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NFL Sunday Ticket Has First Major Issue on YouTube TV; Best Ways to Watch NFL Games Without Sunday Ticket?

Social media was flooded with complains about the outage on Sunday, forcing YouTube TV to issue a statement in response.

David Satin
David covers the biggest news stories, live events, premieres, and informational pieces for The Streamable. Before joining TS, he wrote extensively for Screen Rant and has years of experience writing about the entertainment and streaming industries. He's a Broncos fan, streams on his Toshiba Fire TV, and his favorites include "Andor," "Rings of Power," and "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."
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David Satin

The most frequent reason given for why YouTube TV can't offer customizable multiview when users are watching live sports is that it would require some complex machinations on the technical side to accomplish. Company representatives say they want to ensure NFL Sunday Ticket is humming before they dive back in on a customizable multiview, and if this weekend is any indication, they’ll need a bit more time to complete that work.

  • YouTube TV saw mass buffering issues on NFL Sunday Ticket for the first time this season.
  • The technical struggles come amidst news that Sunday Ticket has struggled to attract users this year.
  • DIRECTV STREAM and NFL+ are among the best ways to stream the most NFL games if Sunday Ticket isn’t an option.

What Happened to NFL Sunday Ticket This Weekend?

Week 8 saw NFL Sunday Ticket experience significant buffering issues for a wide swath of users on Sunday. During the 1 p.m. ET slate of games, social media was flooded with complaints from customers who were stuck essentially unable to access the out-of-market games package.

The issues were serious enough to prompt YouTube TV to make a public statement on social media. It wasn’t much more than a bland acknowledgment that users were experiencing problems, but even that shows just how widespread the difficulties were.

From a delivery of games standpoint, Sunday Ticket hasn’t had many big crashes this year. But that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t had difficulties; a recent report indicated that YouTube TV had only attracted 1.3 million users to the package thus far this year, which means the company could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in its first season hosting Sunday Ticket.

Where to Stream NFL Games Without Sunday Ticket

Although Sunday Ticket presents the only way to stream out-of-market NFL games, there are still other ways to watch the league and get plenty of coverage. DIRECTV STREAM is one of the top services delivering NFL games this year. The service carries CBS and Fox, so in-market games on broadcast channels are available every week.

Nationally telecast games are also on DIRECTV STREAM, as the service offers ABC, ESPN, NBC, and NFL Network for users who sign up for the Choice plan, or buy the Sports add-on pack with the Entertainment plan ($74.99 per month plus $15 for the Sports pack). NFL RedZone is also available in the Sports pack on DIRECTV STREAM, allowing users to watch seven hours of uninterrupted ball every weekend. For a limited time, DIRECTV STREAM users get $10 off their subscription for their first three months of service, as well.

NFL+ only allows users to watch regular season games on mobile devices, not a smart TV. If that doesn’t bother you though, NFL+ has a fantastic amount of access to weekly games. Both the $6.99 monthly standard tier and the $14.99 Premium tier offer live in-market games and nationally-televised contests on every channel, and a 24/7 livestream of NFL Network. Premium subscribers can also stream NFL RedZone every week with no need for a pay-TV subscription.

David Satin
David covers the biggest news stories, live events, premieres, and informational pieces for The Streamable. Before joining TS, he wrote extensively for Screen Rant and has years of experience writing about the entertainment and streaming industries. He's a Broncos fan, streams on his Toshiba Fire TV, and his favorites include "Andor," "Rings of Power," and "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."
Read full bio ›
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