Q. I was trying to watch the NFL Sunday Ticket on my computer yesterday and the connection wouldn’t work. I couldn’t log in several times and when I was able to, the picture wasn’t there. What the Hell happened?! — Carlo, Reno, Nevada.
Carlo, countless Sunday Ticket subscribers (I certainly couldn’t count them because there were so many) leaped to social media sites yesterday to post angry complaints about the stream. Like you, they said they couldn’t log in, or their picture would crash shortly after getting in.
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“@DIRECTV What’s up with streaming today?” tweeted Danielle Allen. “This is not a trouble shooting issue. Fix the stream please! We pay a lot of money for your service and don’t give me a robo response on trouble shooting.”
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“Hope the rumors about @DIRECTV dropping #sundayticket are true. Will be great to have a company that can actually provide the service without issues. Today reminds me why I dropped them as my service provider years ago,” added ‘Steve.’
While there were some complaints about the Sunday Ticket picture on DIRECTV’s satellite service, the problem seemed largely contained to the online version of the popular sports package
The streaming subscribers said the issues began shortly before the 1 p.m. ET kickoff of the day’s first games, but AT&T’s Twitter customer help team didn’t acknowledge that there was a serious issue for more than an hour. And that made fans even madder. However, AT&T finally kicked in with an official response shortly before 3 p.m. ET.
“We are aware that some customers may be experiencing streaming issues with NFL Sunday Ticket. We are working to fix as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience,” AT&T wrote.
And two hours later, the company seemed to solve the issue, although some subscribers said they still couldn’t log in.
“NFL Sunday Ticket is back up and running! We apologize to the customers who may have had difficulty streaming earlier today. Happy streaming!” AT&T tweeted.
AT&T never explained what caused the technical snafus, but the Sunday Ticket stream has experienced numerous problems over the years, as live streaming services tend to do. The Internet-based streaming infrastructure still isn’t as reliable as traditional cable and satellite delivery systems, although it has improved some in the last year or so.
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I’m assuming that Sunday Ticket will issue no statement regarding last week’s streaming problems because there is no upside to them for doing so. They want us all to forget about it. They offered the service of providing every game. We all agreed and paid them their $300 asking price but we did not receive the service they promised of providing every game. Sunday Ticket needs to respond to their customers and they need to issue a proper refund for the games that Sunday Ticket failed to provide. Sunday Ticket, Where are you??? Please respond to your customers!!!