For years now, I’ve enjoyed the benefits of recording sporting events on my DVR and watching them after the original broadcast. This method has allowed me to bypass hours of commercials and follow my favorite teams (the New York Mets, Jets, and Knicks) without sacrificing most of my free time to the process.
It’s a dangerous game, though, and the past month, with the Mets in a playoff chase, has made that more evident than ever.
One risk of living life on delay is human failure—forgetting to set the DVR to record. But the primary hazard is the presence of spoilers—and I use that word to refer to both people and the words they use. Spoilers (the people) are usually innocent of any real malice; they’re either so excited about the results of some contest they can’t wait to share it, or they’re just oblivious to the fact that they’re giving anything away at all. I haven’t always had such a forgiving attitude, however; in fact, I’d sometimes take it as an insult to my intelligence when people would say things like, “I won’t tell you what happened, but I think you’re going to like it,” or “I don’t think you’ll want to watch that,” somehow believing that I wouldn’t be able to decode their less-than-satisfactory attempts at crypticism.
It’s important to point out that these spoilers know, before they say anything, exactly where my team loyalties are. Yet their urge to speak is too compelling to resist. Can’t they entertain themselves by finding people who haven’t yet seen The Sixth Sense or The Empire Strikes Back, and revealing key plot points?
Individual giveaways are bad enough, but institutional ones are even worse. During the 2024 Mets-Phillies National league Division Series, I asked the guys at my regular basketball pickup game to please not reveal anything about Game 3—which had started an hour before—because I was recording the game and intended to watch it later that night. They complied, which I appreciated, even if there were a couple of close calls during breaks when people would look at their phones and I’d overhear a whisper of “Wow! Don’t tell Pete!” It was tantalizing, but didn’t give anything away, so no harm done.
After asking 12 sports-crazy men to alter their conversations for me, I got home and listened to my wife explain that she wasn’t able to flip channels on the TV because a warning about a potential conflict with the DVR schedule had popped onscreen. She knew I was recording the Mets game, so she’d sacrificed her daily dose of unsolved murder and/or wilderness survival shows, rather than risk disrupting the process. As a wise man named Huey Lewis once sang, “That’s the power of love.”
Later that night I turned on the TV, looking forward to watching my recording of the game, which, aside from allowing me to skip commercials and save time compared with a live viewing, also offered my heart the advantage of fast-forwarding through some of those unbearably stressful times when your team is in the field and nothing good can happen. Fast-forwarding through the opposition’s big offensive innings is ripping a bandage off quickly instead of subjecting oneself to slow torture.
I pressed play on the recording, and saw… a black screen. This brings me to another danger of life on delay: technological failure. It only happens rarely, but it does happen. Luckily, I thought to check the on-screen guide and see if the game was being repeated later at night (early morning, actually). I set the DVR to record the replay at 4 a.m., extended the end time of the recording by two hours to be safe, and went to bed, thinking I’d just have to wait a bit longer to see the game, while simply avoiding social media, TV, radio, newspapers, and conversations with sports fans. The next day I went about my business with tunnel vision, like a horse with blinders, avoiding any source that might reveal the outcome.
Around noon, still unaware of the final score, I played the second recording. Sound. Color. All was good. I settled in, ready to watch the game, relieved that I’d made it without blowing any surprises. As the commentators discussed their opinions and predictions of what was to come, my eyes wandered to that danger zone of sports watching: the bottom of the screen, where scores from other games are posted, with brief descriptions of game highlights. As hockey scores gave way to baseball results, I saw “Mets 7 Phillies 2” appear. I was confused: the score of the most recent Mets game was Mets 6, Phillies 7. Then details began to emerge, piece by piece, at the bottom of the screen: Pete Alonso hit a home run, Jose Iglesias and Starling Marte had 2 RBI apiece. These were events that happened in the game I was about to watch. Fox Sports 1 had spoiled its own game.
This happened to me a few times during the regular baseball season, when my recordings of SNY’s Mets Fast Forward, an hour-long recap of the previous day’s game, would inexplicably include results from the same game on their scroll. I don’t think it should require the wisdom of Solomon, nor the technical expertise of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, to keep the final results of a game from appearing while the game is being shown. But since multiple TV channels have the same issue, maybe it’s more complicated than it seems.
Aside from TV conglomerates and their sports-related doom-scrolls, there’s also the ever-present danger posed by diners and chain restaurants. Any establishment that charges less than $50 a plate is likely to be stocked with TVs, with several inevitably tuned to the game you’re trying to record and watch—in its entirety—later.
Despite the risks, I plan to continue the practice of life on delay. The advantages outweigh the downside of an occasional spoiled game, and there’s a strange thrill that comes from avoiding spoilers. Because of the difficulty of doing so, the enjoyment of the game feels more “earned,” somehow. It’s like the opposite of having a secret.
There is one more drawback to living life on delay: you give up the ability to celebrate with other fans “in the moment.” For example, as I write this, I haven’t yet watched the end of the National League Championship Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Mets. So I wasn’t able to mark the occasion along with other Mets fans as they celebrated our team’s advance to the 2024 World Series. It must have been a great party, right?
Right?
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