The 'optimal' second-screen experience is inherently suboptimal

No one wants a second-screen experience. They just don't have a single-screen experience that's good enough. Let's change that.

Could smart TV makers give me the killer sports app I seek? (Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash)

You know what’s dumb? Owning a gloriously sized smart TV and then spending most of the game staring at my phone.

For years, media companies have looked for an ideal second-screen experience for sports fans. Whether it’s fantasy football apps, sports book apps, scores, highlights, your Twitter feed, there have been tons and tons of complementary options for fans to utilize while watching a game. The only problem is they’re not placed where they’re most useful to the user.

No one wants a second-screen experience, they just have to tolerate it because a better option doesn’t yet exist. Don’t give me a good second-screen app, give me one I can sync side-by-side on my smart TV. This is the killer app I want.

I wrote about this some on Friday, laying out my ideal inclusions to give me everything I want in one place. Then I noted it was almost certainly impossible, but … maybe not?

The biggest challenge is that sports broadcast networks have little-to-no incentive to work together. ESPN would want you to use their smart TV app, while Comcast will want you to use additional features with Peacock, etc. So the streaming app creators and cable channels aren’t likely to collaborate and create an app experience that provides a side-by-side live feed of the Yankees game on MLB.TV with my fantasy matchup info from Yahoo! and my Twitter/X feed of my favorite beat writers in attendance at the game.

But what about the company making the TV?

When I turn on my Vizio smart TV, the home screen consists of dozens of viewing options across dozens of providers. It still doesn’t show me what live sports games are on at the moment, as I’d want, but it does show a lot of the top programming across the full lineup of streaming apps. So if this screen can serve up one-click teasers to watch “The Bear” on Hulu and whatever is hot on Netflix alongside the final season of “The Bad Batch” on Disney+, why couldn’t Vizio — or Samsung or LG or Sony — create a similar home screen app dedicated to live sports games and related content? Couldn’t they develop an algorithm to scan through all my subscriptions to see what live sports I could watch from all the different providers?

Just as I can add the streaming services I subscribe too, allow me to add my logins for my fantasy teams, my preferred sports book, my Twitter feed, etc. so I can keep all of these apps open while I watch a game — or several using multiple live feeds like YouTube TV now offers.

I’m not a huge tech head, but I’d imagine something like this would require additional processing power for smart TVs. As it is, my Vizio freezes periodically when my kids switch from Netflix to Disney+. But how much would you need to add? And would the upside of a killer sports app attract enough new TV buyers to offset the additional supply costs? Speaking personally, if I knew I could curate my ideal sports watching experience by paying an additional $500 for an upgraded smart TV, I would gladly hand them my money.

In closing, I’m hardly omniscient, so it’s entirely possible there’s an app or device out there that already does this and I’m just in the dark because my free time has been severely diminished precisely since the time my wife birthed our first child. So, please, if you know of something akin to this single-screen sports experience that you like and would recommend, please drop a note in the comments.

Hi, I’m Mike. I’m a former editor for The Washington Post and ESPN. In 2024 I founded and now operate Launcher, LLC, a digital media consultancy operating out of Arlington, Va. Want to work together? Reach out on LinkedIn.

From Friday