PM: iFollow users

Just wondering how many of you have contacted EFL in some way to complain about the service, what you've complained about and the responses you have or have not received ?

A lot of users seem to be making excuses for the club / iFollow, like the additional cost of commentary and other basics. But just have a look at the link below. This is an archived live stream from the team I coached in Germany. They stream every single game, home or away, and the team who does it is independent and amateur. It's their hobby and they've been doing it for a few years. They get a little here and there from small crowdfunding but it is just three normal guys with some tech knowledge who rock up with some video kit, laptops and 4G modems broadcasting via LiveStream.

The streams are FREE to watch, great quality, have live two person commentary in sync with video, multiple camera angles, replays, score and time on screen. They've added over the years (replays are new for example). The third guy keeps an eye on the stream and they have a live chat on which you can report issues which, if they have, they feed back on progress etc and fix immediately. Issues are rare but most often it's when there is crap 4G coverage in stadia in remote towns. They innovate, trying drone film angles when I was there but the drone drove the players and coaching staff nuts so they stopped it.

User Posted Link

OK, it's in German but if you have a quick click you can see that my point is that given these guys can do it on a skeleton crew and a tiny budget and provide the service for free, the fact that iFollow lacks such basics, for 110 quid a year we should be demanding at least this level of service. The club should, together with other EFL clubs, be putting the iFollow service provider under intense pressure to deliver or lose the contract.

BTW, it's not only my old team who does the streaming. The Braunschweig Lions and Tirol Raiders (Austria) do even better quality although they are funded by the teams, but loads of teams across Europe do something similar now. It's really no longer rocket science. They've done it on the cheap and sold it at a high price.

In Euros I paid 123 for iFollow, to watch at most 40 games of 90 minutes (still don't know all the blackout games) at a s**t quality. I paid 179 for NFL Gamepass which gives me theoretically (cos some are on at the same time) 65 pre-seasons, 256 regular season and 12 post season games per year, and archive of every single game going back to 2012, every single Super Bowl ever, thousands of hours of ESPN, HBO and NFL documentaries, and NFL Network live 24/7. And they don't restrict it to one device either.

NFL Gamepass was down for an hour a few Sundays ago (they've switched supplier who have f**ked it up a bit but still light years ahead of iFollow). Within two days I had an email informing me that I was going to receive a 30% refund on my yearly subscription because of the disruption.

This is why I am constantly ranting about this service. I DON'T WANT to have to cancel my subscription next year. I want them to have improved the service. But if it continues like this year they are taking the piss and have learned nothing from the Canaries World debacle.

Anyway, I needed that rant more for myself than anyone else. I feel all relaxed now. Ha ha.

Posted By: Steve in Holland, Nov 20, 13:18:29