One Step Closer: YouTubeTV Will Finally Allow Users to Select Which 4 NFL Games They Want to Watch in Multi-View (Now Fix it for College Football)

Good for YouTubeTV. They did something right. Even if it took them inexcusably long to do it.

I actually love YouTubeTV. In my opinion, it's the best live TV option on the market. It's reasonably priced. You get all the important channels. You can record anything you want. You can pause, fast-forward, and rewind live TV with ease. And even though YouTubeTV uses WiFi, when I'm watching sports, I never find that I'm on too much of a delay. Maybe that's just because everybody else on the internet is watching on YouTubeTV or some sort of stream as well. But I don't find myself having things spoiled on Twitter like I used to. 

But my one beef with YouTubeTV - they can't get their fucking multi-view feature figured out. 

When I first signed up for YouTubeTV and learned about the multi-view feature, I was thrilled. But I soon became less thrilled when I realized multi-view did not give me the option of customizing which specific channels I wanted to watch. To be honest, it wasn't a huge deal for me when it came to the NFL. Every Sunday they would roll out a million different pre-set combinations of NFL games through the Sunday Ticket. So with a little searching I could typically find a satisfactory combination of games. But it was still annoying that you couldn't do the obvious thing that everybody who pays hundreds of dollars for the Sunday Ticket package wants to do, which is hand select the 4 fucking games you want to watch. 

Part of me thinks they simply held this feature back so come 2024 they could say they did something. "Guess what guys?! We have a brand new incredible feature for you! You're so welcome!". Even though we all know the technology to do that has easily been available for years. But whatever. They finally did it. Better late than never.

On top of that, YouTubeTV + Sunday Ticket has a brand new Fantasy View feature.

YouTube - This year, fans can connect their Yahoo Fantasy accounts to Fantasy View. Now, both NFL Fantasy and Yahoo Fantasy users can keep tabs on their teams without taking their eyes off the game.

Fantasy View on YouTube TV is available on both TVs and mobile devices. To connect your fantasy account, visit the ‘Sports’ tab under account settings on your mobile device. For viewers watching NFL Sunday Ticket games through YouTube, Fantasy View will also launch on mobile devices, tablets, and web later this season.

Viewers’ fantasy leagues will be more deeply integrated into their watch experience too. Coming soon, fantasy users will start seeing key plays and multiview combinations tailored to their fantasy lineups. Take a look at the sneak peek and let us know what you think!

On the surface that seems kind of cool. Although it's not compatible with ESPN Fantasy, so it's not going to help me out any. But even if I could use it, when I think about how it would be in practice, I still don't see myself using my television to check fantasy scores when my phone is right there. I'm almost certain navigating a fantasy football app on an iPhone is going to be quicker than flipping through tabs on my TV with a remote control. But still, the Key Plays feature attached to your fantasy players is neat. I'm unclear whether it will give you fantasy score alerts. If a little box would pop up in the corner of my screen every time one of my players makes a play, I'd love that. But I don't see any specific mention of that in the YouTube blog

They're also adding some "spoiler mode" features, which I don't fully understand the need for.

That’s not all — these updates join some of our other gameday features:

• Hide scores for specific teams using spoiler mode, so you avoid final scores or live previews from appearing before you’re ready to start watching
• If you’d like more advanced playback controls to get closer to the action, we have a feature for YouTube TV members. While watching a game live on your TV, select the three dot more menu to find the “Broadcast Delay” option. From there you have the option to choose between “decreased” or “default.” The feature will stay on until you disable it to go back to default. "Default" is best to minimize the chance of playback interruptions; "Decreased" is best to reduce live spoilers

I suppose some people watch TV that way, but I want to know what's happening in the NFL in real-time. If I'm using multi-view, I'm already going to have 4 games on my screen. One of them will probably be the RedZone channel anyways. Maybe there are people out there who see 2 minutes left in Giants-Eagles, and 2 minutes left in Chiefs-Raiders, and want to watch the endings full screen one-at-a-time without having anything spoiled. Or something along those lines? Idk that just seems like too much work for me. 

Now YouTubeTV just needs to get their shit together for college football. College football multi-view is where they really drop the ball. They simply refuse to ever give you the 4 games you want to watch. They'll give you 100 different 4-game combinations on a Saturday, but in every single one there will be 1 game that's like, "Florida A&M vs Prairie View". Or the two biggest 12pm games won't be paired together at all. I don't know if it has something to do with TV rights, where there are certain networks they aren't allowed to pair together. I think that almost has to be it. But it drives me crazy you can't simply select the 4 channels you want on your screen. That feature shouldn't even be something that's specific to the NFL or college football. It shouldn't be sports related at all. Just let me pick whatever 4 channels I want on my multi-view at any given time. It's not like the technology isn't there. That shit drives me crazy. I don't care what you have to do, or who you have to pay off YouTubeTV. Just figure it out. 

P.S. I did just find a YouTube video that talks about a new Multi-View Builder feature that YouTubeTV is slowly rolling out, and may or may not be ready for college football season. But it sounds like it's still not going to include all games. It'll still be some watered down version where only a certain amount of games on TV are eligible to be swapped in.