YouTube TV cements itself as the place to watch football with two new features

YouTube TV was already the best place to watch football, but it’s getting even better.

YouTube TV has quickly become the go-to streaming service for sports fans. It has access to just about every sporting event you’d see on cable, but adds fun features like the ability to see stats in real time or catch-up by seeing key plays you’ve missed. The streaming service is further cementing its status as the place to watch football with two new features before the season kicks off — choosing your own games to watch in the multiview feature and the ability to follow your fantasy football team in real time while watching games on YouTube TV.

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Choosing your own games in multiview

Putting the choice in your hands

YouTube TV, Front Office Sports

YouTube TV’s multiview feature might be the coolest feature any streaming service offers. Multiview lets users watch up to four games at a single time, splitting multiple channels into two, three, or four windows on their TV. This makes it ideal for Saturday and Sunday afternoons when channels are filled with football games.

Multiview was an instant hit when it first launched on YouTube TV to coincide with the 2023 NCAA Basketball Tournament. As the football season came around though, and YouTube entered its first season as the rights holder to NFL Sunday Ticket, it became clear that fans had one problem with the feature — you couldn’t choose which games appeared in your multiview. Instead, you were forced to choose from YouTube’s list of pre-selected combinations of games.

That’s all changing this football season though. YouTube TV began adding the ability to build your own multiview after the football season ended last year, but the ability is expanding with more options coming to NFL Sunday Ticket this season. Each Sunday afternoon as multiple games are kicking off, you’ll be able to build your own perfect viewing experience by selecting the four games you want to watch the most. All you have to do is select the multiview option at the bottom of one game you’re watching and then choose build your own multiview at the top of the options that appear. You’ll then be able to add up to four of the games that are currently airing.

The feature still isn’t perfect though. It sounds like there will be some limitations in regard to putting the games that are being broadcast locally on Fox and CBS into your multiview. You’ll likely still be able to watch those games in multiview, but just without some of the expanded features that NFL Sunday Ticket offers. You also won’t be able to select just any channel as multiview is limited to sports or news streaming channels.

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Fantasy View

Add your fantasy team to your YouTube TV account

YouTube TV, Front Office Sports

One other feature that’s being added to YouTube TV this football season is the ability to track your fantasy football match-up while you’re watching the games.

If you play fantasy football using Yahoo or NFL.com, you’ll be able to link your fantasy team to your YouTube TV and track how both you and your opponents players are doing for the week. This should make following your team a breeze throughout. Once you’ve linked your team to your YouTube TV account, you’ll be able to check how they’re doing by selecting the stats and scores option while you’re streaming a game. That’ll open up a window with options for stats, scores for other games, and an option to check out your fantasy team.

YouTube TV is the undisputed king of streaming for sports fans

Lapping the competition

YouTube TV has quickly established itself as the best live-TV streaming service for sports fans. The addition of NFL Sunday Ticket last season has helped secure that title, but unlike DirectTV which had the NFL Sunday Ticket rights for 30 years prior, YouTube TV seems intent on trying to make the viewing experience as cool as possible for football fans.

In addition to the huge expansion of multiview options, YouTube TV has a huge suite of cool features for tracking all games around the NFL and college football. If you switch to a new game, you can catch up quickly with YouTube summarizing the key moments of the game thus far. You can see live stats for any game happening, and now you can even follow your fantasy match-up without taking your eyes off of the game. YouTube TV hasn’t been content with continuing how sports broadcasting has been done since the 1960s. All these additions, in only their second year as one of the NFL’s top broadcasting partners suggest football fans could be watching games in whole new ways as the partnership grows and YouTube TV continues to innovate.

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