NESN 360

For an app that demands an additional $30 per month on top of cable or streaming, the lack of attention to the actual fan experience is shocking. Live games are great if you can watch them in real time, but many fans cannot and go out of their way to avoid scores until they can catch the replay. This app completely ruins that by plastering the final score in the replay section itself, with no option to hide it. That is Sports UX 101, and the fact it hasn’t been addressed makes the app feel careless and dismissive of the people paying for it. A simple toggle or drop-down to reveal scores only when a user chooses would solve this. Equally frustrating: there’s no dedicated section for the Bruins’ full season schedule (or if there is, it’s buried so deeply that it’s practically impossible to find). How can a team-specific subscription service not have the most basic resource—a clear, accessible season schedule—front and center? Overall, this feels like a product built without any actual input from sports fans. At this price point, the bare minimum should be protecting the viewing experience and providing basic team information in a user-friendly way. Until those glaring gaps are fixed, it’s hard to recommend this app as anything other than an overpriced afterthought.

Picture this: Red Sox are on a ten game win streak. You’re excited to watch their next game, but NESN decides that now is the time to update the app. Completely locks you out from watching possibly one of the most hyped up games of the season that you already paid to watch. You call the support number where the automated message says “There are no available phone reps to take your call right now. Please try calling again later” and then hangs up on you. You email support and they don’t respond until the next day. They issue a PSA to everyone, because this not only happened to me apparently. And they say apologies for the inconvenience, try signing in today for a CHANCE to win Red Sox tickets. Then you finally log in and the app is somehow worse than it originally was. No more 10 second rewind or fast forward button. No more watch live, resume where left off, or play from beginning, you have to scroll to find what part of the game you want to watch. I think they got rid of the line up buttons on the right hand side which is so sad. The app entirely downgraded and decided to downgrade at possibly the worst time possible and NESN did absolutely nothing to rectify the issue.

I mostly use this with a Fire stick 4k and when it's working it's not bad. You open the app, click on the Bruins game and if the game has started already you can choose to watch live or start from the beginning. Generally the fast forward, rewind and pause works well enough with no issues and you can get through an entire game. Having said all that, when things aren't running smooth, this app is like a stubborn teenager and will not cooperate. An example would be tonight's game against the Lightning. I opened the app around 7:50, had to mute and look away because it always starts live even if you choose watch from beginning. Usually this works, but not tonight. I tried 3 times to watch from beginning and it kept playing it live. Tried rewinding and all that did was buffer and go back to live. I missed the first half of the period, then the app quit, had to restart. Has a pause functionality but when you unpause, it plays live. Oh yeah you have to be careful towards the end of the game. If you're not caught up to real time by the end of their broadcast it cuts out and immediately sends you to Bruins overtime live. Overall it's not great because the coverage is so erratic. It's buggy as heck and frustrating at times but I'm willing to put up with it bc I love the Bruins and I dont want to shell out $90 per month for Fubo.