SAN FRANCISCO, CA — GrapplePass, the BJJ streaming platform backed by $14 million in Series A funding and described by its CEO as “the Netflix of grappling,” launched Tuesday to widespread enthusiasm and near-universal inability to actually watch anything.
The platform, which promises exclusive access to over 12,000 hours of grappling footage, tournament archives, and original programming, has so far processed four completed subscriptions. One of those was a tester account. One was the CEO’s mother, who called her son for help and was on hold for two hours.
“I tried for forty-five minutes,” said one would-be subscriber, blue belt Renata Souza, 29. “The sign-up button works. You enter your card, it says ‘processing,’ and then it just… doesn’t. There’s no confirmation email. There’s no error message. You just exist in a state of not being subscribed, and you don’t know why.”
The checkout process, which GrapplePass’s head of product described as “a streamlined three-step flow,” has been widely reported to require the creation of an account, verification of said account via email, re-entry of payment information after verification, selection of a subscription tier from four nearly identical options, confirmation of billing address, acceptance of terms including a 14-day free trial that requires a credit card, and — for reasons that remain unclear — selection of a preferred gi color.
Users who complete all steps are directed to a loading screen that has not, as of press time, loaded.
GrapplePass’s support team posted on Instagram that they are “aware of a few issues affecting a small number of users.” The post has 847 comments, all of which are variations of the phrase “it’s not working.”
The company’s Series A investors released a statement expressing full confidence in the team. The statement was hosted on a page that required users to create an account to read it.
The Porra is a satire publication. GrapplePass is fictional. The checkout experience is not.