In systems engineering, the maintenance cycle is often underappreciated or misunderstood. The goal is not simply to fix things that are broken. Effective systems require recurring inspection even when they appear to be functioning normally. Periodic review is essential to determine if something has changed or needs attention. In addition, assumptions that once seemed reasonable deserve periodic reexamination.
I have discovered that certain topics frequently resurface on this site. Sometimes it is because my understanding of the nuances has evolved. At other times, it is because new experiences and information prompt a revisit of old conclusions. Occasionally, posts recur based on the calendar. This weekend’s Unplugged series can be thought of as a part of a recurring maintenance review, each in its own way.
Last year, coverage of Roland Garros moved to TNT Sports and what is now known as HBO Max. After some initial trepidation, my ultimate conclusion was that the inaugural year of their tournament coverage was considerably better than I expected. After this most recent year of using the platform, I find that most of my observations remain unchanged, but a few things have improved.
One new observation for this year is that my viewing pleasure has almost nothing to do with commentators, studio shows, or the production value of the streamed matches. To repurpose a phrase I have used on some of my T-shirts, I’m just here for the tennis. That means that the technical aspects of the streaming experience are much more important than those other factors.
Most modern streaming services, including HBO Max, allow users to pause and resume content across devices. It is a travesty that the Tennis Channel hasn’t figured out how important that is to their audience. It is so annoying to me that I have to use a multi-cast solution to keep on-demand content synced between my devices. While that is nice for those days when I am watching a match while wandering all over the house, it shouldn’t be necessary. In fact, my multi-cast system largely sat idle during this year’s Roland-Garros.
Additionally, HBO Max has mastered the art of streaming a match from the beginning, even when it is still in progress. I found myself using that capability constantly throughout the tournament because some of the matches I was interested in started at 4am local time, and I usually don’t get up until 5am. The HBO Max service seamlessly let me start a match, pause to switch to another live match, and return later to finish what I had started on another device. That flexibility is incredibly valuable for tennis fans. These are all experiences that the Tennis Channel does not provide.
Unlike other sports, Tennis is uniquely unsuited to appointment viewing. Due to time zone differences and “Order of Play” scheduling, matches do not always begin at convenient or even fully predictable hours. Additionally, the length of matches is highly variable. Most tennis fans have jobs, families, obligations, and frequently their own tennis matches to play. We do not sit down and consume tennis the way people consume a football game.
Tennis is a sport that many fans watch asynchronously. A premium streaming service dedicated to the sport should both fundamentally understand that and be structured around it.
That reality makes it all the more astonishing that the Tennis Channel still has not mastered the basic functionality offered on other services. As an example of how bad it is, viewers who want to watch the entirety of a match already underway on the Tennis Channel are forced to choose between joining late or waiting until it concludes. It even gets worse from there, because there is a notable lag between the end of the match and its availability on the replay menu. Beyond the sheer inconvenience, that approach creates a spoiler problem. Experienced tennis fans know that the length of a match often provides clues about the eventual outcome. A replay posted immediately after a ninety-minute match started communicates something very different than one posted after four hours.
A year later, the aspects I continue to think about most are not a commentator or a studio segment, but rather the system design. That realization led me to a broader conclusion: tennis broadcasters are increasingly competing not as television networks but as streaming services.
It is less than a month until qualifying starts at Wimbledon, when primary tennis coverage will move from the Tennis Channel to ESPN. Thus, it seems relevant to highlight something that HBO Max does substantially better than ESPN. They actually list the names of the competitors in every match. On ESPN, most doubles, juniors, and wheelchair division matches are generically labeled as “Ladies Doubles,” “Gentlemen’s Doubles,” “Mixed Doubles,” etc. It is pretty annoying to be forced to click through doubles matches one at a time, trying to find the one I am actually seeking.
To HBO Max’s credit, the service made one noticeable improvement in navigation this year. The platform added filtering buttons for men’s singles, women’s singles, doubles, juniors, and wheelchair events. That made locating specific content substantially easier than last year. I would still like to see doubles broken into separate men’s, women’s, and mixed categories, but meaningful progress has been made.
What struck me most about this “annual maintenance inspection” is that nearly all of my observations concern product design rather than tennis coverage itself. Every item on both lists is fundamentally a system architecture problem.
That may be the biggest lesson Tennis Channel and ESPN should take from Roland-Garros coverage. Sure, commentary matters, as does the studio show and the production value. However, those things are increasingly secondary to the overall user experience. Tennis fans are trying to watch, find, organize, pause, and resume matches, all while avoiding spoilers. The broadcasters that best understand those needs will ultimately provide the best viewing experience.
Roland-Garros is now over, which means it is time for one final annual maintenance reminder. If you activated HBO Max specifically for that tournament, now is the time to cancel the service.
You will retain access through the remainder of your billing cycle, and future you will appreciate not discovering next spring that you accidentally paid for the service for an extra year when you didn’t watch it.
However, before that access expires, now is a good time to take in tennis-related content in their catalog. I would specifically recommend the movies 7 Days in Hell and Battle of the Sexes. HBO Max also offers a docuseries titled Being Serena, but I have yet to make it through that content as it is too long and far too cloying for my taste. On the other hand, HBO Max recently released a new Earth, Wind & Fire documentary just last Sunday that I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend.
As for me, I will once again turn HBO Max back on when Roland-Garros qualifying returns next year. Which, I suppose, is its own annual maintenance action.
