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TV test pattern spoils Philadelphia Union win for Comcast viewers

Comcast subscribers had to deal with color bars during Sunday’s game

The nine-year wait for a playoff win finally ended on Sunday for the Philadelphia Union, but as they were mounting a thrilling comeback to beat the New York Red Bulls 4-3 in extra time, Comcast subscribers in the area were getting a multi-colored test pattern on their TVs.

The Union game was broadcast on FS1, which led to some fans pointing the finger at Fox Sports and even the Philadelphia Union for the outage, which didn’t impact Verizon FIOS users in the region.

The Union acknowledged the outage and recommended fans change the channel to FOX Deportes, which only angered some viewers even more.

In a report for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Rob Tornoe cited a source from Fox Sports that said “it appeared the outages were caused by localized Comcast maintenance in the Freedom, Pa. area.”

Sunday’s game was just the second national broadcast of a Union game in 2019. Their only regular season national broadcast aired on FS1 on August 4 when they visited the nation’s capital and blew out D.C. United 5-1 in a game where captain Alejandro Bedoya grabbed a live field mic and called on Congress to “do something now” about gun violence.

UPDATE: The Philadelphia Union will be streaming the game in full on their website tonight, October 21, at 6 p.m.