NFL issues apology as paying customers left furious during Week 1

10:58 ET, 15 Sep 2026Updated 11:12 ET, 15 Sep 2026

NFL fans were left fuming as the first Sunday of the season fell flat for viewers everywhere.

Week 1 is in the books, with the New York Jets, New York Giants, Arizona Cardinals, and Las Vegas Raiders clinching wins to make history. The opening Sunday of the season concluded with the Giants’ epic win over the Dallas Cowboys, drawing the curtain on the first hectic slate of the new year.

NFL RedZone is a celebrated show, allowing fans to tune into seven hours of live "whip-around" coverage of Sunday afternoon games. The product used to be marketed as “commercial-free,” only for advertisements to creep into coverage in recent years, much to the chagrin of fans.

Fans were even more frustrated just minutes into the season after the league’s NFL+ app appeared to crash. The NFL’s official streaming service is - on paper - a reliable way for fans to follow along with the action regardless of the market they are situated in, and it doesn’t come cheap.

Football fans pay $14.99 a month - or $99.99 for the full season - for the premium offering, which is supposed to allow you to watch NFL RedZone live on Sunday afternoons. However, just 19 minutes into Week 1 on Sunday, complaints poured in to the league, with hundreds claiming that they could not access the live feed of the action due to interruptions.

As a result, NFL+ was forced to offer an apology to fans, writing: “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.”

Naturally, fans did not take the apology lightly. One angry user wrote: “How about you f------ open up the channel on YouTube for free in the meantime, maybe you can start with that? Hosting games in Australia and can’t even get your f------ app ready for week 1.”

“Is that where I can ask for some money back?” another furious fan posted. “There’s 18 weeks of this. We pay a s--- load of money for this garbage.”

Another wrote: “It’s opening week of the season. This is pathetic. Did you not anticipate high server load, or was the $14.5 billion that you made last year not enough to purchase competent servers and a halfway decent IT team…?”

The issue appeared to finally be resolved after 75 minutes, missing a number of huge moments, including Deshaun Watson throwing an interception for the Cleveland Browns and a huge touchdown run from Buffalo Bills superstar Josh Allen. The NFL+ account posted: “The issues affecting the NFL+ experience have been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Fans were still mad, with one user writing: “yeah almost 30 fucking minutes, everyone is having the problem, we aren't submitting tickets, f------ fix the stream and give us our money back for the first month.”

“had 1 job and f----- it good job, billion dollar company btw,” one more fan concluded.