Sport’s reliance on technology was underlined last Sunday after New England Patriot’s Microsoft Surface tablets broke for almost half an hour during the AFC Championship game against Denver Broncos.

The fault, which was later attributed to a network failure, epitomised the problems for the franchise as they fell short against the Broncos 20-18. However, the result was reasonably overshadowed by the blunder by the tech giant.

CBS journalist Evan Washburn reported that during one defensive possession, Patriots’ coaches ran into some trouble with their Surface tablets and were unable to show pictures and tactics to the players.

After the problem, a Microsoft spokesman came out and said that the fault was actually network related and not attributed to the tablets themselves.

“We worked with our partners who manage the network to ensure the issue was resolved quickly,” they said.

After signing a $400 million deal with the NFL for a 5-year period in 2013, Microsoft provides Surface tablets to all of the league’s teams. And while the partnership was aimed at giving Microsoft a presence in the NFL, the organisation had to request that broadcasters and journalists stop calling the tablet an “iPad”.

While it’s not one of the first times that technology has been attributed to a sports team losing, fans, experts and even some players took to social media after the match blaming the network outage for the loss.

It’s certainly not a good look for Microsoft with the Super Bowl just two weeks away.

Before today, the two other lasting memories of the Surface with the NFL this year — first: pic.twitter.com/UVo7yd0nLP

— M.G. Siegler (@mgsiegler) January 24, 2016

Those tablets always malfunction.

— Geoff Schwartz (@geoffschwartz) January 24, 2016

Relevant: A brief history of NFL quarterbacks destroying tablets https://t.co/V7fS30amkK

— Michael Katz (@KatzM) January 24, 2016