Skip to main content

DirecTV to reimburse NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers for Week 2 fumble

One of the most frustrating things about live sports in 2022 is that there still are exclusives to limit where, when, and how you can watch NFL games. To wit: NFL Sunday Ticket, which allows subscribers to watch out-of-market games, remains solely on DirecTV. And DirecTV has had problems delivering a quality product — which is even more annoying considering that it’s not just a subscription service like YouTube TV or even NFL+.

So when NFL Sunday Ticket failed again this week (Week 1 games had problems, too), subscribers were, to say the least, unhappy.

For its part, DirecTV at least acknowledged the issues in real time on Sunday afternoon, tweeting the following at 3 p.m. ET: “We’re aware customers are temporarily unable to stream NFL Sunday Ticket through the app, and will share more when we restore the programming.”

That does little for someone who paid to watch the game while it was happening, of course.

DirecTV followed up around 10 p.m. ET, after all games, save for Sunday Night Football (available nationwide on NBC), had been finished. “Hello. Today’s NFL Sunday Ticket games have returned for streaming. We will continue to monitor, we apologize for the inconvenience. We appreciate your patience, and please stay tuned for more updates.”

That’s too little, too late, of course. And on Monday afternoon, DirecTV announced that it would reach out to customers who were affected and offered to reimburse them for the trouble.

We recognize we didn’t meet expectations on Sunday for customers looking to stream some of the games, and we want to apologize. While it won’t bring the games back, we plan to reach out to those affected to automatically reimburse them for week two.

— DIRECTV Help (@DIRECTVhelp) September 19, 2022

That in and of itself is the right thing to do. DirecTV apologized. It acknowledged the problem. And it offered perhaps not a solution, but at least a bit of restitution for a service that costs at minimum just shy of $300.

It also adds more kindling to what should be a roaring fire of discussion about where NFL Sunday Ticket may be headed starting in 2023, as the rights for distribution are up for grabs. Every major company you can think of has been rumored to be in the running, from YouTube TV to Disney to Amazon, which itself already has the lock on Thursday Night Football, though it’s had some growing pains, too.

Editors' Recommendations

Phil Nickinson
Section Editor, Audio/Video
Phil spent the 2000s making newspapers with the Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, the 2010s with Android Central and then the…
Can you buy NFL Sunday Ticket on a TV? Yes, no, and sort of
NFL Sunday Ticket on Google TV.

It's tough to hit a YouTube property lately without running into a giant banner for NFL Sunday Ticket. And for good reason — the only (legal) service that lets you watch all the Sunday NFL games has moved from DirecTV to YouTube and YouTube TV. And that means that NFL Sunday Ticket is available to a lot more people. Like, all of them.

That's a good thing. The ability to watch what you want on whatever hardware you have is important. But there's a funny little fluke when it comes to how you buy NFL Sunday Ticket. Depending on the platform you're on, you might not actually be able to purchase NFL Sunday Ticket. At least not without taking a few extra steps.

Read more
MrBeast is giving away 1,000 NFL Sunday Ticket subscriptions — and a Super Bowl trip
MRBeast in a video announcing NFL Sunday Ticket contests.

You had to know that NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube would at some point intersect with some of the biggest stars on YouTube, right? To that end, you can start looking for QR codes on select videos on the MrBeast channel — as well as on the NFL YouTube channel. There are 1,000 codes buried in old videos, and if you're the first to scan one, you'll get a free subscription to NFL Sunday Ticket this season (hat's worth about $450 retail).

So you'll want to be quick about it.

Read more
NFL Sunday Ticket student plans are just $109 a season
NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV.

As promised, Google has released details about NFL Sunday Ticket student plans. And the savings are pretty massive. If you're a student at a college or university, are at least 18 years old, and can verify all that via SheerID, you can get NFL Sunday Ticket for just $109 for the season.

That's about one-third the price of the non-scholarly folks out there. (On the other hand, we don't have to share dorm rooms anymore.)

Read more