It was a bumpy start to the 2016 NFL season, from a technical perspective.
On Sunday, ESPN’s fantasy sports application and website crashed around 1 p.m. EST, just as nine games were about to begin. Fantasy players were unable to access their rosters and statistics until about 4 p.m. EST—meaning they were unable to follow the majority of the afternoon’s action from their Internet browsers or mobile devices.
According to ESPN, the outage was caused by a backend data access issue. The issue had no lasting impact on teams, rosters or leagues. It was merely a temporary inconvenience for the millions of participants who rely on ESPN for free fantasy football.
It remains to be seen how ESPN's fantasy football platform will perform moving forward. A second outage or more during the 17 week season could be costly for the organization. In order to maintain a loyal base of customers, a fantasy platform needs to run almost flawlessly. Otherwise, league owners may look into other competing services like Yahoo Sports or NFL.com.
The lesson here for business leaders is that application and website performance is critical for success. If you have an important event coming up (like a show, or a product launch), it’s vital that customers can access your online services.
What will happen if customers can’t access your onbline services? They will try searching for your company on Google. This will direct your customers to third party websites possibly offering damaging, or incorrect information.
Don’t let this happen to your business. Instead, make network maintenance a top priority in your organization.
Apex Technology Services stands ready to protect your company regardless of whether it’s located in New York City; White Plains, New York; Connecticut; Australia; Europe; or anywhere else. Our full suite of cybersecurity and IT support services is at your disposal, enabling you to spend less time worrying and more time growing your business.