NFL buffering on YouTube TV? You’re not alone today

By Phil Nickinson Published October 29, 2023

An error message for the NFL on YouTube and YouTube TV — Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

We’ve got bad news for anyone who relies on YouTube and YouTube TV for their NFL games — there’s some definite lag happening today. It’s so bad and so apparent that there’s a message atop the YouTube TV help pages.

The message reads: “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.”

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On the end user side of things, you might see excessive loading times. We’re also seeing decreased resolution and/or frame rate. Sometimes it’s one or the other. Sometimes it’s both. (We’ve also been unable to watch YouTube TV on a Nest Hub Max, for what that’s worth.)

Having your NFL games lagging is never a good thing, but it’s particularly bad with YouTube TV being the biggest live-streaming service in the U.S. with more than 5 million subscribers at last count — and Google says it’s still growing, thanks to NFL Sunday Ticket having made the move to YouTube TV and YouTube proper.

And maybe making things even worse is that there’s not a darn thing any of us can do but wait.

So at this point, you’ve got a couple options. One is to shift over to an over-the-air antenna, which theoretically shouldn’t be affected (unless the problem is with the source broadcasts). Or you could switch to a YouTube TV alternative for a bit and hope it has a free trial to get you through the weekend.

Or you could just head out to your friendly neighborhood sports bar, a friend’s house, or just go outside and enjoy the sunshine.

Former Section Editor, Audio/Video

Phil spent the 2000s making newspapers with the Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, the 2010s with Android Central and then the…

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