All About The ESPN Plus: A Decent Sports Streaming, But No Cable Killer
Summary: If you want to watch ESPN's most popular programming, such as Monday Night Football, NBA games, and major college football and basketball games, among other things, you will need a cable subscription to do so.
- • Download sport game videos from both ESPN+ and ESPN Player.
- • Save the downloaded videos as 720p MP4 files at up to 60fps.
- • Pre-select the audio and subtitles of your preferred language.
- • Accessible to the free trial of all downloaders, including Netflix, Amazon and more.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The newly released ESPN Plus streaming service, which is operated by the Disney-owned sports network, does not provide die-hard sports fans with sufficient live coverage to allow them to cut their connections to cable television. It also does not offer enough content to merit a place on our list of the best streaming services. However, it provides cord-cutters with a way to get their live sports fixed on the cheap, particularly if their preferences are slightly off the beaten path.
If you want to watch ESPN's most popular programming, such as Monday Night Football, NBA games, and major college football and basketball games, among other things, you will need a cable subscription to do so. However, ESPN Plus is an affordable alternative that combines live sporting events with some of the network's original programming. Fans of soccer, lesser-known collegiate sports, and baseball who are interested in a daily broadcast will find this service particularly appealing.
ESPN Plus would be much easier to sell if its various apps offered a few more features that were friendly to users, but the newly launched service is off to a promising start. UFC PPVs are exclusive to the service, whereas Boxing PPVs are also on ESPN Plus.
The Price and the Availability
You can now access ESPN Plus as a premium service with the same applications and websites you've been using for sports scores and news. The navigation bar at the top of ESPN's website now includes a new ESPN Plus tab. The mobile version of ESPN's self-titled app for Android and iOS has been updated to include a Watch tab that features content exclusive to ESPN Plus subscribers. If you have an Apple TV, you'll be able to watch ESPN Plus on it and Amazon devices (Fire TV set-top, FireTV Stick... ), Android TV, and Chromecast.
If you feel that paying $69.99 annually or $6.99 per month for ESPN Plus is too much money, you can save a significant amount of cash by purchasing a bundle that includes Hulu and Disney Plus subscriptions.
Despite this, if you subscribe to Hulu with Live TV, you won't have to pay for ESPN Plus because the price of that service now includes both Disney Plus and ESPN plus cost as part of the package for a total of $70 a month. However, every month, there is a far greater quantity of new content available on Netflix than what is available on Hulu or Disney Plus.
How to Get ESPN Plus
Using my iPhone SE and Apple TV 4th generation, I tried out ESPN Plus. To sign up for the service, I opened the latest version of ESPN on my iPhone, tapped the Watch tab in the middle of the menu at the bottom of the screen, and followed the on-screen prompts. iTunes kindly reminded me when my ESPN plus free trial period finished. All I had to do on my Apple TV was log in to my ESPN account, and my ESPN Plus membership was automatically transferred.
However, if you access the ESPN Plus sign-up page through a web browser, you will see a different welcome screen than you would otherwise. For some unknown reason, ESPN Plus promotes the Disney above bundle rather than selling itself as the primary attraction above all others.
On Android devices, the process is precisely the same. When you select a live match or original content related to the service, the ESPN app for Android will prompt you to join up for ESPN Plus. One less than the ideal thing was that the ESPN app on my Pixel 2 XL did not acknowledge that I had subscribed to the service on my iPhone, even though when we go to ESPN plus login on both the iPhone and the Pixel 2 XL. I had a similar issue when using ESPN.com on my MacBook Pro.
If you purchase ESPN Plus from a mobile device, according to ESPN, you should be able to access the service on multiple devices by going into the settings of the ESPN Plus app and linking your account to each of those devices. On the other hand, the Subscriptions section of the ESPN app on my iPhone would not permit me to do that; instead, it informed me that it was still processing my purchase. When I watch Netflix on several different devices simultaneously, I never have this problem, which makes me believe it is a bug that ESPN has since ironed out.
After navigating through a very complex menu to discover the sport you want to watch, you can expect a great viewing experience from ESPN Plus.
I have no criticisms regarding the stream itself. The action in a match between Aston Villa and Leeds appeared clear and crisp even on the 4-inch screen of an iPhone SE, allowing me to follow along with the game. You may pause and rewind by dragging a timeline. I wish the two latter options gave better control, like a button to rewind 30 seconds at a time.
The ESPN app has some very smart controls built-in, such as a picture-in-picture mode that enables me to continue watching a live stream even when I go to other parts of the app. While watching a live stream, a little window appears at the bottom of the program that you can use to check scores and news.
When streaming original or on-demand programming, the app saves where you left off if you pause to answer emails, make a phone call, or transition between programs throughout single watching sessions. If you switch from an iPhone to an Apple TV, you'll have to rewatch the show. Again, this will come as a surprise to viewers familiar with the smooth viewing experience provided by Netflix.
The most significant issue with ESPN Plus is the excessive amount of clutter, which is especially problematic on the smaller screen of a mobile device. The programming for ESPN Plus is organized as a scrollable series of tiles that feature live events, upcoming shows, and highlighted on-demand content. This arrangement requires hunting and picking.
Tap on the calendar icon for a better option, at least within the context of the mobile app. This brings up a list of upcoming events, which you can narrow down by sport or network. It should come as no surprise that there does not appear to be any way to schedule a reminder for a live broadcast that you are interested in. When you tap on an event in the Upcoming area, you get a pop-up menu that tells you when the event is, but there's no mechanism to turn on notifications.
Software to Get Access to ESPN Content
Moreover, you can also get the content from ESPN by using several tools. There are a lot of such tools, but the StreamFab All In One can be the best option for this.
StreamFab All-in-one
Unlike other video downloaders, which require you to paste the video URL you copied from the online browser on your desktop, StreamFab is equipped with an integrated web browser, eliminating the need to copy video URLs.
That is to say, you can accomplish all you need to do within the StreamFab downloader software, including everything from visiting the target video sharing website or streaming service to downloading your desired videos.
StreamFab is a video downloader developed out of the streaming video industry. It is designed to work with all of the main on-demand streaming services, including but not limited to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, HBO, and many more.
Choose the video and audio quality that best suits your needs
Downloaders from StreamFab provide various options for you to choose from in terms of quality. It enables you to choose the video resolution and audio quality that best suits your needs.
To be more specific, you can choose between 720p High Definition or 1080p Full High Definition for the video quality. In terms of the audio quality, you choose between EAC3 5.1, AC3 5.1, and AAC 2.0. So, take charge of your own career.
Download VOD videos as MP4 files
Is the playback compatibility of downloaded videos an issue for you? You don't have to worry about that! When you download any video from the internet, it's usually in MP4 format.
The MP4 format is compatible with virtually all available operating systems, mobile devices (including smartphones and tablets), digital media players, and gaming consoles is perhaps the most significant benefit offered by this file type.
Download content in your native language
Audios and subtitles are the primary means by which the content of a movie can be understood. In today's media, movies and television shows typically include several audio tracks and subtitle streams, each in a different language.
This gives you the option of downloading only the audio and subtitles in your native language, or you may select to download both.
Subtitle films or save SRT files
StreamFab downloaders provide you with two choices for the management of the subtitles, from which you can select the one that best meets your requirements taking into account the specifics of your situation.
You may either remux the subtitles straight into the videos or export the downloaded subtitles separately as SRT files. Both options are available to you. You get to decide what to do! So, make your own free choice.
When you want to download a television show or a movie series, like the Avenger series, the speed at which the show or series is downloaded is quite important. There is no need to freak out because StreamFab downloaders are available.
You can add numerous movies or even the entirety of an entire TV show season to be downloaded all at once. In addition to this, the download speed is guaranteed to be lightning-fast. Each film takes only 10 to 20 minutes.
Create home Blu-ray discs from downloaded content with Blu-ray Creator
When the download is finished, the StreamFab downloader will allow you to import the videos you have downloaded into DVDFab Blu-ray Creator to watch them on your home Blu-ray player. This feature is available because some of you are used to collecting Blu-rays and watching them on your home Blu-ray player.
After that, using DVDFab Blu-ray Creator, you will need a few clicks to burn the videos you downloaded to blank BD discs, ISO files, or folders. In addition to this, the template for the Streaming menu will show all of the metadata on the Blu-ray menu.
How to Apply It
- StreamFab is available for download and installation on computers running either Windows or macOS.
- Open the software and choose Streaming Services.
- After logging into your account, play the video you wish to save to your local storage and download it.
- Pick the audio track and/or subtitle stream(s) corresponding to the language you would like to hear.
- Select the "Download Now" option to get the download process started on the video(s).
Bottom line
ESPN Plus provides subscribers access to a wide range of live sporting events for a very reasonable price. On the other hand, the sports giant needs to figure out a way to make it simpler to learn about and keep track of the times and dates of live sporting events. However, the most pressing issue is to iron out the kinks so that subscribers can watch on multiple platforms, including mobile devices, the web, and set-top boxes, without encountering many roadblocks.
And we have a strong suspicion that UFC fans view ESPN Plus more as a burden than a perk because they subscribe to the service. What other response is there to a situation where you must pay for a service to participate in a PPV event that costs significantly more money?
If you are more interested in mainstream sports, it is unlikely that you will find enough content on ESPN Plus to warrant a subscription. (Baseball fans want to watch the daily out-of-market game but don't want to pay the five times higher price for MLB.TV's more extensive offerings are the only exception to this rule.) However, if you are truly passionate about sports other than the "Big Four"—baseball, basketball, football, and hockey; ESPN Plus has something to offer you, particularly in their huge soccer portfolio. ESPN Plus is not designed to compete with cable television, but it will meet the requirements of sports enthusiasts who have a very specific collection of interests.