Sports fans excited to watch Sunday Night Football and the MLB World Series on YouTube’s multiview stream were not happy when they were forced to watch the WNBA, as well.
YouTubeTV’s split-screen multiview option can be a godsend for sports fans looking to check out multiple games at once, but users were baffled by the lack of options on October 20.
NFL and MLB fans hoped to watch the Steelers vs the Jets alongside the World Series, featuring the Yankees and Dodgers side-by-side in split-screen action, but were never given the option.
Instead, YouTube only let users watch MLB and NFL together if the WNBA was also included. Additionally, users had one other multiview option: watch the World Series and WNBA finals at the same time.
Across social media, users rallied against this decision and were baffled as to why YouTube would restrict their content options.
“Can’t split screen Sunday Night Football & The NLCS without being force fed the WNBA. No option to not have it there. When they claim to have a ratings boost, this is why,” one user blasted in a viral tweet.
“Youtube TV won’t let me watch SNF and Baseball at the same time without the WNBA finals also. Modern problems require modern solutions,” another chimed in with a photo of a blanket covering the WNBA part of the multistream on their TV.
“LMAO…. YouTube TV is forcing WNBA to be one of your views in multiview… and people are IRATE!” someone else said and added a screengrab showing more upset users.
“YouTube TV is forcing me to watch the WNBA tonight if I want to split screen pennant and SNF! I want to bleach my eyeballs! They set it up that I can’t go into multiview and just watch what I want, I have to include WNBA,” exclaimed someone else.
In response to the backlash, YouTube explained that the platform is “only sharing curated multiview streams for now, but are working to improve flexibility & introduce more options in the future.”
This isn’t the first time in October that YouTube has sparked backlash. Earlier, the platform confirmed it was testing a new version of “Premium Lite” that still contains ads after jacking up the cost of Premium.