NFL Fans Put DirecTV On Mega-Blast After Second Weekend Of Sunday Ticket Outages

Week 2 of the NFL season is always a big one, as it’s early enough for fans of even the worst teams to still maintain hope, while also being too early for fans of the best teams to brag endlessly. (Not that it stops anyone.) But similar to how things played out the week prior, a slew of football fanatics weren’t able to spend the early afternoon hollering at their TVs due to DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket facing mass outages for the second weekend in a row. Well, I guess people were yelling at their TVs, but just not about the games themselves.

Millions of Sunday Ticket subscribers were extremely frustrated to discover that their Week 1 woes weren’t standalone in nature, as attempts to stream the NFL’s early afternoon games on Sunday, September 18, did not go well, to put it lightly.. And as one might have expected, DirecTV customers were quick to jump on Twitter with their less-than-glowing reactions. 

It’d be one thing if Sunday’s lack of streaming games was just a one-time affair that was resolved quickly and inspired DirecTV to apologize profusely while offering consumers partial refunds. However, this is far from the first time that the company has suffered outages for one reason or another, which continues to make fans wonder why those within the company aren’t able to prevent such anger-fueling snafus. This Twitter user opted for footage of Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator Tommy Rees to get his NSFW point across. 

Considering the DirecTV outage was an issue for multiple hours, fans were not shy about aiming their jokes at the company’s employees for things being so botched for so long.  

And you better believe fans had ideas for who might be good to replace the peeps behind Sunday Ticket. (Not that we're condoning the message or anything.)

Various fans were quick to compare DirecTV's weekend efforts to those of a highly popular fast food chain. 

At least one fan questioned why the company is so bad at handling what customers need, but is super-quick to look out for its own interests. 

The satellite company, which was called out for deceptive advertising in years past, has been consistently losing customers with each year that passes, in part due to streaming platforms quickly rising in popularity in regards to live TV, and also in part due to occasional price spikes. And though its parent company’s boss, AT&T head John Stankey, has made it clear that DirecTV is not driving the future of the business, its exclusive access to NFL Sunday Ticket has presumably played a big role in maintaining a football-loving customer base who would have been long gone otherwise. Especially considering the amount of time the app needs to work is so relatively minimal. 

Those who missed out on the early live games had to wait for highlights to see the headline-making Tom Brady blow up in frustration during Tampa Bay’s win over New Orleans, in which his on-field tantrum sparked a bench-emptying brawl that left two players ejected from the game. I doubt his wife Giselle had any Sunday Ticket issues, though, since she probably wasn’t watching anyway. But even that game made it into the DirecTV chiding.

The 2022-2023 season marks the final year that DirecTV has exclusive control over Sunday Ticket, as NFL head honcho Roger Goodell announced in June that a new service will be taking over as the League’s streaming home going forward, though it has yet to be named. It’s almost as if the satellite provider is intentionally botching things to further prove that another company needs to step in and take over. I can't wait to see the celebrations begin, regardless of what platform takes over.

For what it's worth, DirecTV did send out a brief message once the service started working again, though I'm not sure fans felt overwhelmed with confidence.

Will Sunday Ticket glitch out for three weeks in a row, or will customers actually get to watch a full day of football in Week 3? While waiting to see how it plays out, head to our 2022 TV premiere schedule to learn what new and returning shows are popping up soon.