WatchESPN goes down during Florida State-Oregon game

Since the announcement was made that college football would be going to a playoff system for the first time in 2014-15, ESPN has been gearing up for the tremendous broadcast opportunity. Along with the advertisement revenue from television, the Worldwide Leader planned on bringing in a massive audience through WatchESPN, its successful video streaming application that allows for viewing on a bevy of platforms.

Unfortunately for the powers at Bristol, WatchESPN decided to crash at the worst possible time, depriving tons of viewers the inaugural college football playoff game between the Florida State Seminoles and Oregon Ducks, according to Deadspin. As pointed out by Timothy Burke, the WatchESPN also failed during the World Cup this summer when the United States played Germany in an elimination game.

We are aware of WatchESPN issues and working to resolve ASAP.

— ESPN Front Row (@ESPNFrontRow) January 1, 2015

Technical difficulties are part of broadcasting. However, suffering one during a massive event such as the Florida State-Oregon affair or the World Cup is devastating and highly embarrassing.

Luckily for ESPN, they managed to get the issue taken care of early in the second half.

#WatchESPN issues largely resolved on all platforms. We continue to constantly monitor and apologize for the inconvenience.

— ESPN Front Row (@ESPNFrontRow) January 2, 2015

Here’s hoping there aren’t any issues during the Sugar Bowl, the Panthers-Cardinals game on Saturday, or the College Football Playoff Championship in a week and a half.

[Deadspin]