Cavs win so big, it crashes NBA.com
Well, that’s a slight exaggeration.
Moments after the Cavs titanic win over the Pistons Wednesday night, streaming video was unavailable on NBA.com (See the picture above.)
My guess? Cleveland fans, hungry for a series win over the Pistons, swarmed onto the site, bogging down the league’s servers. Just a theory.
Now, why do I care about this? The NBA has done a supurb job of opening up to the internet this season — I for one have been trained to head to nba.com before, during and immediately after a game for video highlights and great stats.
Up until tonight, I hadn’t bothered to see who was powering the video on NBA.com — apparently it’s Nine Systems, whose network is based out of Englewood, Colorado.
Going with an outside provider is a smart short term move for the league — but compare this with the efforts of Major League Baseball, who has built MLBAM into a formidible online content delivery force.
Does owning the backend mean a better product for fans? Am I crazy for thinking about the online philosophical differences between pro basketball and pro baseball just after the Cavs take a 3-2 series lead over the Pistons? Does the average fan care that he can’t get video on demand game highlights within minutes of a game ending? Oh, wait — yes, a professional league should be worrying about that last one.
(Note, I got an archive of the first half of the game to work at 10:13)
And, on another note: Thank goodness the game is on ESPN. Those TNT announcers were horrible.
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