Logging in for Football chaos

Over the last couple of months, I’ve written twice about Mr Blueberry, that person we’ve all encountered who epitomises bad customer service and deserves to be replaced by a computer.

But last week, I was reminded that despite how aggravating the Mr Blueberrys of the world can be, to truly foul things up requires a handful of major corporations and an internet connection.

It all began with annual start of the National Football League (NFL) season, better known as American Football to the rest of the world. I realise that most people in Dubai are probably more inclined to watch cricket and football, but the NFL in the US is a big deal, consisting of 32 teams across the country. The Dallas Cowboys, a team despised anywhere but Texas, is valued at $2.1 billion (Dh7.7 billion). Despite being over 92 years old, the NFL has made the jump to digital pretty well. It has with a well-designed, comprehensive website and a number of apps.

A couple of years ago, the NFL began offering a package called GamePass that allowed users to stream games over the internet at any time on demand, which means I could watch games when I woke up instead of at 3 am when the game was actually on. GamePass is a bit of an internet oddity, because while a lot of American content is available online only in you live inside the US, GamePass is available online only to people who live outside the country. I’ll spare you the details, but a screwy and archaic patchwork of rules governs how the games are broadcast inside the US.

My problem started when I went to NFL.com and tried to renew my subscription. The site didn’t like my credit card. I don’t mean it declined it; I mean the second I clicked the pay button I got an error message saying the system could not process the payment.

After about 10 minutes of triple checking that I had put my information in correctly, I had a bright idea, which are often the source of my troubles. The NFL, I remember seeing elsewhere, is available on the iPad, and Apple and my credit card are old friends. I downloaded the GamePass app, paid without issue, and then opened the app. It asked me if I would like to sign in with Facebook. Not thinking that it was likely to cause chaos, I clicked yes. A lot of apps let you login that way. I was watching a game on my iPad in minutes.

Then I went back to my desktop computer, because watching a game on an iPad is kind cool, I’d much rather watch it on my 42-inch television. I signed in to NFL.com and was told that despite a new, shiny $199 debt on the credit card, I still needed to subscribe to GamePass to watch any games. What?

I did the usual checking to make sure I was on the right account, followed by two days of emails between me and NFL, who gave me instruction on how to link my GamePass app on my iPad with my NFL.com account on my desktop. Most of my response where along the lines of “Yes, I did that,” “No, it didn’t work,” and “Ok, I’ll try it again.”

The last email from the NFL.com came from someone who asked for my receipt, user name and password, basically suggesting I’m either an idiot or a liar.

Then it occurred to me that I had signed into my GamePass app using Facebook; however, I was logging into NFL.com using a standard user name and password, as I had been instructed to do by the NFL tech support.

I went back the computer, logged back in using Facebook, and “ding.” Literally, there was a ding on my Blackberry telling me there was an email from NFL.com letting me know my video subscription was now active.

No, I understand the need today to connect media, especially among content providers and social media media, but this type of jackassery is only going to drive people away.

Neither Facebook nor Apple is at fault here. Both companies did what they’ve been doing for year. But the NFL, an organisation worth billions, couldn’t manage to handle a credit card transaction, and then couldn’t figure out how to automatically link its user accounts.

Throw Facebook in the mix and tech support who are uninformed at best, and you have a major problem. Unfortunately, I forsee problems of this magnitude as more companies try to ingrate their content with social media.

It’s hard to believe that this type of snafu is still happening on the Internet. I just wanted to watch football, not spend two days trying to figure out why I couldn’t. Maybe next time, I won’t be able to figure it out on my own. What then? I’ll demand a fat refund, and go watch the end of the baseball season instead.