Customers of Paramount+, Fubo, YouTube TV Complain About Service Interruptions During Super Bowl
If you experienced a loading wheel or pause for buffering during Sunday’s Super Bowl, you definitely weren’t alone.
There’s never a great time for your streaming to be interrupted by a loading wheel or error message, but during the biggest sporting and entertainment event of the year is clearly one of the worst moments for it to happen. Nevertheless, customers of several streaming services took to social media last night to vent their displeasure with streaming services like Paramount+, Fubo, and YouTube TV for losing the stream of Super Bowl LVIII between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.
- Paramount+ and YouTube TV customers experienced delays mostly early on in the stream of Super Bowl LVIII.
- Some Fubo viewers report experiencing problems into the second half of the game.
- With a new JV sports streamer from Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery on the way, competitors are running out of time to solve their issues.
How Bad Were Streaming Interruptions During Super Bowl LVIII?
As with issues of streaming latency during the Big Game, the problem of service interruptions was worse for customers in some areas than it was in others. Paramount+ and Fubo were the most complained about services, but YouTube TV also saw issues in some places.
Fans headed to social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit to make their complaints about service interruptions public. Reddit user mammiejammie found that their YouTube TV account had issues streaming the game on multiple TVs at a time, and fellow users commented that they too were having problems early in the game with occasional buffering interruptions. Even turning off the platform’s “reduce broadcast delays” feature did not put a stop to all of YouTube TV’s buffering delays.
Paramount+ saw the shortest latency time of any streaming service offering the Super Bowl, but it was also beset with loading errors and other delays during the early parts of the Big Game. Redditor Bezier_Curvez posted a photo of their Paramount+ account showing an error screen when trying to watch the Super Bowl, and many other viewers had similar problems on that streamer.
Courtesy of Reddit user Bezier_Curvez
Fubo did not iron out its problems early in the stream, as some other providers seemed able to do. Reddit user thegusbus001 posted about their struggles in using Fubo, posting a photo of a loading wheel which kept popping up in their stream. User PNW_Steej commented that they were having problems in the second half of the game as well, after experiencing relatively few issues in the first quarter. Some Hulu + Live TV subscribers also reported having issues, but these were relatively few in comparison to the complaints against Fubo and Paramount+.
Sports Streamers Must Fix Their Tech Issues Soon
Live TV streaming services don’t have a lot of time left to figure out their issues when streaming big-time live events like the Super Bowl. To be sure, most sports events won’t see so many millions of customers trying to watch at the same time, but even so, the loading delays and cut-outs in transmission are clearly not what any streaming service wants to build a reputation for.
There’s competition coming, too, especially for live TV streamers like Fubo. Last week, Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery announced they would be launching a joint venture sports streaming service with the combined sports rights of all three providers this fall. It’s fair to assume that such a platform will come with the best tech for reducing buffering/loading problems available, as both Disney and WBD have extensive and growing experience in streaming live sporting events. Disney is the parent company of ESPN+, while WBD has been streaming all events from TNT and TBS on Max since October.
That’s not to say the new JV streamer will eliminate all technical issues for all subscribers, but it will give fans a lower-priced alternative to live TV streaming services. There’s a good chance that fed-up viewers will think of that platform as a better choice than an expensive live TV platform that constantly cuts out during the most important sporting events of the year, such as the Super Bowl.
Until then, fans may want to look into getting an over-the-air antenna, many of which retail for $20 or less. These allow viewers to at least watch live sporting events placed on OTA broadcast channels without fear of loading times or buffering delays. Outside of that, it’s up to streaming engineers at companies like Paramount, Fubo, and YouTube TV to ensure that next time, fans see as few interruptions as possible during top sports events.
Fubo
Fubo is a live TV streaming service with about 90 top channels that start at $79.99 per month. This plan includes local channels, 25 of the top 35 cable channels, and regional sports networks (RSNs). In total, you should expect to pay about $91.99 per month, after adding in their RSN Fee. Fubo was previously known as “fuboTV.”