ESPN+ features a set of unique sports video content from live streaming to on-demand video. Although the price of the service is relatively cheap at $5.99 per month, people complain that the initial “cheap” price serves as bait to attract customers who will ultimately end up spending more money.
While you can watch live MLB, MLS, NHL, PGA, UFC and other sports like tennis, cricket, college football and international soccer, live NBA and NFL games are NOT included. You can’t watch live NFL games including Monday Night Football and you can’t watch the Super Bowl. The same is true for the NBA. To see these games, you’ll have to go to the ESPN app and enter your cable subscription information, which is a totally different entity from ESPN+.
In addition to the reasons we’ve already discussed, there are several more reasons why ESPN+ isn’t a great service. Let’s take a closer look at some of these reasons.
Table of Contents
Six Reasons Why ESPN+ Sucks
Ads on Live Content
Many of the live games included with the subscription come with commercials. Despite paying for a subscription, ESPN+ will still show advertising on live programs. It’s frustrating for paying customers to see ads on live content when many subscription services remove ads for paid users. An additional frustration is the ads that play before on-demand content starts even for paid users.
Hidden Conditions and Fees
Customers complain that although the subscription includes some live games when there’s a major event, you’ll be required to have an ESPN cable subscription or pay extra. Customers expect to have access to all the live content after they pay for a subscription, but they’re required to pay more to see every major event.
For example, ESPN+ offers pay-per-view events for an additional cost of $64.99 for existing paying subscribers.
3. Poor Service Performance
Users haven’t been happy with the service’s performance. There are a lot of complaints that the live streams buffers too much to be enjoyable. It’s likely that their streaming servers and content delivery networks can’t scale to the high number of users demanding to stream a particular piece of content.
In one case, ESPN+ publicly apologized for a college football broadcast failure that ruined the viewing experience for the fans.
Misleading Name
ESPN+ is a totally different entity from ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNews. A normal ESPN+ subscription won’t give you access to live events being broadcasted on the other networks.
For example, live games from Monday Night Football or Sunday Night Baseball won’t be streamed on ESPN+.
Also, some of ESPN’s series aren’t included with an ESPN+ subscription. People feel misled because the ESPN app acts as a gatekeeper to ESPN+ but it asks for a paid TV subscription.
Poor Customer Service
ESPN+ users are complaining that support and customer service take a long time to get back and aren’t very helpful. If they do respond, they’ll only try to upsell more rather than actually help their existing customer.
Other Reasons Why It Sucks
- Although you can cancel the service anytime, there’s no refund.
- There’s no free trial or money-back guarantee.
- ESPN+ isn’t available outside the U.S.
- Regional blackouts. Some content is only available in certain regions so it’s often blocked.
- To unlock more content like major events you’ll have to buy a PPV card.
These are just a few of the reasons why ESPN+ leaves a lot of its customers wanting more.
If you agree with the reasons we’ve discussed here or we missed one, let us know in the comments section below.