Many Sunday Ticket customers missed portion of Eagles-Chiefs

As Week 2’s Super Bowl rematch between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs was Fox’s lone game in Sunday’s late-afternoon window, it was available in all markets. Despite that, people in many markets weren’t able to see the beginning of the game. That included people who have NFL Sunday Ticket.

So, what happened? The early-afternoon game between the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys (also covered on Fox), went into overtime. Not only did the game go into overtime, but the entire overtime period was played, as Brandon Aubrey’s game-winning field goal sailed through the uprights as time expired.

As other Fox games from that window finished, the network sent viewers to the Giants-Cowboys game. That kept most viewers away from the beginning of the Super Bowl rematch. And as Michael David Smith of NBC Sports explained, that included NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers.

“Fox decided to keep most of its affiliates on Giants-Cowboys until the conclusion,” Smith said. “That’s understandable, but what’s frustrating for football fans who shelled out for YouTube’s NFL Sunday Ticket package is that Chiefs-Eagles wasn’t even available on Sunday Ticket, which is advertised as the way to watch every game, every Sunday afternoon. The NFL’s biggest fans pay a significant price for Sunday Ticket because it’s supposed to be the sure way never to miss a minute of your favorite team’s game.

“Big Chiefs and Eagles fans were out of luck on Sunday afternoon, however,” he continued. “As the game kicked off, YouTube blocked viewers from watching Eagles-Chiefs on Sunday Ticket and directed them to watch it on their local Fox affiliates. But for most viewers, Eagles-Chiefs wasn’t on their local Fox affiliate. Giants-Cowboys was.”

The conclusion of the Giants-Cowboys game kept those viewers from seeing roughly the first 11 minutes of the Eagles-Chiefs game.