YouTube Streaming Issues Hit NFL Sunday Ticket Subscribers

YouTube is struggling at the worst possible time, with football fans reporting streaming issues while trying to watch NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. This wouldn't be the first time a service provider has experienced some type of outage or similar problems during a notable NFL moment — Comcast has claimed that crown more than once — but it is particularly frustrating this time around, as YouTube TV is currently the only way to watch the Sunday Ticket games.

If you're experiencing buffering issues on YouTube 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.

— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) October 29, 2023

The company's support team acknowledged the problem in a tweet on X, formerly known as Twitter, at around 2 p.m. Eastern Time, explaining that it is aware of the complaints and that its engineers are working to get a fix in place. At the time of writing, that fix hasn't yet been implemented, and many users have taken to social media to complain about the matter. YouTube hasn't stated what the problem may be nor has it provided a timeframe for when the issues may be resolved.

According to some impacted YouTube TV users, the issues initially seemed to be due to the end user's own internet connection — things like pixelated video feeds and chronic buffering. However, the company acknowledged the buffering issue in its tweet as being the result of whatever is malfunctioning, noting that the problem may impact the regular YouTube platform, YouTube TV, and NFL Sunday Ticket. Reports about problems using YouTube have spiked at Downdetector.

Football fans can still stream the games via their local broadcast networks, but that assumes they own a digital TV antenna. Unlike those OTA broadcasts for local market games, YouTube TV's NFL Sunday Ticket offering isn't free — and, in fact, it is an extra expense that comes in at hundreds of dollars per year on top of the regular YouTube TV subscription. At the time of writing, YouTube TV lists the NFL Sunday Ticket subscription at $349 per year, and it requires the subscriber to pay for YouTube TV's base $72.99 per month plan, as well.