Users complain about ESPN's streaming app's issues and functionality

4/23/23 update: it's still terrible. This app is embarrassingly bad, especially considering I pay for some of the content. All of the standard features that you take for granted in other major streaming apps either don't exist or don't work well such as Chromecast use, subtitles, a "continue watching" list, and a useful search function. The app works well from a fire stick and it's a good source of UFC content, otherwise I would have canceled my ESPNplus subscription immediately.

Very slow and glitchy. It seems like it would be easy to set notifications with a single click, rather than click each slider and wait 30 seconds before setting the next slider for the same game. Seems to be a huge battery hog. Not a good or useful app at all.

Connection issues like crazy! Can be on wifi or data doesnt matter. Half the time pages dont even load, just a blank screen. You would think a multi billion dollar company could afford to resolve this type of issue. But then again it is free I guess, just wanted to see the box scores

I used to really like this app but now it's very frustrating. It rarely ever opens, when it does it literally takes 5 to 10 minutes to get it to open. I pay for ESPN+ and not I can't get that to work. If you read the last 100 reviews and 95% of them are one or two stars for the same issues. You would think ESPN would do something to fix the app but considering it's been like this for a long time now I guess not. I will be deleting the app and ending my subscription if it's not fixed soon.

4/9/23: Here we are, a year and a half since my first review, and nothing has changed. I can never buy UFC PPVs through the app, so I use Roku. I log out and back in, uninstall and redownload. Nothing works. My phone works with everything else. It constantly logs me out, it often streams poor video quality, even on my 250Mb wifi. 11/21/21: The only major streaming app that I have trouble with consistently. All I use it for is watching UFC events on the go, and it fails as often as it works.

The app is pretty bad. 1. The search feature is nonsensical and inefficient. 2. The viewing options seem to be intentionally broken up between several ESPN services to make it so you have to pay more than they make it seem. 3. The app itself is poorly laid out, slow, and clunky. Those are my thoughts, your mileage may vary depending on what sports and programs you want to watch.

It is very frustrating. I enjoy the content, but the app crashes all of the time. Also, every time that you skip back or ahead 10 seconds, the picture quality goes from 1080 to 240. Then it takes a minute or two to return to the highest picture quality. Please fix this!!!

Every time I open the app while streaming a video, it restarts the video, making it really annoying to watch the game. Wouldn't bug me too much if my ESPN+ membership allowed me to watch on demand MLB games on the website or if the searching function on Xbox worked to find on demand videos. It's like wherever I go, the user experience is either annoying, confusing, gouging, or a mixture there of.

Lately this app hasn't been functioning well. The Home Page comes up, but if I try to click and individual article, or check standings, stats, or box scores, it just keeps spinning. Sometimes it will work after I restart the app, but not always. This needs to be fixed.

Screws up every time I try to use it. I tap a video, it shows me a long ad and then after it plays the next clip in the queue (NOT the selected clip) so I can't watch any clip I actually want to. Streaming to my chromecast STILL doesn't work. I have re-downloaded, still no good. Fix your DOGWATER APPLICATION! SMFH.

ESPn is the worst app on my phone. It crashes 4 times a day with the informative "Whoops, something went wrong " message, which requires me to force a stop and restart. Yes, I've tried reinstalling the app. Yes, I've made sure I've installed the latest software. Half of the highlight videos won't even load after 2 minutes of spinning circles, and the half that does makes you watch a commercial that's 3x longer than the clip you're trying to see. It's about 6 generations behind a good app.

There's no way to mute the video, and I can't use the fast forward ten seconds button. There's no mini player which makes it impossible to do anything else while a video is playing. There are limited options for picking favorite teams (I want to follow college teams for sports other than football and basketball), and I can't select NCAA gymnastics or volleyball as my favorite sports. The app also has problems loading live events.

Great when it works, but practically unusable when it don't. For example, I am trying to replay an NHL game. My tablet then acts like NOBODY's touching it to just PLAY the video. I have tried tapping ALL OVER the screen from extremely lightly to banging on it with no result. Once in awhile, the play button will show up, but eventually disappears despite me repeatedly tapping on it. This is not even the first time. Next season I'll probably just get the Center Ice package and avoid the hassle.

This app is terrible. Even though you can bundle ESPN+, Hulu, and Disney, one of these is not like the other. The ESPN app has no option for multiple user profiles like Hulu and Disney. You can't even pull up a description of shows/movies at all. I.e. if you select a title, it just starts playing. I suppose we're supposed to guess what the content is. The experience across platforms is dissimilar and annoying.

I enjoy the content itself, but the app is designed and runs abysmally. I was trying to watch an mma event and without touching my phone at all the app started randomly playing other things. This was just the final straw of many app issues, crashes, bugs, and terrible experiences. Fix it if you want any chance of continued subscription.

Worst app ever. Contacted technical support about their app not working for the last week. I had already Uninstalled and reloaded app but they made me go thru the motions again. Asked me to restart my firestick and even unplug my TV. Such nonsense when different tvs and different firesticks were having the same app issue. Even tried to get me to check my internet even after informing them I could stream on my computer via their website. It's your app, people! Fix it or stop charging us!

I pay for ESPN+ and it's hot garbage. Never lets me watch the live sports I pay for. You click the game and nothing happens. Or you click and it glitches and then nothing happens. ESPN+ is sadly in control of hockey and I was excited at first, the app worked and I watched hockey. Now I can't do that, so what is the point of paying for it??? Update: tried to contact ESPN but the email is no longer used and the chat goes to an outside company that is only able to help you use basic functions.

Worst streaming app ever. There are a lot of streamers and apps but epsn's has to be the worst I've tried so far. They make it difficult to find exactly what you wanted to watch. Then when you finally find what you wanted, there's always issues casting to a chromecast. (Other apps like prime work just fine)

Out of all the streaming apps I have used, this one is consistently the worst. Constantly freezes no matter what device I use. Login is wonky. Also constant buffering problems. It's nothing new either. It's been horrible since the beginning and nothing has been fixed. I use the Hulu app to access the exact same game broadcast with no problems. It's the ESPN app itself.

Can't log in with my YouTube TV credentials — I enter my email and password, press yes on the two-factor screen that pops up, and nothing happens. Then I try both tapping on a game or 'manage TV provider' in the settings, and it brings me right back to the 'choose a provider' screen. It's an endless loop, and this happens on both a Samsung tablet and Motorola phone. But works just fine on my iPhone. Absolute garbage.

I wonder how fast I would go out of business if I cared as little about quality as the people who developed this dumpster fire of an app. I'm watching a documentary about the 85 Bears. I'm halfway through, then the app stops playing the doc to tell me I "can't watch without an account." Eventually fixed it but I definitely spend more time trouble shooting this app than I do using it. But don't worry, the ads are working perfectly!

This app could not possibly be more difficult to sign into. Across the board, from phones to TVs to computers, it is a terrible sign-in process. I keep getting trapped in loops that will not let you out and force you to reset your password. Once you reset the password you have to redo all of your devices. The only reason I tolerate this is because you have a monopoly on college sports. Fix this please.

Use this app primarily to watch sports with ESPN+. The navigation is unbelievably clunky. It constantly lies and says an event is live only to discover when you click on that it is not live (usually because it hasn't started). Can't see status of games without opening the game. Not at all what should be expected from ESPN. And constantly have the password/login issues others have talked about.

Been an ESPN+ subscriber on an annual plan for over 2 years. Yet to this day whenever I open the app and tap to watch a game on ESPN+ it tells me I need to sign up. I confirm I'm logged in and then tap "restore access." Error...cannot restore. So I use the support email address that's in the app. And get an auto response that it's no longer monitored. Good app for checking scores...but don't bother subscribing - they still won't let you watch the ESPN+ content even after you pay.

This streaming service is terrible, both in app and web browser. It takes forever to start watching a game, I'll have to refresh the app/browser multiple times. The video glitches and buffers. It'll randomly quit, and I'll have to go through the process of starting it again. I can play multiple YouTube live streams at once, but 1 hockey game on the ESPN app is a gamble weather or not it will work. Not even worth the $10/month that you pay.