NFL Sunday Ticket Has First Major Hiccup Of YouTube Era

The NFL is embracing streaming more than ever this season. On Sunday, fans experienced the most severe widespread technological issues since the league took a major broadcast package exclusively streaming in 2022.

During the 1 p.m. ET slate of games — a total of nine matchups — NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTubeTV had significant buffering problems that lasted into the second half of games.

YouTube acknowledged the problems and released a statement on X about an hour after the games began, noting that “our team is aware and working on a fix. YouTube TV or NFL Sunday Ticket may also be impacted. [We’ll] follow-up here once this has been resolved.”

There was no further update before the conclusion of the early slate of games.

Google and NFL spokespersons had no additional comment on the issues. It’s unclear how many Sunday Ticket customers were impacted but social media was filled with complaints and reports of the problems, and “Sunday Ticket” was trending on X.

Streaming Money

Google is paying $2 billion annually for the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, and has largely avoided streaming problems before this week. Ahead of the season, the NFL was confident YouTube would be able to consistently deliver the product to fans.

Amazon, which is paying $1 billion annually for the rights to exclusively stream “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video, has not had any major outages during its broadcasts since its package began last season.