Saturday night saw a ton of criticism for ESPN after many people could not buy the pay-per-view broadcast of UFC 313. That was due to a technical issue at ESPN+, which has had the exclusive U.S. rights to sell UFC PPV broadcasts since 2019. As Andrew Marchand and Alex Andrejev of The Athletic note, ESPN has now responded by making replays of that event (headlined by the Alex Pereira-Magomed Ankalaev fight)’s broadcast available to ESPN+ subscribers. Still, they’ve chosen not to offer any rebates to anyone affected:
NEWS: ESPN+ is offering UFC 313 for free after pay per view issues on Saturday. (w/ @Andrejevalex)https://t.co/g5qlCPRFke
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) March 9, 2025
Here’s more from that piece:
An ESPN source said the issue did not impact those who had already bought the pay-per-view (PPV) prior to the start of the issue at approximately 10 p.m. ET. Anybody trying to purchase the PPV during the technical outage would not have been charged, the source said. Hence, ESPN is not offering any rebates.
It is technically accurate that for most impacted people, the issue appears to have been not being able to purchase the PPV at all rather than having the purchase go through and then the product not being available. (However, there were some complaints of glitches for those who could buy it.) From that perspective, it’s understandable why ESPN might feel they don’t have to offer a financial rebate.
But people still suffered financial loss here thanks to the unusual way that these PPVs are sold. Under that 2019 expansion to the initial 2018 ESPN-UFC deal, an ESPN+ subscription (now $12 a month) is required to buy a UFC PPV.
Of course, ESPN could absolutely argue that there are other things of value on ESPN+. And a full refund of the monthly price to all ESPN+ subscribers (around 25 million these days) would be a massive blow to parent corporation Disney (especially as many of those subscribers aren’t paying that full price due to various bundle deals) and would see them compensating more people than would have bought this PPV. However, there have been some past cases of moves along those lines, including YouTube TV offering a free week to all subscribers after the 2018 FIFA World Cup streaming issues.
Other potential intermediate remedies could be offered here, too. That could include offering rebates for those who actively seek them out and citing this PPV as the only reason for having ESPN+ this month. An “ESPN+ subscribers can now watch the archived feed of this PPV” option doesn’t feel as impactful, as so much of the value of live sports is watching them live without knowing what happened.
The other interesting element is that this comes from uncertainty around the UFC’s future on ESPN. Their deal ends at the end of 2025, and their exclusive renewal window ends in April, with Puck’s John Ourand reporting last month that a renewal in that window is unlikely. And the issue here led to UFC president and CEO Dana White discussing this in a post-event press conference, as Marchand and Andrejev noted:
“Yeah, there were problems buying (the PPV) on ESPN+,” White said. “I don’t know what happened with their platform tonight, but yeah, there are a lot of pissed-off people.”
As noted, Disney doesn’t appear to have any contractual obligation to offer any tangible rebate here. (Given the terms of their streaming service agreements, don’t bet on lawsuits here.) Also, a decision on whether or not the UFC will re-up with them will likely be much more about dollars and cents than consumer complaints or lack thereof.
However, the PPV purchase issues were a significant black eye for ESPN’s UFC coverage and prompted many fan complaints. And those came at a rough time around those renewal talks.
