YouTube angers fans with 'Sunday Ticket' buffering issues
Fans who followed the NFL's out-of-market game-day package from DirecTV to YouTube were angry Sunday when YouTube TV experienced issues streaming the nine games that kicked off at 1 p.m.
The company acknowledged the problems and said it was "working on a fix."
The issues persisted well into the second half of the games and seemed to justify concerns about how seamlessly the product would be able to move from a linear platform to a streaming service. YouTube became the home of out-of-market games on CBS and Fox when it reached agreement in December on a seven-year contract worth more than $2 billion per season.
YouTube has had an official NFL channel since 2015 that grew to include channels for all 32 teams and 10 official league channels before it took over "Sunday Ticket" from DirecTV, which had carried the package since it began in 1994.
The New York Post's Andrew Marchand pointed out that Amazon has largely avoided problems streaming "Thursday Night Football." (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
"Sunday Ticket" is available on YouTube TV for $349 per year with a base subscription to the service, which costs $72.99 per month.
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