TV Answer Man, for the third straight week I couldn’t stream the Sunday Ticket for most of the afternoon! This has really gotten ridiculous!! Do you know if they will give us a refund for yesterday like they said they would do for the first two weeks? — Larry, Clarksville, Tennessee.

Larry, the streaming edition of the NFL Sunday Ticket yesterday suffered another series of technical snafus, particularly in the first hour after the start of the 1 p.m. ET games. While the issues did not affect all streaming users, many complained on social media that they couldn’t log in, or their picture kept buffering. Some also said some of the games were blacked out although they were not supposed to be in their market.

“There is no way you’re down AGAIN for the third week in the row. You have literally one job to do and can’t do it. Thank for ruining this season,” one user complained.

“Sstill can’t access your Sunday Ticket app, even after resetting my password, deleting then reinstalling the app. Lame!” said one of many others.

(DIRECTV’s Sunday Ticket satellite subscribers get free access to the streaming version as well; it’s also available to some non-DIRECTV subscribers as a separate subscription. It’s also important to note that satellite customers were not affected by the technical outages yesterday or in weeks one and two, just those who used the streaming service.)

“We know some customers can’t access NFL Sunday Ticket online or through the app. Our teams are working to resolve this,” DIRECTV’s Twitter customer service team tweeted yesterday at 1:22 p.m. ET.

Following similar issues after the first two weeks of the 2022 NFL season, DIRECTV said they would issue credits to those affected. Will the satcaster also provide refunds to subscribers who experienced problems yesterday?

The TV Answer Man asked a DIRECTV spokesperson today and here was the response:

“The vast majority of customers across platforms were able to enjoy the games throughout the day, and we worked directly with the limited number of those who might have needed 1-1 attention based on their unique circumstances.”

The spokesperson’s comment did not specifically address refunds, but the TV Answer Man has learned that DIRECTV does not intend to issue credits for yesterday’s issues. The company believes that the number of people affected was relatively small and that its own system monitoring did not show any technical glitches. That would suggest, in DIRECTV’s view, that the issues were largely based on other factors such as faulty Internet connections at home.

Larry, hope that helps. Happy viewing and stay safe!

Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvanswerman.com Please include your first name and hometown in your message.

— Phillip Swann
@tvanswerman