Why wasn’t Wichita State-Oklahoma State basketball game available on ESPN streaming?
It’s long been a tradition for many Wichita State men’s basketball fans to watch Shocker games on television with the volume on mute and Mike Kennedy describing the action to them on radio.
But for those fans who weren’t among the 7,783 in attendance for Saturday’s night showdown between Wichita State and Oklahoma State at Intrust Bank Arena, they were unable to watch the entire first half of what was supposed to be a nationally-televised broadcast on ESPNU.
It’s common practice for ESPN to schedule games in tight, two-hour windows on its channels, which often leads to close games delaying the television broadcast switching over to the start of the next game. That was the case on Saturday night, as a 6 p.m. scheduled game between Memphis and Texas A&M lasted nearly three hours — and that was with Memphis winning 83-79 in regulation.
When these situations occur, ESPN typically makes sure the game being overlapped is available to watch on its streaming service, ESPN+. With Memphis-Texas A&M running long, ESPN producers relayed the message to a WSU spokesperson just before tip-off that the Shockers-Cowboys broadcast would begin on ESPN+. On ESPNU, a yellow bar flashed at the bottom of the screen to alert potential viewers that the WSU-OSU game is “now streaming on the ESPN App.”
Except when 8 p.m. rolled around, the Wichita State-Oklahoma State game was nowhere to be found on ESPN’s streaming service, which requires a $9.99 subscription to access.
“Embarrassing that ESPN has MULTIPLE channels/streams/etc. to put a game on, & we just missed an entire half of basketball b/c Memphis/Texas A&M went on forever,” tweeted T.J. Eckert, the sports director of an Oklahoma television station. “People paying for multiple services & can’t watch? Bad.”
That perfectly captured the frustration of Wichita State fans hoping to tune in to watch a marquee non-conference game in Wichita for the Shockers. While a replay of the WSU-OSU game is available for viewing on Watch ESPN archives, that doesn’t help the thousands of fans who were expecting to watch the game live on Saturday night.
Former Eagle columnist Bob Lutz echoed the voices of many with his string of tweets after the WSU game had started.
“I’d just like to watch the Shockers game where I’m told I’ll get to watch it,” Lutz tweeted at 8:13 p.m.
“It tells me to go to ESPN Plus. So I do. And nothing,” he tweeted two minutes later.
“I pay about $1,000 a month for streaming, not including my own. So I just want streaming to be reliable, including my own,” he finished up at 8:23 p.m.
So why wasn’t the first half of the Wichita State basketball game not available on ESPN+?
The Eagle reached out to a WSU spokesperson who coordinates with ESPN producers on game broadcasts and the official answer was that ESPN experienced “technical issues with the streaming link.” According to a source familiar with the situation, there was a technical issue with how the game was pushed to ESPN3 and ESPN is still investigating what caused the error.
The Eagle also reached out to a spokesperson from the American Athletic Conference to request additional comment from ESPN. Due to the late conclusion of the game, a response was not expected until Sunday. The conference reached a 12-year media rights agreement with ESPN in 2019 with more than 1,000 AAC contests streaming on ESPN+ every year.
Wichita State athletic director Kevin Saal declined further comment and referred back to the tweet he sent near the end of Wichita State’s 59-49 loss to Oklahoma State.
“#ShockerNation, we understand tonight’s (Wichita State men’s basketball) broadcast coverage (linear & stream) fell short of all our expectations,” Saal tweeted. “Know that we are highly engaged with our (AAC) and (ESPN) partners to ensure you have the access & quality you deserve. #WeFightForWichita”
Wichita State has only had one previous game broadcast on television by ESPN, as a 55-50 loss at Kansas State went off without a hitch. The Shockers next three games will all be streaming-only on ESPN+, starting with Thursday’s game against Texas Southern, while they return to television for a home game against Cincinnati on Jan. 5 that will be either on ESPN2 or ESPNU.
This story was originally published December 18, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
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