Many users across the U.S. were unable to access ESPN‘s WatchESPN video-streaming service as the USA-Germany match in the 2014 FIFA World Cup kicked off at noon Eastern time on Thursday.
An ESPN rep said the sports programmer was “investigating some limited issues due to unprecedented demand.” WatchESPN viewership for the first half of the USA-Germany match peaked at more than 1.4 million concurrent viewers — a record for the service, according to ESPN.
The match is a critical one for the U.S. national soccer team, which can advance to the next round with a win or a tie against Germany.
Univision Communications, which holds the Spanish-language broadcast and Internet-streaming rights to 2014 World Cup, apparently did not have similar issues delivering the live stream online. A rep for the media company said it was seeing record usage on digital midway through the match.
Multiple Twitter users had cited an inability to access the WatchESPN website or apps.
Some other recent high-profile TV events streamed over the Internet have encountered glitches. This March,
ABC’s first-ever livestream of the Oscars
through the Watch ABC app was unavailable for most of the evening. A rep for the network blamed “a traffic overload/greater than expected” for the outage.
2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
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