DIRECTV has a long history of offering interactive experiences using their receivers and DVRs. The latest is Sports Central, which offers something that the company’s never offered before. Is it worth it, or is it just a gimmick? I spent some time using it in order to find out
Where you can find the Sports Central App
The Sports Central app is available on DIRECTV Gemini devices. It’s not available on the company’s traditional receivers or Genie devices. You will need to have a Gemini in order to use it.
The reason for this is simple: despite its conservative looks, Gemini is the most powerful piece of consumer hardware the company has ever made. The HS17 Genie 2 has a lot of capabilities and it probably beats the Gemini in raw power. But it’s designed to be a hands-off device. When it comes to the way people are interacting with their TVs, Gemini far surpasses any other device that DIRECTV has ever had.
The reason for this is Gemini’s mission to run streaming apps. Streaming apps take a lot of processor power, because they’re not really optimized to run on specific hardware. So, any device that runs a streaming app has to be powerful enough to do it fairly well.
Taking a look at the Sports Central app
You can get to Sports Central by pressing the HOME button on your remote and scrolling down to Sports Central. You’ll see a quick list of the games that are available, plus you can launch the NFL Football app by making sure it’s highlighted and pressing the OK button.
Within the NFL app you can schedule recordings, look at upcoming games, and even look by team. But, unlike other DIRECTV products, Sports Central does something that’s never been done before.
Sports Central will show you all the games that are out there, even if they don’t air on DIRECTV. We all know that Sunday Ticket went over to YouTube this year and this app makes it possible for you to track those games as well. You can’t record them through the Gemini, but at least you can know what the schedule is and set everything up on the proper app.
There’s also actual odds data on the games, updated fairly frequently. The bloodsucking lawyers would like me to tell you that online betting isn’t legal everywhere. But if it is, you can use the data in the Sports Central app to figure out what to bet on.
Overall experience
I found the NFL app loaded quickly and was very responsive. For the programs that are on DIRECTV, you have a completely closed environment which allows you to record anything you want. It would be cool if the recording requests could be passed along to YouTube TV but I don’t know if it’s even possible.
I will say that DIRECTV’s experience with interactive apps hasn’t always been great, especially compared to what you get on your phone. It’s hard to beat that convenience. The developers have tried. They’ve done amazing things with what they had. But, with Gemini, there’s finally a way to bring a high-quality experience to the TV screen. It’s as good as any other streaming app and it’s very useful.
DIRECTV’s other streaming experiences
If you like the previous versions of DIRECTV’s sports experience, they’re still there. Press the HOME button and go to Discover and scroll to Sports.
This is the same experience that you can get on any Genie client and it includes every sport that’s out there. Sports Central is limited to NFL right now, but I do expect that’s going to change at some point.
If you really want to get old-school you can still get to the ScoreGuide interactive app through the Discover Sports menu. It’s the same as it is on other devices, and it’s the same on everything from the H24/HR24 onward.
Is all of this worth it?
Sports is a huge part of life for a lot of people. When DIRECTV lost Sunday Ticket, a lot of folks said that the company was giving up on sports. I think nothing could be further from the truth. I think the NFL wanted too much money and that’s obvious when you look at the cost of Sunday Ticket through YouTube. You can read some material where the NFL is claiming more people are “signed up” for Sunday Ticket than ever before but that’s really misleading. The list of people signed up for Sunday Ticket through YouTube doesn’t count the thousands and thousands of commercial customers who still get it through DIRECTV. It also doesn’t count the number of people who got Sunday Ticket for free the first year because they had DIRECTV. The real data isn’t likely to see the light of day.
With Sports Central, DIRECTV is showing that they have a lot of interest in sports. They’re acknowledging that they’re not the only service you use. (That’s a pretty big lift for a pay-TV company, if you think about it.) And, they’re giving you something you’re likely to use even when you have your phone in your hand. All in all I give Sports Central high marks not just for intention but for execution. I haven’t always been able to say that about DIRECTV’s interactive experiences, but this one is the best yet.
Want to know more? Here’s a video review.
As always, if you want the best DIRECTV has to offer, shop at Solid Signal or call 888-233-7563 for the best experience.
