We watch a lot of ESPN+ at our house, and have a subscription to do so. Mainly to follow NCAA and especially Aggie Baseball.

We watch on or App Smart Sony, on our computers, on our IPhones, and cast from our Iphones to TVs. We always had taken out our laptop to stream ESPN+ on the patio TV with no issues. We bought an Apple Firewire-HDMI converter to just use our phones instead of dragging the laptop out. It works flawlessly on every platform and even on ESPN+.....UNTIL you try and play a live game. Every other feature of ESPN+ works with the phone hooked up to the TV, but be playing a live game and plug it in and the pic/sound plays for one to two seconds and the feed goes dead. Unplug the phone and the phone plays the game again.

Does anyone else have this issue? Why can you cast it with no issues, but it not play on the wire feed?

Any help would be appreciated. TIA.

I'm confused. Very seldom do we play on ESPN+. I watch lots of college baseball on SECN+ and ESPN3 without any issues.

I've had the same issue with my iPad, it seems the IOS is programmed against it!

SECN+ for all SEC home games. All. ESPN+ might offer some road games but not all (more now that ESPN realizes it has built and audience willing to pay a convenience fee to see a lot of content that really doesn't fit its linear channels that is too inconvenient to sell alongside its very successful UFC PPV products.)

I often have to fully dismiss the ESPN app when it won't play a stream I click on on my iPhone XR. It's fairly shoddily programmed compared to other apps (MLB and oddly Disney+ are better apps and the gold standard technology wise I've heard, but remember ESPN itself is both live games and a huge variety of both streams...so seems likely it's scaled out quite a bit more.)

I usually use an AppleTV on various TVs though right now we only really have one set up. My guess is there could have been (or needs to be) an update that changed behavior and dismissing the all could help it reload its app data or needs to be manually updated.

If nothing else works remember deleting the app and re-downloading deletes app data like caches that might be preventing streaming. The only inconvenience is logging in again.

Hope somewhere in there are some ideas that help. If most of it weren't already covered in the somewhat unwieldy pinned thread at the top, then I would add this there.

I can play live games from SEC+ on my Apple TV without any issues, but none of the live events will play on my ipad or iPhone. I never could figure that one out so I just gave up.

Belton Ag said:

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I can play live games from SEC+ on my Apple TV without any issues, but none of the live events will play on my ipad or iPhone. I never could figure that one out so I just gave up.

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Did you try fully dismissing or removing the app and re-downloading? Also was it in WiFi or cellular? I did have an issue with them limiting streaming based on location once (was in the parking lot of a Firestone), but only saw that limit exactly once. Have streamed baseball games for the audio through ESPN and through the car while driving sometimes.

First, ESPN+ is not needed for most A&M games. I think only one or two of the midweek games have been on ESPN+ this year. You don't need an ESPN+ subscription to watch regular content on the ESPN app (ESPN, ESPN2, SECN, SECN+, etc.).

Second, I presume you are using the Lightning-HDMI adapter? There's never been a Firewire port on an iPhone or iPad. Regardless, it's possible that ESPN doesn't allow their content to be played via a video out adapter. That is an option that app developers can enable if they choose. There's nothing you can do to get around this.

I tested this myself today, and as I suspected, they must have the app configured to disable the stream when a video adapter is connected.

Maybe try screen mirroring if you have an Apple TV? Or you could try their website and a laptop instead.

tonytx05 said:

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I tested this myself today, and as I suspected, they must have the app configured to disable the stream when a video adapter is connected.

Maybe try screen mirroring if you have an Apple TV? Or you could try their website and a laptop instead.

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Which lightning to HDMI? Apple or off-brand? Just curious.

Apple

I was live streaming the Aggie Baseball game today on my iPhone and older (2013) Vizio 65 in. TV both on ESPN+. No problem. iPhone used the ESPN App. TV was on ROKU ESPN App. I was live streaming last Sun. while riding (I wasn't driving) to an Aggie buddy's house in New Braunfels on my iPhone with the ESPN App on my car WiFi. All were through my DISH account, too. No issue!

You were not watching today's game with ESPN+. All of this weekend's games were on SECN+.

tonytx05 said:

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Apple

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That agreed with my research, but was wondering if actual Apple or not. ESPN appears to have disabled that. Best guess is they prefer Airplay's security since the rumors are it works fine on Android.

Thanks for doing this. I hate to think that people are paying for ESPN+ because they think they need it to watch Aggie Baseball.

I'm not familiar enough with Android to know if they offer the same programming capability to disable the stream when connected to an external display like Apple does.

My guess is ESPN has overly complicated licensing deals depending on if they are streaming to a "TV" vs. a mobile device, and feel they need to disable the HDMI output on a mobile device where possible to stay true to those deals. It's dumb, because practically speaking there is no difference between my iPad and my Apple TV, but that's the way it is.