A nightmare that started with the 2026 NFL season opener at Melbourne has now snowballed onto football Sunday, and NFL+ is scrambling for answers. When thousands of fans logged in for 13th September’s afternoon kickoffs, the NFL app and RedZone were supposed to be ready for all of America, but users found themselves staring at an “unable to process request” pop-up instead. The online outrage was such that NFL+ had to write an apology before making things right.

“We are aware of the issues affecting the NFL+ experience and are working to fix them. We apologize for the inconvenience,” NFL+ wrote on its X handle. “If you are experiencing technical difficulties, please submit a ticket to our customer support team.”

When the international game in Australia was streamed on Netflix earlier this week, fans reported frame drops, audio lag and buffering during the NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia. Many criticized the league and Netflix over the stream’s video quality.

But the NFL+ problem affected the full Sunday viewing experience rather than one standalone game. NFL+ acknowledged the issue at 1:19 p.m. ET and said it had been resolved at 2:25 p.m. ET, an official response window of roughly 66 minutes.

NFL+ Premium costs $14.99 per month, while the basic tier costs $6.99 per month. For thousands who waited more than seven months for football to begin in earnest, that investment started looking like a bad one right off the bat. The network seems to have fixed the technical problems eventually, but many had already switched to offshore streams just to catch up to the eight-game early window.

“The issues affecting the NFL+ experience have been resolved,” NFL+ shared the update on X. “We apologize for the inconvenience. If you are still experiencing technical difficulties, please submit a ticket to our customer support team.”

For context: The NFL’s 2026 regular season did not actually begin in Melbourne. The league opened on September 9, when the Seattle Seahawks hosted the New England Patriots in a Super Bowl LX rematch. The 49ers’ Week 1 matchup against the Los Angeles Rams came a day later, on September 10 in the United States, though it was played September 11 local time at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Still, the Rams-49ers game was historic in its own right. It was the NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia, with Netflix carrying the broadcast nationally for viewers outside the teams’ local markets. Fans in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area could watch through their local NBC affiliates, while the matchup was also available through other designated international and mobile viewing options.

Viewers tuning in for the league’s Australian debut reported buffering, dropped frames and audio-sync problems. Then, less than three days later, NFL+ users encountered a separate access issue during the first full Sunday slate of the season.

As the 1 p.m. ET games began, NFL+ subscribers reported frozen screens, app crashes, failed streams, and problems accessing RedZone or having their subscriptions recognized. The issues appeared to be centered on NFL+ and the NFL app, not every platform that carries RedZone, but they still disrupted the most important viewing window of Week 1 for Premium subscribers.

But missing an hour of Sunday football was not something the fans were prepared for, especially having paid for a seamless experience. They quickly took to social media to express their displeasure when the outage first happened.

“It’s everyone, and I want some money back you absolute imbeciles,” one fan wrote.

“No, stop apologizing,” wrote another. “And why do we have to submit a ticket when the problem is YOU, bruh? This ain’t like no broken faucet in our apartment.”

The outage hit at a particularly costly moment for viewers. Eight games kicked off at 1 p.m. ET on September 13, including Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts, Jets-Titans, Browns-Jaguars, Bears-Panthers, Falcons-Steelers, Saints-Lions and Buccaneers-Bengals. For fans who subscribed specifically for RedZone’s opening-week coverage, the timing only intensified the frustration.

“Issues?? You mean it doesn’t f****** work? Between a regular season game in Australia and now this you’re showing you don’t give a s*** about real fans,” another fan fired off under the first announcement.

That post also pointed to the NFL’s streaming troubles earlier in the week. Netflix carried 49ers-Rams from Melbourne as the league’s first regular-season game in Australia and the first of five games in its 2026 Netflix package. Viewers reported muted or delayed audio, blurred video, frame drops, and synchronization issues, creating a rough start to the league’s international streaming slate.

“How about you f****** open up the channel on YouTube for free in the meantime, maybe you can start with that?” suggested one fan. “Hosting games in Australia and can’t even get your f****** app ready for week 1.”

For now, NFL+ has not provided a free alternative stream during the disruption. As they mentioned in their tweet, in place of that, its support page directed customers to “Submit a Request,” matching the guidance in the company’s outage posts. For subscribers already unable to access a paid product, that response became another point of contention.

“I respect a company that will offer refunds of credits without having to be asked,” another fan wrote, tagging NFL+. “Do you want every individual user to request on separately? We wait months for this exact day and you let us down.”

Even after the network announced that things were fixed, comments still poured in raising log-in issues, with many unable to connect with a customer service agent, and others having problems with the PC web version.

These complaints aren’t going away anytime soon unless NFL+ and RedZone up their game. Otherwise, they risk permanently losing the trust of the millions who wait all year to follow their teams on the gridiron.