The Milwaukee Bucks are out, it’s official. It was close, though, as they lost 119-118 to the Indiana Pacers. But this marks the third consecutive time that Giannis Antetokounmpo’s team has crashed out of the first round of the Playoffs. But tonight’s game itself was slightly overshadowed. By what, you ask? The broadcast. And it happened in a way that Adam Silver won’t like in the slightest.

You see, tonight the YouTube TV app messed up big time.

With 20 seconds left in the first quarter, the broadcast stopped, displaying an error message. It had glitched out, locking fans out of the Pacers-Bucks game tonight. And it happened even if you were enjoying a seamless broadcast initially. Essentially, anyone who tried to tune in was met with the same frustrating message: “This program’s blocked in your area.” What terrible timing for such an issue to occur!

A blackout during a potential closeout game? That’s not just a technical issue — that’s a PR nightmare. But it’s not just a PR nightmare for the league. After all, with YouTube TV having 9.4 million subscribers per recent estimates, YouTube has a lot to lose by gaining the “glitchy” tag. It won’t matter if it’s Alphabet, the parent company of YouTube and Google, or even the NBA. No one will be unhappy with how things unfolded tonight.

As of now, there are no updates on what caused the technical difficulties. Neither the league nor YouTube has released a comment or an update about it. Nor is it clear whether the users had their issue resolved. All in all, amid declining ratings, this is not a good look for the league at all.

And fans online did not hold back in reacting to this blackout glitch during the Pacers v Bucks Game 5. Here are some of the best ones we found.

Fans go ballistic on Adam Silver after YouTube TV glitch

One fan could not believe that YouTube TV locked them out mid-game. “I don’t get how I was able to watch Pacers-Bucks for nearly a full quarter and now it’s “blocked in your area”?” they wrote on X. Imagine this — your team is down by 2 in the fourth with seconds to play. The best player on your team throws up a prayer to beat the buzzer. But just as the ball’s about to go in, you see an error message. It would drive us up a wall, and we’re sure that’s how the abovementioned fan must have been feeling. While tonight’s glitch didn’t happen in the fourth, it’s still quite an error on YouTube TV’s part.

Another user attempted to tackle an issue we talked about earlier. “Why are NBA ratings down?” they asked before answering their own question. “Well.. im a big bucks fan. I also like watching the pacers… the game is on nba tv. A channel i have on youtube tv. Its the playoffs…” they trailed off before asking two important questions. “Like why would you make it harder for people to watch your games? Especially during the playoffs?” they wrote in their post on X.

The Playoffs are like the final act in the NBA calendar. It’s what the teams play for in the regular season. Messing with the viewers at this stage in the season is akin to playing with fire. After all, the 2024/25 regular season saw a year-over-year fall off of 2% from last year, per Forbes. While the metrics for YouTube TV aren’t available, judging by the falloff in the TV ratings, it’s safe to they can’t afford any more missteps like this. Unless they wish to lose a bigger chunk of their viewership.

Finally, one basketball fan simply implored the league to get its act together. “@NBA Broadcast for Pacers-Bucks literally went to “blocked in your area” on YouTubeTV with 20sec left in Q1. What a joke. Figure out how to broadcast your PLAYOFF games nationwide without putting it on the fans to spend more money,” they wrote in an X post. Put simply, Adam Silver, the NBA, and their partners need to do better. Such an issue during the Playoffs simply cannot occur. If this becomes a regular occurrence, well, people will simply lose faith in the league’s services. And that could lead to something even worse — pirated streams. And we’re sure that’s the last thing Adam wants.

So, ultimately, the NBA and YouTube simply need to work together and find exactly what caused the issue. And then they need to ensure this never happens again!