Sky Sport Now users unable to watch live matches after ‘technical issue’

Sky Sport Now users were hit with a "technical issue" on a busy evening for sports. Photo / Supplied

Sky Sport Now is back to full service after a technical issue sidelined disgruntled Sky TV users from watching live matches on a busy Friday night.

The outage affected users of Sky Sport Now, the digital streaming service that allows access to sports channels live and on demand without a Sky box.

Sky head of communications Ellie Brosnahan confirmed to the Herald that service was fully restored to Sky Sport Now just before 9.50pm.

The outage appeared to begin shortly before 7pm, when the Highlanders v Hurricanes game kicked off and an hour before the Warriors v Manly Sea Eagles at 8pm.

According to Downdetector, a site that lets users report outages, almost 600 people reported problems by 7.15pm, although the number of outages declined from there. By 8.30, 143 outages were reported.

A Sky TV spokesperson said it was aware of a technical issue impacting Sky Sport Now customers Friday evening.

“We apologise for the inconvenience and are working hard to resolve this as quickly as possible,” they said at the time.

Some users took to social media to vent their frustrations.

RNZ sports writer Jamie Wall posted an image of the error and said: “So cool that @skysportnz ask us to pay $549 a year for this”.

Former Dunedin mayor Aaron Hawkins labelled Sky Sport Now an “absolute joke” amid the difficulties.

The error comes days after Sky TV announced it would be increasing the price of its sports package by almost 12% from May.

In an email to customers, Sky said the move would raise the monthly cost from $42 to $47.

“This increase allows us to continue delivering you an unrivalled sporting line-up,” Sky said in the message.