NFL+ subscribers ran into trouble during the early window of Week 1 on Sunday, with the league’s streaming service going down in the middle of the season’s opening slate.
At 1:19 p.m. ET, the NFL+ account on X acknowledged the outage, telling subscribers the league was working on a fix and directing anyone affected to file a support ticket. The issue persisted for most of an hour before the same account confirmed at 2:14 p.m. that the problem was resolved, again pointing anyone still having trouble to NFL customer support.
We are aware of the issues affecting the NFL+ experience and are working to fix them. We apologize for the inconvenience.
If you are experiencing technical difficulties, please submit a ticket to our customer support team. https://t.co/BxvQaFZlTp
— NFL+ (@NFLPlus) September 13, 2026
The issues affecting the NFL+ experience have been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.
If you are still experiencing technical difficulties, please submit a ticket to our customer support team. https://t.co/BxvQaFZlTp
— NFL+ (@NFLPlus) September 13, 2026
The technical difficulties arose right as eight of Sunday’s 13 games kicked off at 1 p.m. ET, and NFL+ subscribers spent much of that opening hour staring at error messages instead of a controversially overturned fumble return in Detroit, Deshaun Watson’s season-opening interception, or Josh Allen’s first touchdown of the year.
Fans reported the same kind of trouble on the standalone NFL app and on NFL Sunday Ticket through YouTube TV, with numerous subscribers deeming it a mortifying — and embarrassing — way to inaugurate the 2026 NFL season.
Yeah I’ll submit a ticket, that’ll do it, that aughta fix it. https://t.co/HLWp1RvqJ0
— Gary Treeman (@PurpyNFL) September 13, 2026
Refunds for *at least* this week and next – and/or multiple weeks of Sunday Ticket access should be the bare minimum of customer care for the @NFL here.
It’s absolutely pathetic that a $15 billion per year league can’t (or won’t) get things right for Week 1. https://t.co/BezguLvqBd
— Shawn Drotar (@sdrotar) September 13, 2026
what a disaster https://t.co/EA7DlDbCbb
— Eric Hubbs (@BarstoolHubbs) September 13, 2026
Week one injury report:
NFL+ streaming: down, Questionable to return.
So much for RedZone today. https://t.co/I1UWT9tZ3h
— Shawn Levasseur (@ShawnL) September 13, 2026
Glad to see the NFL+ app wasn’t fixed before game day another year in a row
— Kendra Middleton (@KendraMiddleton) September 13, 2026
1:22pm ET Week 1 NFL Sunday, NFL Plus and the NFL App just do not work. Incredible.
— Nick Kostos (@TheKostos) September 13, 2026
Love paying for @NFLPlus and it doesn’t work on Week 1 NFL Sunday, good stuff
— Nick Kostos (@TheKostos) September 13, 2026
So NFL Sunday Ticket isn’t working for week one? Such a joke @nfl and @YouTube
— John Chapman (@JL_Chapman) September 13, 2026
It’s the second time in as many years a major U.S. sports league has had its flagship streaming product go down on opening day, as MLB.TV crashed on 2025’s Opening Day. The NFL hadn’t seen a comparable opening-weekend meltdown since 2022, when DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket buckled under the same kind of Week 1 demand.’
DirecTV admitted it had “missed an opportunity to deliver” and promised to make it right, following up the next week with an automatic reimbursement worth roughly $16 per subscriber when prorated across the season — after a second round of outages hit the very next Sunday.
As of Sunday evening, the NFL had not confirmed any refunds or prorated credits for those affected, despite the swelling chorus of subscribers demanding exactly that.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.