I see people complain about ESPN+ streaming quality all the time, but my experience has been nearly flawless for years.
ESPN+ is hit or miss. Last weekend I watched the first half of the katz game on ESPN+ through the ESPN app on my tv with no issues. At half I switched over to watch our sunflower brothers beak the crap out of houston.
When I went back to the katz game on my tv the ESPN app started me at the beginning of the game and wouldn't let me fast forward. I could still watch it on my phone/computer in real time.
Eventually I fired up the ole Xbox and the ESPN app on there started me at the "live" time instead of at the beginning.
Issues like this are why people complain about ESPN+
Yeah, I'm not doubting that people are having problems, but it's difficult for me to pinpoint the actual issue.
The first thing is to distinguish between live content produced for ESPN+ and ESPN3 and programming produced for over the air ESPN that is also streamed. ESPN uses lower quality equipment for the programming exclusively streamed. In fact when they allow the schools to produce their own shows to appear on their streaming platforms, the schools generally have better, newer equipment. They will allow the schools to produce all sports other than football, which is annoying. They also use far less cameras for live programming on their streaming platforms.
I don't know the technical in and outs of their streaming capacity, but I know it's horrible. It lags and buffets badly on 4G signals. As someone who watches a lot of niche sports, this is a real problem for me. ESPN+ lags and buffers far more than other streaming sports platforms, significantly more.
Then there's the actual player and the organization, or lack thereof, of the app/website. The player is easily the worst in the industry. How, in 2022, that they don't have the capability of playing games in multiple boxes, is crazy. The bamtech platform, what they use for streaming has the capability to do this, Disney used to do it before ESPN+. MLB.tv, who also uses bamtech has it now.
On Labor Day weekend I was using ESPN+ to watch games and it was a disaster. At one time they had over 60 live streams going at once, with the US Open, college football, college soccer, college volleyball, and all the other ancillary sports they gave. It was nearly impossible to find the K-State Volleyball match and English Championship soccer I wanted to watch, and when I used what should have been the organization method they use, the streams didn't come up, either of them, do I had to scroll through all that other content to find my games.
For as much content that they stream exclusively, their investment in the platform is poor.
Also it's inexcusable that Disney/ESPN doesn't have any 4K broadcast capability yet for their linear broadcasts. You'd think they have it for the one NFL game they have a week and the CFP. Nope.
