Get on Play Store"ESPN" is a sports game that offers live sports viewing, scores, news, and alerts. However, the game is poorly optimized, filled with bugs, and has excessive advertisements. On the bright side, it contains plenty of humor. Overall, it provides essential sports information but falls short in terms of user experience.
Phone
Android
Mobile Platform
Tablet
Reviews
- The app provides a wide range of sports content and updates, making it a good source for scores and news.
- The notifications for favorite teams and breaking news are helpful for staying updated on specific sports.
- The layout and design of the app are user-friendly, allowing for easy navigation through different sports and articles.
- The app frequently crashes, buffers, and fails to load videos, making it frustrating to use for streaming content.
- Users report that notifications do not respect user preferences, often sending alerts for unwanted sports and news.
- The ad experience is overwhelming, with long ads before short video clips, leading to a poor user experience overall.
- monetization1,084 mentions
- 1 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 99 % negative mentions
The monetization strategy of the ESPN app has drawn significant criticism from users, who express frustration over the excessive number and length of ads, often longer than the content they wish to view. Many subscribers feel that paying for ESPN+ should eliminate ads, yet they still encounter numerous unskippable ads before every video, leading to a frustrating user experience where ads load seamlessly while the actual content frequently fails to play. Overall, the app's heavy reliance on advertising detracts from its usability and enjoyment, prompting some users to consider canceling their subscriptions.
“I assumed as a paying customer, there would be no ads.”
“It works fine, there's no ads, and it notifies me on any sport I like.”
“The best no ads.”
“You'll end up watching 25 minutes of ads for 5 minutes of content.”
“What's the point of paying for the service to watch that many ads?”
“I understand profit is the bottom line, but interrupting live action with ads is making me want to cancel my ESPN+ subscription.”
- stability625 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The stability of the app is widely criticized, with users reporting frequent crashes, freezes, and glitches that severely hinder the viewing experience. Many have expressed frustration over the app's inability to load content properly, with issues persisting across various devices and internet connections. Despite its potential for great content, the app's ongoing technical problems have led to a significant decline in user satisfaction.
“I was having trouble with the app buffering so much it was impossible to watch the UFC fights on ESPN+. However, I went into settings and switched the video setting from HD to SD, and now it seems to be streaming really well with no glitches or buffering.”
“The app looks and runs great, but it can be annoying when I want to read something and it opens something unrelated.”
“The app is a buggy mess, and if you are lucky enough to get anything to load it will buffer constantly.”
“Every time I try to watch something on ESPN, the app crashes, video freezes while audio continues, or the video is such low quality that you literally cannot tell what is happening on the screen.”
“The app constantly freezes and crashes while trying to use the watch feature.”
- story205 mentions
- 5 % positive mentions
- 93 % neutral mentions
- 2 % negative mentions
The story aspect of the app is plagued by significant technical issues, with users frequently reporting that clicking on notifications leads to endless loading screens or redirects to unrelated content. Many express frustration over the inability to access the stories they are notified about, often resulting in a tedious search process within the app. Additionally, the prevalence of paywalls for full articles and excessive advertisements further detracts from the overall user experience.
“I like the ESPN app because it gives me news headlines in text messages and when I click on them it takes me to the story!”
“Time to time, I receive a notification about a story that sounds interesting.”
“I get dozens of clickbait notifications from ESPN but none of them launch the story - the app just thinks about it until my phone screen goes back to sleep.”
“Every time I click on a notification, it takes me to a completely different article and story.”
“When I get an alert, I want to click it and be taken to the story... it just takes me to a random page and then I have to hunt (always unsuccessfully) for the story.”
“The notifications this app sends me never seem to actually bring me to the story I was interested in and having any notifications turned on invites endless notifications.”
- optimization102 mentions
- 8 % positive mentions
- 41 % neutral mentions
- 51 % negative mentions
The optimization of the app has been widely criticized, with users reporting frequent freezing, buffering, and stuttering during streams, regardless of their internet connection. Many have noted that the app feels poorly designed and unresponsive, leading to a frustrating user experience, especially during live events. Overall, the performance issues have left users disappointed, calling for significant improvements to make the app functional and reliable.
“Nothing extra, just get the app to run smoothly!”
“Hopefully there can be more optimization going forward to make this app a lot more friendly and functional.”
“Regular ongoing bug and performance improvements would be great.”
“The app and website are so poorly optimized that it feels like all the money we spend goes to the CEO, and they don't care about the actual functionality of the whole process.”
“This is by far the most poorly optimized streaming application.”
“The app is simply not optimized well at all.”
- music38 mentions
- 8 % positive mentions
- 84 % neutral mentions
- 8 % negative mentions
Users express significant frustration with the music aspect of the app, primarily due to its tendency to automatically pause or interrupt any music playing when the app is opened. Many find the intrusive video and ad audio particularly annoying, as it disrupts their listening experience without an option to disable it. Overall, the app's handling of background music is seen as a major drawback, leading to a negative user experience.
“Love the organ music!”
“Espn is to sports as MTV is to music.”
“If you have any music etc playing this will take over and play above it.”
“Every time I open it, it stops my music from playing. Easy way to get uninstalled fast.”
“It's obnoxious that it interrupts music that I'm playing from my phone every time I launch the app because it force starts the video.”
“Very annoying when you're just trying to check scores while listening to music.”
- humor22 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The humor in user reviews often stems from the absurdity and frustrations of using the ESPN app, with many finding irony in its failures, such as ads working perfectly while the actual content struggles. Users also appreciate the lightheartedness of certain sports commentators and the humorous moments sprinkled throughout ESPN's documentaries, which serve to remind viewers that sports are ultimately just entertainment. Overall, the humor is a mix of frustration and amusement at the app's shortcomings and the quirks of sports broadcasting.
“I love the people and sense of humor they bring; it makes me smile and love life even more.”
“Love all the ESPN games but especially the documentaries, 30 for 30, and the zaniness and humor that gets sprinkled in to counterbalance the worship of athletes and remind us that it's all still just a game.”
“Hilariously poor design, what are you doing ESPN.”
- graphics17 mentions
- 18 % positive mentions
- 65 % neutral mentions
- 18 % negative mentions
The graphics in the app are described as aesthetically pleasing, featuring excellent fonts and designs; however, users report significant issues with functionality, including distracting overlays, frequent graphical glitches, and a lack of visual elements during streams. Many find the user interface poorly organized, leading to frustration when trying to access key features, and technical difficulties often overshadow the visual appeal. Overall, while the graphics have potential, the execution and reliability are severely lacking.
“Great description of the plays as they happen + the graphics of how the ball is moving.”
“Excellent fonts + graphics!”
“I like the design/graphics of the app but the app does not work.”
“The download feature seems to be there for aesthetics and the menus are a disaster.”
“Recently the app regularly has graphical glitches where much of the screen goes black, particularly when on tables and game summaries.”
“Currently watching game without graphics, no idea of time/score.”
- emotional10 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The emotional aspect of the app experience is overwhelmingly negative, with users expressing frustration over persistent technical issues such as random video playback, unresponsive controls, and constant buffering. These problems detract from the enjoyment of content, leading to feelings of annoyance and dissatisfaction as users struggle to engage with the app without interruptions. Overall, the app's performance issues significantly hinder the emotional connection users seek while consuming media.
- grinding4 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Users find the grinding aspect of the application to be tedious and frustrating, particularly due to slow navigation, cumbersome controls, and a complicated process for accessing content like podcasts. The experience is marred by frequent interruptions and a lack of user-friendly features, leading to a desire for a more streamlined interface.
“Accessing podcasts is tedious and requires going through about 10 pages before being able to get one to play.”
“Loses place if you exit the app on your phone; controls are the absolute bare minimum, chromecasting is tedious to say the least.”
“Hopefully getting a refund won't be as tedious as trying to use the application.”
- gameplay3 mentions
- 33 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 67 % negative mentions
Users generally appreciate the gameplay and real-time action provided by the app, especially when they cannot watch games on TV. However, there are concerns regarding a broken password reset mechanic and a perceived lack of attention to gameplay mechanics on Android compared to iOS.
“I appreciate the gameplay and play-by-play action on the app when I can't watch my favorite games on TV.”
“The password reset mechanic is broken.”
“Maybe they should focus on the mechanics for Android as well instead of only paying attention to iOS.”
