The first game of Sunday’s Divisional round doubleheader saw the Cleveland Browns take on the Chiefs in Kansas City, but for millions of people in the northeastern part of the United States, they were treated to a blank screen when they turned on CBS.
As it turns out some technical difficulties led to many people in Browns country and the tri-state area being without coverage of the start of the game — which was maybe merciful for Browns fans as the Chiefs marched, almost unimpeded, to a touchdown on the opening possession of the game. Still, that didn’t stop there from being a lot of angry NFL fans on Twitter wondering why they were looking at nothing during CBS’ biggest game of the weekend.
CBS just went out for a huge chunk of the northeast, just phenomenal timing guys
— Ramzy Nasrallah (@ramzy) January 17, 2021
Anyone else in NYC with Fios just have a blank screen on CBS right now?
— Yaya Dubin (@JADubin5) January 17, 2021
tv never played a black screen when they were making us watch the f ckin jets in new york.
— bomani (@bomani_jones) January 17, 2021
Seriously wtf @cbs @verizonfios? I guess paying $200 per month for cable isn’t enough. https://t.co/D3BDpJbhq2
— Alex Myers (@AlexMyers3) January 17, 2021
The good news is there are some workarounds. ESPN Deportes has the Spanish language broadcast of the game and, for Fios customers and others, that broadcast is working, just sans Romo and Nantz.
https://twitter.com/dominicdileo/status/1350897407219871745
If you’re in NYC and FiOS CBS isn’t working go to channel 1537. En Espanol!! pic.twitter.com/KmQ4GSfzKA
— Tony Reali (@TonyReali) January 17, 2021
Other options include streaming on the NFL app or on NFL.com as you can log in with your TV provider and watch the stream that way. It’s not the ideal setup and people who pay hundreds of dollars a month for cable are understandably upset, but you can still get your Browns-Chiefs fix, it’ll just take a touch more effort than usual.
