CFL is going to stream pre-season or anything else for that matter, they need to do it right. Anything less hurts their brand. 

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 26, 2025, 06:53:00 PMFirst, the CFL's main goal, like any business is to make money (you do that through maximizing profitable activities and minimizing costly ones, especially if there' s a low likelihood of ever seeing a return). Second, find me a single fan who struggled with the free pre-season stream and because of that has decided to cut back on their CFL spending as a result. You can't because the statement isn't true in the slightest.

What is true is that it isn't the best experience and the league knows it since it's obvious to literally everyone. You'll get no disputing of that fact from me. The key thing to understand is that it's very likely an extremely lightweight efficient way to get some sort of pre-season coverage for teams that play outside of Ontario since TSN doesn't want to fly people around for pre-season games because there's no money in it which is the crux of the issue.

The reality is the next best option is not to do it at all which is far and away a more likely outcome than higher production values. Guaranteed and without question.

We may never hear from a potential new fan who wanted to tune in this year, and their first experience was a stream that didn't work, or looked bad.  We may have lost them at square one.

If it is TSN cameras and production, why they don't air them in the middle of the night for no streamers in the middle of the night, I'll never know.

Quote from: theaardvark on May 26, 2025, 10:37:59 PMWe may never hear from a potential new fan who wanted to tune in this year, and their first experience was a stream that didn't work, or looked bad.  We may have lost them at square one.

If it is TSN cameras and production, why they don't air them in the middle of the night for no streamers in the middle of the night, I'll never know.

As a business owner I know how hard it is to make a good impression on one customer.  You fight hard for those moments.  One mistake can burn you with 100 potential clients.  And I'm just a small fish.  This could have a big impact imo.  1st impressions are huge.  People don't have the patience for things that don't work.

Quote from: TBURGESS on May 26, 2025, 10:25:11 PMMy Dad always said "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right". If the CFL is going to stream pre-season or anything else for that matter, they need to do it right. Anything less hurts their brand.

A wise man

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 26, 2025, 02:54:25 PMHere's the crux of the entitlement. Of course you could. But you don't.

But of course, you're the expert in this scenario.

I literally am the expert in this scenario.  I literally build and manage multiple web sites for large USA clients that get many times the traffic the CFL PS page gets, and are 100X more complex.  This is 95% of my business, of my own small business, for 25 years.

I 100% could have done better, and probably for less $.  But CFL didn't hire me.  Thus I'm here giving my expertise pointing out how it didn't have to be this way.

P.S. The fact that the GDT thread contained a pirate stream site to hit is the icing on the cake.

Quote from: theaardvark on May 26, 2025, 10:37:59 PMWe may never hear from a potential new fan who wanted to tune in this year, and their first experience was a stream that didn't work, or looked bad.  We may have lost them at square one.

This.  Many people don't understand about the marginal customer.  We're not talking about losing wide swathes of uberfans.  We're talking about the guy that watches most home-team CFL games but nothing else.  We all know many people like that, they are more common than uberfans and STH.

There's also the teen or 20-something tuning in to see what Bomber ball is all about for the first time, maybe after watching the GC and hearing about our great stadium.  Or the 30/40-something who used to go to games as a kid but dropped off the radar for 1-2 decades (that's me).

These marginal existing or future fans may indeed laugh in disgust ("see, it's a joke compared to the NFL") and never come back, or postpone it another decade.  The only question is how many are at that margin.  100?  1000? 10000?  No way to know.  But I bet it's more than SB&G thinks!

I know my buddy likely won't bother tuning in to PS2 now.  He wasted 1 hour trying to get the stream up and was miffed at me he wasted time he could have been working on the yard.  Granted, he'll probably watch the reg season on TSN, but there may be some like him who now don't bother.

Even losing 1 marginal customer is costly because that could be the next me, who goes from 0 CFL to 100% CFL in a couple of years.  $0 to, oh, guessing $4k/year including post-season travel.  The CFL elderly fan base is literally dying (I know many personally) and we need the new blood or the league will die with them.  (I'm on the board of an unrelated club and we face the exact same problems.)  Eyeball/attendance acquisition is everything in this post-covid world filled with many people who hate being near other real live humans.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 26, 2025, 06:53:00 PMThe reality is the next best option is not to do it at all which is far and away a more likely outcome than higher production values. Guaranteed and without question.

Your whole post is again a shift to the "production values" argument, which has nothing to do with what the last entire 2 pages of thread are about.

And you seem fixated on cost.  The issue at hand here with the stream-container page would have cost literally a few hundred bucks more.  They simply didn't provision enough servers (or maybe even more than 1 server!) to handle the traffic.  If you're not in the industry, you may not know how simple & basic this is.

The gateway / server-health errors are the reverse-proxy box telling us the back-end servers are overloaded.  If they already are scaled to multiple servers (reasonable guess) then firing up a few more costs literally $10s of dollars (if cloud like AWS) or $100s (if bare-metal rentals) for the short PS they need them for.  If they on-premise host then they needed maybe a couple more high-power servers for a few $1000s and their resident nerd/team to get them provisioned.

I find it kind of funny that they can stream to the USA & Intl all '24 with zero problems but blow up on the first SSK/WPG game.  That means the traffic from just SSK & WPG alone is more than all the other-country fans combined.  LOL.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 26, 2025, 06:53:00 PMThe reality is the next best option is not to do it at all which is far and away a more likely outcome than higher production values. Guaranteed and without question.

They should simply do what they say they are going to do.  They announced and promoted we could watch (almost) all PS games on CFL+.  Then they pulled the rug.  Bait & switch.

If they weren't sure, or were testing new tech, or only gave 1 guy 3 days to get it all working with no budget, then they should have said "CFL will attempt to stream the PS games on a best-effort basis, bear with us, we hope it works".  If they did that, no one would have be annoyed.  UPOD

Streams seem 100% ok today.  Report any problems here.

CFL probably added a server during the week  8)  8)  8)

CFL has removed the week 1 and week 2 PS individual-game pages.  Previously they kept working past the 48-hours mark if you had the page open already (I was up to 10 days later on the week 1 game).

Guess someone @ CFL read my post and said "well, we can't have THAT".  :o  :o  8)  8)

Guess we have to watch all these things within 48 hrs now.  Doh... or ... <furiously working the linux command line>

I can safely report my BACKEND is VERY HEALTHY today.  And the CFL's

LOL...nothing but commercial break for the last 45 minutes

Quote from: Go_Big_D on May 31, 2025, 01:19:51 AMLOL...nothing but commercial break for the last 45 minutes

Smoke delays, see the GDT

Quote from: TecnoGenius on May 31, 2025, 01:20:31 AMSmoke delays, see the GDT

Thx!

I guess someone could have tweaked the teleprompter/chyron message on that "commercial break in progress" page though!  As a tech guy, not hard to put a message on top saying "game delayed to 8pm CST due to smoke".  CFL ain't too quick on its feet when it comes to improvising.

Moral of the story: pay more attention to the forum than the CFL pages!

BC/EDM game is just the commercial break screen too. That's after watching 10 min of the first Q. 

Quote from: TBURGESS on May 31, 2025, 01:53:55 AMBC/EDM game is just the commercial break screen too. That's after watching 10 min of the first Q.

same here , what a joke.

It is working now.

Can anyone get into the game?

Uh oh... the container pages aren't loading again!  I tried to open one on the media PC in the living room (daughter wants to watch) but now it won't open.  Luckily I still have a container page at the final URL open already on my work computer.  The stream is working fine, just those container pages won't load.

Hold that thought: got an extra test one to load after about 120s delay!  So if you get the spinning "loading" browser thing, just wait.

Too bad they can't figure this out
It's a big deal, even if some claim it isn't.

Mine is at commercial it says

Anyone have those youtube links from last week still?  Anyone know if they'll work for those who don't have the page open yet?

The container page direct link is:
https://www.cfl.ca/2025/05/16/preseason-week-3-winnipeg-blue-bombers-at-saskatchewan-roughriders/

Looks like CFL didn't add those extra servers... after nearly an entire week to work on it.

And clearly the problem is all of Sask and half of MB tuning in.  The problems don't occur for other team games (their fans don't care LOL!).

Maybe next year: don't have WPG play SSK, and make sure the WPG and SSK games don't overlap! LOL

PS: I'm available on a contract basis to fix these types of problems CFL!

Quote from: Blueforlife on May 31, 2025, 02:04:32 AMMine is at commercial it says

Commercial is fine... CFL games never KO right at the alotted time, they have to do the anthems and other delays.  They should start the stream near when KO actually occurs.

I can't get in again. Listening on CJOB.

Weird, my "live" stream just stopped on my open-all-day window and I had to switch to the window that took 120s to load.

That means if you you are seeing the ".../4:53" in the time meter instead of "* live" you probably have to hit reload on the container page to get back to the live stream!

Isn't this fun instead of just tuning into TSN!

PS yay, game just started!

Game is showing now, audio just kicked in.  If you can't see it, reload the container page or the URL I listed above.

Switching to the GDT...

You all putting down your pitchforks now?

Im in!

Audio took a second. I think they forgot to turn it in, lol.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 31, 2025, 02:10:35 AMYou all putting down your pitchforks now?

No. It's still an embarrassment.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 31, 2025, 02:10:35 AMYou all putting down your pitchforks now?

Double doubles ok
Double down on bring wrong not

You guys they even added a down and distance overlay on the field for you hahahhahah that's HIGH END!

Bonus points it's themed blue and gold cause we're on offense hahah

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 31, 2025, 02:10:35 AMYou all putting down your pitchforks now?

Page still took 2 mins to load.  Many, many people won't wait that long.  Industry standard is 3s and users start leaving your site.  10s they think the site is completely broken.  2 mins and no one under 30 is left watching.

Looks like they added X servers when they really needed X*2 or 3.  This week is many times better than last week.  So kudos for that.

Still room for improvement.  I'm actually really happy this clearly indicates there is a high demand for these PS games!  Too bad they don't have a view counter visible on the page.

Man Wheatfall might make this team.

can't connect


Error 503 Backend.max_conn reached

Backend.max_conn reached

Error 54113

Details: cache-yyz4540-YYZ 1748658240 3273437954

Quote from: The Zipp on May 31, 2025, 02:26:42 AMcan't connect


Error 503 Backend.max_conn reached

Backend.max_conn reached

Error 54113

Details: cache-yyz4540-YYZ 1748658240 3273437954

Doh... I thought they improved beyond this level of error.  It is exactly what that error says it is... I guess SSKies are tuning in late and we're overloading servers again.

It's simple: add more servers.

Anyone got an UNHEALTHY BACKEND yet?   ;D  ;D  ;D  :P  :P  :P

So but they have every HUD element imaginable going. They've got the down and distance. Play clock. Red Zone. Sponsor overlays.

CFL+ gonna bust out AWS Next Gen Stats in the second half and I guarantee you the Fox robot is making an appearance!

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 31, 2025, 02:40:18 AMCFL+ gonna bust out AWS Next Gen Stats in the second half and I guarantee you the Fox robot is making an appearance!

Bust out AWS cloud horizontally-scaled auto-load-adjusted servers first, LOL

Quote from: TecnoGenius on May 31, 2025, 02:42:05 AMBust out AWS cloud horizontally-scaled auto-load-adjusted servers first, LOL

If it's not an overlay it's not in the budget!  ;D

Fail army

they did the right thing and put it on youtube

i get the impression people running CFL IT are not being given the tools to do it correctly.  i wonder if this is part of the "genius" sports contract?

Quote from: The Zipp on May 31, 2025, 02:47:26 AMthey did the right thing and put it on youtube

i get the impression people running CFL IT are not being given the tools to do it correctly.  i wonder if this is part of the "genius" sports contract?

They're doing pretty good with this coverage, honestly. Minus I guess the connection issues. Once you get in it's pretty good? It really is a lot to ask of the CFL to be a streaming service. Name another sports league that runs their own streaming service.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 31, 2025, 02:50:52 AMThey're doing pretty good with this coverage, honestly. Minus I guess the connection issues. Once you get in it's pretty good? It really is a lot to ask of the CFL to be a streaming service. Name another sports league that runs their own streaming service.

I think you're missing the point. They shouldn't be a streaming service. It should be part of the TSN contract.

Quote from: Jesse on May 31, 2025, 02:51:53 AMI think you're missing the point. They shouldn't be a streaming service. It should be part of the TSN contract.

Totally agree but since it's not - this is pretty...good? It's not bad for probably three guys in their basement.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 31, 2025, 02:53:26 AMTotally agree but since it's not - this is pretty...good? It's not bad for probably three guys in their basement.

I'm a teacher. If I set something like this up for my middle years students' drama kids, I'd be embarrassed, but telling myself the things you're saying now.

As a professional sports league, this should be an absolute non-starter.

Riders have a sponsor for any good play made by anyone... lol

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 31, 2025, 02:50:52 AMThey're doing pretty good with this coverage, honestly. Minus I guess the connection issues. Once you get in it's pretty good?

Yes, I think the actual stream is quite good and I haven't complained once about it.  It's the container pages that are the problem.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 31, 2025, 02:50:52 AMIt really is a lot to ask of the CFL to be a streaming service. Name another sports league that runs their own streaming service.

I'm nearly positive the actual stream is outsourced to someone big, almost certainly youtube.  The stream was never the problem, it's the pages containing the embedded stream that are the problem.  Which is funny and ironic, because the stream is the hard part and static page hosting the easy part!!

I'll check after the game to find out who they outsourced streaming to.

If they can't do it in-house without glitches, have the container pages just be youtube (or whoever) too.

Quote from: Jesse on May 31, 2025, 02:51:53 AMI think you're missing the point. They shouldn't be a streaming service. It should be part of the TSN contract.

It should be both.  I think they need to do outside-of-TSN streaming in order to get the content out to the ex-Canada world.

Quote from: Sir Blue and Gold on May 31, 2025, 02:53:26 AMTotally agree but since it's not - this is pretty...good? It's not bad for probably three guys in their basement.

Pretty much another fail

2nd week and problems again

Quote from: Blueforlife on May 31, 2025, 05:00:58 AMPretty much another fail

2nd week and problems again

End of?

Quote from: Blueforlife on May 31, 2025, 05:11:55 AMHopefully the end of you doubling down on being wrong and complaining about complainers, there is zero value in posts like this, it is fishing seasons, notice you are moving with the lines out

End of.

Enough, both of you need to stop.

Quote from: Pigskin on May 31, 2025, 05:19:54 AMEnough, both of you need to stop.

Agree, sorry about that. 

Guessing 4 simulcast games was not helping them address individual issues, like rain or smoke delays...

Why does TSN have 5 channels and the CFL rights, but can't air PS games?

Quote from: theaardvark on May 31, 2025, 01:32:09 PMGuessing 4 simulcast games was not helping them address individual issues, like rain or smoke delays...

Why does TSN have 5 channels and the CFL rights, but can't air PS games?

The 5 channels are regional things. They were never intended to show 5 different programs as far as I know.

But the contract must not include preseason. TSN must not want to do it and the CFL would have had to give something up (IE. less money) in order to get them to do preseason, so they did a version of it themselves.

Quote from: Jesse on May 31, 2025, 01:43:31 PMThe 5 channels are regional things. They were never intended to show 5 different programs as far as I know.

But the contract must not include preseason. TSN must not want to do it and the CFL would have had to give something up (IE. less money) in order to get them to do preseason, so they did a version of it themselves.

100%

Quote from: DM83 on May 31, 2025, 07:03:36 PMWould not work for me at game time(actual)
It did connect an hour before.
I assumed this was a demand bs. Technology issue.
I assume my four year old I pad not able.
Or my bug screen TV couldn't handle it

20 year old radio worked fine! lol!
Problem was CJOB hires such umpires professional on air people it's insulting and hard to listen to.
The play by play guy with Doug is a fricken two year old.
Did anyone near the joke he told, and it was dead air for about ten seconds.  Doug didn't try and offer a fake laugh, and there were no other comments.

Same with the Jets and that phony "he scorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzz guy. I don't listen to games on the radio. And now after this Bomber wanna be, it's the same.  Guy does do some research, but, tries to be funny, and fails.

100 times better than the goobers the riders have...be thankful for what we have.  nobody is going to be as good as Bob Irving.

Quote from: The Zipp on May 31, 2025, 07:51:27 PM100 times better than the goobers the riders have...be thankful for what we have.  nobody is going to be as good as Bob Irving.

Nicely said Zipp.

Quote from: DM83 on May 31, 2025, 07:03:36 PMWould not work for me at game time(actual)
It did connect an hour before.
I assumed this was a demand bs. Technology issue.
I assume my four year old I pad not able.
Or my bug screen TV couldn't handle it

20 year old radio worked fine! lol!
Problem was CJOB hires such umpires professional on air people it's insulting and hard to listen to.
The play by play guy with Doug is a fricken two year old.
Did anyone near the joke he told, and it was dead air for about ten seconds.  Doug didn't try and offer a fake laugh, and there were no other comments.

Same with the Jets and that phony "he scorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzz guy. I don't listen to games on the radio. And now after this Bomber wanna be, it's the same.  Guy does do some research, but, tries to be funny, and fails.

Hard to makes sense of most of this rant.  Disagree most of what I could understand.

I couldn't get my ipad pro 1st gen to run it, but could get an iphone 12pro to do it.  My newer macbook air ran it well and I could mirror to my tv. 

For the most part it worked, and really the coverage with the various camera angles and even superimposed scores and time count clock on the field was impressive since I expected some shaky one camera feed (I guess livebarn sets the bar real low).

It did freeze up sometimes, and the "commercial break" would come on when we could hear the play going in the background, and all of a sudden it cuts to the feed and missed a play. 

Anyone else notice for the second half the video became more choppy to the point it was hard to see if a catch was made in real time, and wait to see what happened?

Overall it was glitchy, but I sure appreciated being able to see the game given my low (livebarn) expectations.

Quote from: Big Daddy on June 01, 2025, 01:44:26 AMI couldn't get my ipad pro 1st gen to run it, but could get an iphone 12pro to do it.  My newer macbook air ran it well and I could mirror to my tv. 

For the most part it worked, and really the coverage with the various camera angles and even superimposed scores and time count clock on the field was impressive since I expected some shaky one camera feed (I guess livebarn sets the bar real low).

It did freeze up sometimes, and the "commercial break" would come on when we could hear the play going in the background, and all of a sudden it cuts to the feed and missed a play. 

Anyone else notice for the second half the video became more choppy to the point it was hard to see if a catch was made in real time, and wait to see what happened?

Overall it was glitchy, but I sure appreciated being able to see the game given my low (livebarn) expectations.

my resolution on video was consistent, I experienced, time with no audio, some reloading, random little glitches but after a rough start not too bad

I had it sync'd up with CJOPB for about 10 minutes, then it kept glitching and jumping back and forth... so it was always a play out, so then I'd pause, and it would be off again.

I guess they have until next year to get this remedied.  Hopefully someone there is watching this thread and getting the 2 radio options available...

The rest of the year is available on TSN, but they are also doing CFL+, I guess they are just going to put the TSN feed on the CFL+ site... so no need for sync'ing radio feeds...

Quote from: theaardvark on June 01, 2025, 03:17:10 AMI had it sync'd up with CJOPB for about 10 minutes, then it kept glitching and jumping back and forth... so it was always a play out, so then I'd pause, and it would be off again.

I guess they have until next year to get this remedied.  Hopefully someone there is watching this thread and getting the 2 radio options available...

The rest of the year is available on TSN, but they are also doing CFL+, I guess they are just going to put the TSN feed on the CFL+ site... so no need for sync'ing radio feeds...

That is correct, I'm going with CFL+ this year...at least until it fails me.

Waders27 edited replay PS#2 Bombers vs. Riders.

Quote from: Jesse on May 31, 2025, 01:43:31 PMThe 5 channels are regional things. They were never intended to show 5 different programs as far as I know.

But they do.  I checked the next few days' schedule and many times every day there are 4 different shows on 5 channels.

It took me a few mins to find, but I even found a slot where 5 different shows are playing, on Jun 7 12:30

FIA Formula E
Premier Lacrosse
Roland-Garros Tennis
PGA Tour
Norther Super League Soccer

So any excuse that TSN "can't do PS because they aren't really 5 channels" is now bunk.  But we already knew that because around 5 years ago (and for years preceding that) they played about half of all PS games on TSN.  At one time they seemed to try to make it "fair" by making sure every city got to see their team at least once.

Quote from: Big Daddy on June 01, 2025, 01:44:26 AMAnyone else notice for the second half the video became more choppy to the point it was hard to see if a catch was made in real time, and wait to see what happened?

The 2nd half frame rate was plain awful.  It makes no sense their vid upload / processor was good for H1 but not H2?  Unless their internet connection all of a sudden went from good to bad?  Or some dolt was trying to do it over wifi?

However, it was still watchable, if annoying.

Quote from: TecnoGenius on June 02, 2025, 06:42:24 PMBut they do.  I checked the next few days' schedule and many times every day there are 4 different shows on 5 channels.

It took me a few mins to find, but I even found a slot where 5 different shows are playing, on Jun 7 12:30

FIA Formula E
Premier Lacrosse
Roland-Garros Tennis
PGA Tour
Norther Super League Soccer

So any excuse that TSN "can't do PS because they aren't really 5 channels" is now bunk.  But we already knew that because around 5 years ago (and for years preceding that) they played about half of all PS games on TSN.  At one time they seemed to try to make it "fair" by making sure every city got to see their team at least once.

I thought the reason and it's a legit one is that the audience is limited to the cities playing that day. I have no interest in watching other teams in the preseason. Costs out weight benefits (ratings). They probably just do a couple to use as their own preseason. It's a small army to do a proper telecast isn't it? I am happy enough just being able to see the game even in less than  ideal format. Now the connection issues on CFL+ are different. That HAS to be fixed. It's a wonder to me that they can have troubles 2 weeks in a row. Other cities saying the same as us. That's a lot of people. Should be ok now though because most will just watch on TSN from here on out.

Quote from: Waffler on June 02, 2025, 07:37:28 PMCosts out weight benefits (ratings). They probably just do a couple to use as their own preseason. It's a small army to do a proper telecast isn't it? I am happy enough just being able to see the game even in less than  ideal format.

They could easily just televise what they are showing on CFL+.  They don't need to bring in the whole panel or do anything fancy.  (Maybe have to be faster/better on the mute/block button for ad rights purposes though.)

It would still be better than Baffin Island junior varsity girls pickleball re-runs that TSN87 is running instead... or the 4th of 4 channels all showing the same sports-centre.

the commish is on it:

CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston isn't going to waste time buffering when it comes to the first major challenge of his tenure.

On Thursday, the former Bell Media executive took responsibility for the technological issues that have plagued the league's website and streaming platform throughout the preseason, promising to address the problem.

"If we're going to live up to our reputation as a major professional league, we can't have issues like that happen," Johnston told 620 CKRM's Rider Nation Pre-Game Show. "We are digging into the CRM of the website, working with our stats partner. I think last year you saw stats become a lot more stable than they were two years ago. That has to continue to improve, it has to be better. We can't have our website going down. We just can't."

Technical issues on the website first became a point of contention during the CFL Draft on April 29, when the league's official pick tracker crashed for almost the entirety of the event. That foreshadowed even larger problems during the preseason when the league's streaming service, CFL+, struggled to support the amount of fans attempting to view games live and stopped working for many.

The CFL was forced to issue a statement on the problem and eventually pivoted to streaming on YouTube. While service reliability improved slightly in the final week of preseason action, issues persisted and forced more temporary solutions.

"We knew that moving it to YouTube would fix the problem that we were seeing on the back end, so it was a mitigation strategy. It's great to have a mitigation strategy. We prefer not to have to use it," Johnston explained.

"We've got the right IT folks on it. We're looking at some of the back coding that's going to be well beyond my technical knowledge that was impacted and make sure we address that going forward."

CFL+ was launched as the league's official streaming service in 2023. The platform is free of charge and serves as the primary broadcast platform for international viewers during the season, as well as hosting American audiences for games not carried by CBS Sports Network.

Canadian fans only utilize the platform during the preseason, when the league streams the in-stadium feeds from the seven exhibition games not broadcast by TSN. Those games tend to happen either simultaneously or in quick succession, which led to the technical issues.

"It's great that preseason games are attracting that much attention," Johnston acknowledged. "Of course, one of the things that overload the site is it's all games happening at the same time. None or only one of those games is broadcast on linear so the only place to see them is on CFL+. And, of course, that's what makes it so important that our website is working."

The CFL is no stranger to frustrating technical challenges. In 2023, the league rolled out a revamped stats system that struggled to get off the ground and regularly crashed for weeks, with some problems persisting into the following year. Genius Sports, the CFL's data and technology partner, was responsible for those challenges and also helped set up streaming on CFL+ as part of their responsibilities.

The repeated hiccups of the past few years have left fans disenchanted with the CFL's technological offerings, believing them to be unreliable. Johnston knows that is a perception he has to change, promising that the work is already being done to ensure this never happens again.

"I think you're going to see us look at quite an overhaul of the website," he insisted. "We worked hard over the last seven days and 14 days, hoping that this weekend we've worked out a lot of the bugs. A lot of testing has been done, and we've got to continue that improvement until it's a foolproof system."

Until then, the CFL will continue to be burdened with an analog reputation in the digital age.

I didn't realize it but TSN+ is streaming the games. Hopefully all of them, I'm not sure.

It's 8 bucks a month. No other subscription required.

Great price. And so far, it has worked very well.

Quote from: The Zipp on June 07, 2025, 10:06:17 PMthe commish is on it:

CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston isn't going to waste time buffering when it comes to the first major challenge of his tenure.

On Thursday, the former Bell Media executive took responsibility for the technological issues that have plagued the league's website and streaming platform throughout the preseason, promising to address the problem.

"If we're going to live up to our reputation as a major professional league, we can't have issues like that happen," Johnston told 620 CKRM's Rider Nation Pre-Game Show. "We are digging into the CRM of the website, working with our stats partner. I think last year you saw stats become a lot more stable than they were two years ago. That has to continue to improve, it has to be better. We can't have our website going down. We just can't."

Technical issues on the website first became a point of contention during the CFL Draft on April 29, when the league's official pick tracker crashed for almost the entirety of the event. That foreshadowed even larger problems during the preseason when the league's streaming service, CFL+, struggled to support the amount of fans attempting to view games live and stopped working for many.

The CFL was forced to issue a statement on the problem and eventually pivoted to streaming on YouTube. While service reliability improved slightly in the final week of preseason action, issues persisted and forced more temporary solutions.

"We knew that moving it to YouTube would fix the problem that we were seeing on the back end, so it was a mitigation strategy. It's great to have a mitigation strategy. We prefer not to have to use it," Johnston explained.

"We've got the right IT folks on it. We're looking at some of the back coding that's going to be well beyond my technical knowledge that was impacted and make sure we address that going forward."

CFL+ was launched as the league's official streaming service in 2023. The platform is free of charge and serves as the primary broadcast platform for international viewers during the season, as well as hosting American audiences for games not carried by CBS Sports Network.

Canadian fans only utilize the platform during the preseason, when the league streams the in-stadium feeds from the seven exhibition games not broadcast by TSN. Those games tend to happen either simultaneously or in quick succession, which led to the technical issues.

"It's great that preseason games are attracting that much attention," Johnston acknowledged. "Of course, one of the things that overload the site is it's all games happening at the same time. None or only one of those games is broadcast on linear so the only place to see them is on CFL+. And, of course, that's what makes it so important that our website is working."

The CFL is no stranger to frustrating technical challenges. In 2023, the league rolled out a revamped stats system that struggled to get off the ground and regularly crashed for weeks, with some problems persisting into the following year. Genius Sports, the CFL's data and technology partner, was responsible for those challenges and also helped set up streaming on CFL+ as part of their responsibilities.

The repeated hiccups of the past few years have left fans disenchanted with the CFL's technological offerings, believing them to be unreliable. Johnston knows that is a perception he has to change, promising that the work is already being done to ensure this never happens again.

"I think you're going to see us look at quite an overhaul of the website," he insisted. "We worked hard over the last seven days and 14 days, hoping that this weekend we've worked out a lot of the bugs. A lot of testing has been done, and we've got to continue that improvement until it's a foolproof system."

Until then, the CFL will continue to be burdened with an analog reputation in the digital age.

Good to see, most on here would agree even though one person down played the issue

$8 per month for CFL is a good deal

Quote from: markf on June 07, 2025, 10:43:39 PMI didn't realize it but TSN+ is streaming the games. Hopefully all of them, I'm not sure.

It's 8 bucks a month. No other subscription required.

Great price. And so far, it has worked very well.

Let me know, TSN+ was my plan last season but i discovered week one they were not streaming all CFL games, so had to sign up for TSN on a monthly basis.  Don't watch any other TSN sports other than CFL, so not worth having it in the off-season.

Quote from: Throw Long Bannatyne on June 08, 2025, 05:53:53 AMLet me know, TSN+ was my plan last season but i discovered week one they were not streaming all CFL games, so had to sign up for TSN on a monthly basis.  Don't watch any other TSN sports other than CFL, so not worth having it in the off-season.

That's me as well.

So far it's been good. all four games were broadcast, and not glitchy at all.

Quote from: The Zipp on June 07, 2025, 10:06:17 PMOn Thursday, the former Bell Media executive took responsibility for the technological issues that have plagued the league's website and streaming platform throughout the preseason, promising to address the problem.

Notice how he didn't put out this comment between PS week 2 and week 3, when he could have actually had something fixed when it would have counted.  LOL.

At least he's trying, and acknowledging there is a problem at all is a rare step for these CEO types.  So there's that.