It’s a monthly happening across many American homes:
Before at least one Saturday night every three to four weeks, fans go on ESPN+‘s website, pay the $69.99 (USD) fee (if they choose to take advantage of the $10 discount for preordering ahead of the Tuesday 3 am ET deadline on fight week) or $79.99 fee (if they buy during fight week) and wait around for Saturday at 10 pm ET to show up on the clock on the wall. Most of the time, it’ll be a perfunctory happening and go off without a hitch.
This past Saturday night, however, it was anything but routine. The one situation that the people at Disney and ESPN+ didn’t want to happen took place and people across the board were upset.
ESPN+ Falters During UFC 301 Main Card
When the clock showed 10 pm ET on Saturday night, viewers who bought UFC 301 ahead of time were supposed to have been greeted with the copyright/ anti-piracy warning ahead of the opening sequence of the main card’s telecast. Instead, they were given an error message and were prompted to buy the pay-per-view a second time.
Even after viewers attempted to order the main card again, it didn’t work. ESPN+ was inoperable during the UFC 301 main card. For anybody who waited the whole week to watch the show, headlined by Alexandre Pantoja defending his UFC Flyweight Championship in the main event of the evening versus Steve Erceg, they were out of luck.
At least, this was the case if someone was attempting to watch UFC 301 on a desktop or a laptop. During the show, ESPN+’s official tech support account on X pushed a fix for those watching on the ESPN mobile app.
We can help with that! This process involves linking your ESPN+ account. We need you to reinstall the app on the initial device you signed up on and relogin on that device along with the device you wish to watch on. Let us know if we can help with anything else!
— ESPN+ Help (@ESPNPlusHelp) May 5, 2024
Frustration Reigns Supreme
Luke Thomas, co-host of the Morning Kombat podcast, weighed in on the outage on Saturday night.
It is unforgivable what @ESPNPlus is doing to customers.
This is two UFC pay-per-views in a row where I’ve paid for the event and been unable to watch it.
You stole from me and your product is the worst in the entirety of online streaming.
Refund me. Now, @ESPNPlusHelp.
— Luke Thomas🏋️♀️ (@lthomasnews) May 5, 2024
When you have prominent MMA journalists taking to social media to express their anger over their inability to watch a flagship UFC event, this speaks volumes. To make matters worse, ESPN and the UFC have been in negotiations for a renewed media rights deal.
ESPN’s current contract to air and stream UFC events is set to expire after next year, but TKO Holdings, the parent company of the promotion, has expressed a preference to remain with the Disney-owned cable network for the new contract.
Given the fact that ESPN+ malfunctioned during a UFC pay-per-view main card, one of the jewel events for the service, the technical difficulties that fans, journalists, and fighters alike had to endure Saturday night cast a black eye on what was supposed to have been a celebration of MMA in Rio de Janeiro.
Problem Extends Outside of UFC 301
Although the majority of the web traffic that ESPN+ received was a result of UFC 301, the snafus experienced weren’t exclusive to the main card. While ESPN+ tech support was dealing with complaints from jilted customers venting that they were unable to screen the fights last night, one soccer fan expressed disappointment that they couldn’t watch a USL Championship match.
The app is not working for me. I keep getting an error message.
— Amy Hanrahan (@aehanrahan) May 5, 2024
There are days and nights across the sports calendar where you’ll sit down to watch an official stream of an event, whatever it might be, and for one reason or another, it won’t work. Having the official stream of the pay-per-view malfunction during the event itself is one of the worst such times for a streaming service to falter.
It happened on one of the biggest nights of the college sports season four years ago. During ESPN’s telecast of the 2019-2020 College Football Playoff National Championship Game between LSU and Clemson, the official stream was inoperable
This outage came on the heels of a similar incident that took place two weeks prior.
You would think after the embarrassment of the semi-final game, @espn would have fixed their streaming service. pic.twitter.com/f123Hu9lV3
— Cory Dippold (@cdipp) January 14, 2020
ESPN+ Offers Refund for UFC 301
As the night wore on, with frustration mounting, ESPN+ tech support took to Twitter to offer customers affected by the outage a refund of their fee by calling their toll-free number. While it is a nice gesture, this did little to ease the anger that those who bought the show.
Thanks so much for reaching out. We apologize for the inconvenience. We need more information to help you with this. Please call us on 1800-727-1800, and we will be happy to assist.
— ESPN+ Help (@ESPNPlusHelp) May 5, 2024
One user outright stated that since he bought UFC 301 through PayPal, he’d decline the charge.
how ridiculous is this.they just say "call our support for help". i'm on hold for over an hour w/ hold music.if u can't support a PPV event when something breaks, than your not capable of running the ppv.i'm gonna just have paypal deny payment.clearly espn took the money and ran
— heybri (@HeyBri85) May 5, 2024
Upon searching the replays tab on ESPN’s website Sunday afternoon, not even the replay works for UFC 301’s main card.
Final Thoughts
As someone who had to reinstall the ESPN app on his iPhone to watch UFC 301, while that method was far from optimal, it got the job done. For those who watched over a desktop, Saturday was a lousy night.
Here’s hoping that ESPN+ doesn’t encounter similar issues during UFC 302 on June 1.
