The Lost Art of Pre-Recording Games

This is a two part article about the thrill of pre-recording an important game, while making sure that while you’re missing it, you avoid knowing anything about it.

In Part I, I’ll talk about my personal history and relationship with recording games. In Part II, I’ll talk about how recording last week’s Eagles-Jets game gave me the anxiety and joy that comes with this outdated mode of watching a game.

Part I was written October 15th, hours before the Eagles-Jets kickoff.

For the first time in twelve years, I’m pre-recording a Jets game.

And I feel like I’m living on the edge….

I’m recording this game because, although I badly want to watch live, I was invited to play golf at an exclusive country club. My friend won a raffle for this round and because I may never play this course again AND I want to show my appreciation, it’s time to be fully present. I don’t want to be distracted with the Jets at all.

But going out into society while recording an important game is risky. By the time I return home to watch the recording, the actual game will be over. Those who attended MetLife Stadium will either be partying in the parking lot or taking a morose NJ Transit home. Millions of fellow Jets fans around the nation will be either celebrating or sulking - and I won’t know which.

Amidst a fanbase and NFL landscape that will already know the outcome, I’ll be an island of one.

Superstitions on the whole lead to weird behavior, but there’s no superstition that blends power and helplessness quite like watching a game that has already finished, while thinking your viewership can still influence the outcome.

Plus it’s even crazier to believe your divine interaction ceases to exist if you slip up and accidentally become aware of what already happened.

The last time I pre-recorded a full game was in 2011. Twelve years ago, if you wanted the score of an out-of-town game, your best options were to open your laptop or turn on a living room television. Now with smartphones and our addiction to looking at them every 30 seconds, anyone can receive an alert, read a Twitter analysis, or stream RedZone. Even if I’m spending time with friends who don’t follow football, everyone and their grandmother either has a fantasy team or enjoys sports betting.

In this new world, I need ninja-like evasion to avoid game updates.

So today from 2:30-6 pm, when I’m enjoying a beautiful day with friends, I’ll be taking precautions.

The art of recording a game to-be-watched-later has now become an ordeal. Especially since I’m recording the game not to be a spectator, but to be a participant.

Although it’s been twelve years since I pre-recorded a sports game, my relationship with recording games goes back two decades.

My first recollection of recording games starts with TiVo. I was only nine when I saw this hilarious 2000 TiVo commercial, but the message stuck with me. TiVo’s built in DVR system allowed you to pause, rewind, and record live sports games without a physical videocassette.

When I aksed my dad if he would purchase TiVo, he said “no, but we can record games via VHS.”

The first recorded games I watched weren’t predicated on superstition, rather a rational desire to stay in touch with my team. It was 2002 when my dad recorded seven straight games of a Mets West Coast trip. Before each game, he would insert the VHS in the VCR, set the recording for four hours (in case of extra innings) and the following day, I’d wake up two hours before the bus arrived to watch a few innings.

We didn’t own a remote control for the VCR, so anytime I wanted to progress the game along, I had to walk to the television cabinet and press the VCR’s fast forward button. My eyes would get so close to the TV that even with those classic squeaky, staticy, fast forward streaks on the screen, I’d be able to clearly see which plays I should pause and rewatch. One that comes to mind was a 5-4-3 Triple Play the Mets made against the Padres. That’s the most vivid play from the VHS era.

By the mid- 2000s, I realized the fruitlessness of recording the Mets. The only team I needed to record was the Jets.

While rare, I probably recorded one Jets game per season.

I recorded September games for those lovely times my parents dragged me to Synagogue for High Holidays.

During one Sunday in December 2004, a very good Jets team had a meaningful matchup against the Steelers led by some rookie named Ben Roethlisberger. I really wanted to stay home for that game, but no matter how much I pleaded, my parents made me attend another Synagogue event. Throughout the entire event, I was thinking about the Jets game, but didn’t have this new-age paranoia that someone could look at their phone and leak the score. I would be able to soon head home and watch the recording without any drama.

After high school, I attended a year abroad program, for which my parents bought Slingbox - a relatively new TV streaming device, allowing me to watch our local cable from my laptop while in Israel.

With a seven-hour time zone difference, I could still watch the Brett-Favre led Jets at a sports bar. But since Mets games began at 2 am, I recorded their games to watch the next day. Although I watched primarily to check out their new stadium, CitiField, I’m not proud of the wasted evenings watching early-season Mets games.

College was where Slingbox got interesting. Even with colleagues sharing rumors about this up-and-coming thing called “RedZone”, I was grateful to watch the Jets in Rhode Island (aka Patriots country). The Rex Ryan-Mark Sanchez era was a treat to experience and considering I was primarily glued to my couch for these games, there was little need to pre-record and watch later.

This account of recording games leads me to this final game that I pre-recorded - a game that has left an indelible mark on myself and Jets fans everywhere.

2011 Christmas Eve: Week 16 - Jets-Giants

Let me set the stage.

The Jets were riding one of the best stretches in franchise history. Coming off consecutive AFC Championship appearances, the 8-6 Jets were in control of their own destiny to make the playoffs yet again. It would have been the first time they made the playoffs three straight years. The 7-7 Giants needed to win this game and receive help from other teams to make the postseason. Even given the New York rivalry, the implications made the matchup that much more consequential.

This game was during Christmas break and my parents graciously treated my sister and me to a vacation in Cancun. The week’s itinerary consisted of family-friendly activities like surfing, cooking classes, and bike riding. So you can imagine my mini-freak out when I learned my parents booked scuba diving during the Jets-Giants game. Fortunately, my dad had planned ahead and packed the physical Slingbox apparatus to record the game.

After finishing up scuba diving, he and I stripped off our wetsuits as quickly as possible, leaving my mom and sister in the dust, as we ran back to our hotel room to watch the recording.

Due to poor offense on both sides, the early portion of the game was close. The Jets were leading 7-3 Jets with 11 minutes left in the 2nd, but given that my dad and I were witnessing a flurry of lifeless three-and-outs, we decided to fast forward.

Now, I respect a strategically-timed fast forward, but as I learned from my early days recording the Mets, you gotta make sure that your eyes are still stuck to the screen. Too much fast forwarding may lull you into complacency and before you snap out of it, you’ll miss a huge play…

My dad and I fast forwarded through ten minutes of game clock plus commercials, seemingly on autopilot to never end this speed up. But then we saw something bizarre on the screen - a football play that looked like a glitch.

We addressed our confusion by rewinding to 2:27 left in the half, about to witness a play that would become a sliding door for both franchises.

Somehow this stout Jets D gave up a 99 yard touchdown pass to Victor Cruz. My dad and I were in disbelief.

Although we forwent any additional fast forwarding sprees, the touchdown had essentially ended the game. The Giants used that momentum to win handily 29-14. They would make the playoffs and win the Super Bowl. The Jets, who needed that win to make the playoffs, haven’t made the playoffs since.

That scarring moment is a large slice as to why I haven’t recorded a game since.

But let’s be real, the Jets haven’t given me a need to record. From 2016-2021 they were unwatchable and in 2021, they somehow choked away their own tank for Trevor Lawrence.

But this 2023 squad is highly talented, leading me to be cautiously optimistic about this season’s potential.

So here I am, about to log into YouTube TV and add this recorded game to my library. I’ll leave the house and channel the “please, world, don’t tell me anything about the Jets” mode.

For the next few hours, I’ll see how this superstition translates within a screens-driven world with no place to hide. Or maybe I’ll note how this was all an overreaction and that I’m still the unnecessarily superstitious dork I was growing up.

Thank you for reading, Part I!

In you’re reading this on the website, please share your own memories of recording games in the Comments.