ESPN+ outage wreaks havoc with UFC 257 pay-per-view
The UFC 257 main card, headlined by Conor McGregor and Dusin Poirier, kicked off on ESPN+ with Marina Rodriguez’s stunning TKO of Amanda Ribas.
Unfortunately, not every fan who shelled out for the $70 pay-per-view was able to see it.
It’s unclear how widespread the outage was, but a noticeable number of MMA fans were complaining on Saturday that ESPN+ was not working for them. That included many of the UFC’s own fighters, as well as an MLB Cy Young Award winner:
Half the UFC's own roster can't get the ESPN+ app working to watch #UFC257pic.twitter.com/TbYiQjxVXo
— MMA mania (@mmamania) January 24, 2021
Still holding out hope that this ESPN+ app might actually work and I might actually get to watch the fights that I paid for. What a let down tonight has been so far. #ufc257@espn@ufc
— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) January 24, 2021
Yahoo Sports’ Kevin Iole was told that the outage occurred as 1.3 million viewers attempted to tune in at the same time. The outage appeared to affect ESPN+ across the board, not just the UFC 257 pay-per-view, and was not limited to just one app or device. The problem was observed on multiple devices by Yahoo Sports.
The situation occurred days after UFC president Dana White complained of illegal streams of UFC events and threatened streamers with consequences from federal authorities if they streamed Saturday’s event.
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