The biggest loser in Sunday's NFL playoff action? Microsoft.

There are many ways to fail in the tricky world of sports sponsorships.

There are the idiotic, fan-resented corporate stadium names: the KFC Yum! Center, the University of Phoenix Stadium, and the blundering name game that once had the Oakland Raiders playing in the "Overstock.com Coliseum." Or the awkward, shoehorned car giveaways (especially from GM), presented at the end of big games to sports stars that invariably couldn't look less interested if they tried.

There are the weird endorsements that hurt fans' brains, like Tom Brady hawking UGGs or Jimmy Johnson promoting Extenze:


And there's the bad luck of a good endorsement gone sour (think: anyone that signed a deal with Tiger Woods or Lance Armstrong circa 2009).

In the chaotic world of sports, the fortunes of sponsors can change as quickly as it does for the players on the field.

During Sunday's AFC championship football game between the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots, Microsoft found a new way to fail in sports sponsorships, and experienced how risky an exclusive technology partnership could be -- live, along with an audience of millions watching from home.

The NFL & Microsoft Surface

For context, in 2013, Microsoft announced a partnership with the NFL to become the league's exclusive supplier of the tools for teams to review plays, replacing the old system of rushing black-and-white Polaroid photos taken of play formations taken from the stands and rushed down to coaches and players for review.

And that's the only thing the Surface tablets would do. To prevent cheating, the tablets are locked down with a single photo-viewing app and tied to a private wireless network. "The NFL is a great stage for Surface, because Surface has the chance to help change the game," wrote Microsoft's tablet team enthusiastically at the beginning of the partnership.

Soon, bright blue tablets with "Microsoft Surface" branding proliferated on the sidelines of America's most popular professional sport, as part of a multi-year functional marketing deal that reportedly cost Microsoft $400 million. Microsoft's first years with the NFL were not without its hitches, but those problems mostly boiled down to TV announcers habitually calling the tablets "iPads," or NFL players expressing frustration with the devices from time to time.

While stressed out quarterbacks can't be helped, the company actually did go to the trouble of "coaching" a few NFL announcers not to refer to the Surface tablets by the brand name of Microsoft's top rival.

From 'iPads' to #Tabletgate

On Sunday, everyone correctly referred to the tablets by brand name, in the first instance where Microsoft would have probably preferred the iPad misnomer. It started on the sidelines, when the Patriots began having problems with their team tablets beginning in the first half of the nationally televised game.

Word began to spread that New England's Microsoft Surface tablets wouldn't boot up, leaving the Patriots' coaching staff without the ability to review previous plays -- and thus, unable to make informed adjustments to its struggling game plan.

New England's tech problem persisted long enough that reports eventually made it to air: "On the Patriots' sideline here, they're having some trouble with their Microsoft Surface tablets," said CBS's Evan Washburn to the games' commentators during the live broadcast. "That last defensive possession, the Patriots' coaches did not have access to those tablets to show the pictures to the players."

That possession, TechRadar noted, resulted with the Broncos scoring.

"The NFL officials have been working at it," Washburn's initial report continued, "Some of those tablets are back in use, but not all of them. A lot of frustration that they didn't have them that last possession."

Meanwhile, the home-team Broncos' Surface devices were working just fine. This resulted in another live broadcast report on the NFL's rules regarding use of the tablets, which stated that Denver could keep using their Surface tablets since New England's problems only started after kickoff. On the Patriots' sidelines, coaching staff resorted to hardwiring their Surface devices to keep connected.

Microsoft, it should be noted, fixed the problem within about 20 minutes, and as a spokesperson later stated, the issue was with a network connection, and not with the Surface tablets in use.

"Our team on the field has confirmed the issue was not related to the tablets themselves but rather an issue with the network," said a Microsoft statement later. "We worked with our partners who manage the network to ensure the issue was resolved quickly."

That may be the case, but the problem couldn't be fixed faster than the rise in anger and conspiratorial thinking for Patriots' fans, many of whom took to Twitter in frustration and created a new "gate" and its corresponding hashtag: #Tabletgate.

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