Microsoft, CrowdStrike outage impacts ESPN

‘SportsCenter’ was grounded Friday due to a worldwide computer outage

A worldwide Microsoft outage caused by a defect in a content update provided by cybersecurity platform CrowdStrike has caused problems all over the world this Friday morning. Across the planet Microsoft systems crashed due to the failed content update, leading to canceled flights, bank systems crashing, and more.

The “largest IT failure in history” has even impacted ESPN.

The outage impacted the network’s ability to get the morning broadcast of “SportsCenter” on the air, so viewers were treated to a stream of ESPN Radio’s “Unsportsmanlike Radio” with Freddie Coleman and Courtney Cronin:

Cronin posted about the outage on social media:

Over at ESPN Gary Striewski and Randy Scott, who were set to host the morning edition of “SportsCenter,” shared videos about the start of their day as well as photographs of them waiting out the outage.

Eventually, “Get Up” began on ESPN. However, there were still some technical limitations, as graphics and “b-roll” were both limited. The show even opened with the “Blue Screen of Death” that many Microsoft users were seeing on their machines:

On ESPN2 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, the network continued airing Sky Sports F1’s coverage of the Hungarian Grand Prix, rolling from the first practice session into extended coverage from the network, even though “SportsCenter” was supposed to air at that time.

As users worldwide continue to deal with the outage, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz posted an update on Twitter/X:

On the bright side, at least it is Friday.