ESPN Plus's UFC 257 stream blacked out for paying fans before the main event

To watch UFC 257, whose main card was set for about 10 p.m. ET on Saturday, January 23, 2021 with Conor McGregor versus Dustin Poirier as the headline, ESPN Plus subscribers already paying $59.99 a year had to add $69.99 for the event. During the early main-card fights, users in the United States — particularly in the western US — began reporting a blackout on the ESPN Plus app.

A Disney spokesperson told The Verge the company was 'aware that a technical issue prevented a portion of users from accessing the early part of the ESPN+ pay-per-view event, and we apologize for that experience.' The specific fault was never named; the company said it worked 'as quickly as possible' and had it resolved by 11 p.m. ET, in time for the signature fights. Users were affected for anywhere from a few minutes to more than an hour.

ESPN Plus said it would provide partial refunds to affected customers. Those who bought the fight through third-party platforms — Apple, Roku, Google or Amazon — were told to seek refunds from those platforms, with Disney and ESPN promising to work with the companies on the process.

Affected users missed between a few minutes and more than an hour of the early main card they had paid $69.99 for; ESPN Plus promised partial refunds.

A single-evening event concentrates the entire year's revenue risk into a few hours of live streaming.

The $69.99 charge on top of a $59.99 subscription made the failure directly money-losing for customers, not just annoying.

The company never disclosed what broke, leaving capacity planning questions unanswered for the next event.

Pay-per-view is a one-night promise: a marquee event is the worst moment to discover your streaming infrastructure cannot take the spike.

Partial refunds went to affected direct customers, with a parallel refund process agreed for third-party platform purchases. McGregor won the fight by second-round knockout, and ESPN Plus continued running pay-per-view events on the same stack — with the January 2021 blackout remaining its cautionary example.