YouTube Has Its First ‘NFL Sunday Ticket’ Tech Fumble, Subscribers Go Bonkers
“NFL Sunday Ticket” customers who get the pricey out-of-market games package via YouTube TV took to social media Sunday to voice their frustration after buffering and pixelization issues on the virtual pay TV platform impacted the first round of games.
The issues persisted into the second half of games that started at 1 p.m. EST. Google responded by diverting users to the NFL app, which would let them authenticate via their YouTube TV subscription.
It's unclear as to how many of the estimated 1.5 million NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers were impacted. But it was enough to fully populate a few Reddit threads.
YouTube parent Google/Alphabet assumed control of NFL Sunday Ticket late last year, after DirecTV — which had sold the package exclusively since its launch in 1995 — passed on an opportunity to pay $2 billion a season for licensing rights.
Media watchers had suspected that YouTube and YouTube TV would immediately have some kind of tech meltdown with the now live-streamed package, but that never transpired through the first seven weeks of the NFL regular season.
Google hasn't said anything about a refund. But YouTube TV subscribers who have to pay $73 a month for their vMVPD plan in addition to $300 a year for Sunday Ticket were, by our back-of-the-napkin math, out about $33 Sunday.
