The Walt Disney Company is moving forward with a standalone streaming service that will offer the ESPN multiplex cable network beyond the traditional cable bundle — and sports fans are going to get ESPN Plus with it, too.
The affirmation was made by ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro at an industry conference this week, during which he affirmed ESPN Plus will be part of the offering when it launches by next summer.
The streaming service, internally called “Flagship,” will unlock streaming access to ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN News and a handful of channels focused on partner college conferences. It is expected to launch well ahead of the National Football League’s (NFL) regular season. Football is a major growth driver to streaming cable-like services, and ESPN is hoping to launch the product well ahead of the start of the 2025 NFL season.
Related: Football helps increase interest in streaming TV services, Ampere says
For years, ESPN Plus has offered some games from ESPN, but not the full schedule of sports and analysis programming that the ESPN cable channels do. The service, priced around $11 per month, also includes the back catalog of ESPN’s documentaries, including its “30 for 30” and “E:60” news magazine shows.
ESPN Plus also offers ancillary sports programming that isn’t always shown on the network’s cable multiplex, including out-of-market National Hockey League (NHL) games, Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view events, Formula 1, Bundesliga, Top Rank boxing, Australia’s National Basketball League and National Lacross League, among others.
By including ESPN Plus, Flagship will offer sports fans those games plus more, including enhanced features like real-time wagering statistics from ESPN Bet, data from ESPN Fantasy Games, personalized content and sports recommendations and opportunities to purchase merchandise from within supported apps and platforms.
“When we do this, it will come with significant product enhancements,” Pitaro said on Thursday. “Yes, you’ll be able to get all of our networks, but the shoulder experience around the video will be much more interactive, and it will be much more personalized.”
Pitaro said the brand is in the process of moving away from its well-recognized “Worldwide Leader in Sports” slogan, which “always felt a bit off, from my perspective.” Instead, the company is embracing a mission to “serve sports fans, anytime, anywhere.”
The network wanted to get a jump start on that mission by participating in Venu Sports, a streaming-focused joint venture with Fox Corporation and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) that sought to offer sports-inclusive broadcast and cable channels from the three media companies over the Internet. As described, Venu Sports was to cost around $50 per month, and only carry live channels that offer sports programming, including TBS, TNT, ABC, Fox and ESPN.
The strategy meant the three companies were not offering up their general entertainment or news channels like MSNBC, CNN, Disney Channel or FX — something that didn’t sit well with some pay TV providers, who complained that the broadcasters always forced them to carry and pay for entertainment and news channels if they wanted to distribute sports networks on their platforms.
Fubo, which offers channels from Disney and Fox, sued the broadcasters earlier this year, saying the arrangement with Venu Sports was anticompetitive because the companies were favoring their own joint venture with substantially different distribution terms than what other pay TV platforms enjoyed. Through the lawsuit, the company revealed for the first time that, prior to Venu Sports, the distribution terms imposed by broadcasters effectively convinced the company to drop WBD-owned channels in favor of an agreement with Disney for ESPN and ABC. Carrying channels from all three broadcasters would have been too cost-prohibitive at the time that deal was made, Fubo said, implying that if it was allowed to just carry sports channels, different deals would have been made.
In August, the judge overseeing Fubo’s lawsuit agreed to temporarily block Venu Sports from launching. The broadcasters are appealing the matter, and the antitrust case brought by Fubo is scheduled to go to trial in the second half of next year.
Flagship might also rankle pay TV platforms, but it will probably invite no legal challenges: Disney charges cable and satellites companies a hefty price to offer ESPN, but its carriage agreements are on a non-exclusive basis.
This article, Forthcoming ESPN streaming service will include ESPN Plus, was first published at The Desk. To submit a news tip, comment or request for correction, please click or tap here.
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