High viewership of the Northwoods League’s free live video webcasts on NorthwoodsLeague.tv caused some opening-night technical problems.

Over 4,000 simultaneous viewers crashed the League’s new video server on more than one occasion Wednesday night. Some games streamed flawlessly at times, but the viewership overwhelmed the system to the point that the issue wasn’t able to be entirely resolved during the course of the evening.

"It’s a good problem causing a bad problem," said Northwoods League President Dick Radatz, Jr. "We want as many fans as possible to be able watch these games, but we didn’t know how the new server would respond to the high volume of viewers until the season started."

The new server was added this year to allow for the ultimate goal of streaming Northwoods League games live to smart phones and other mobile devices. Improvements have been made to the 4-camera production and graphics have also been added.

"We have some very capable people working extremely hard to perfect the product," Radatzsaid. "We hope to have everything running smoothly soon so fans have the great viewing experience we envisioned."