ESPN Programming Coming To Disney+ By Year-End; Bob Iger Calls It “First Step” Toward Flagship Sports Launch In 2025
Disney will add select live games and studio shows from ESPN to its flagship streaming service Disney+ by the end of 2024, CEO Bob Iger announced Tuesday morning.
Speaking to Wall Street analysts on the company’s fiscal second-quarter earnings call, Iger said the company has been “encouraged” by early results of adding Hulu programming to Disney+. The idea is to similarly make Disney+ a destination for much of the company’s top-shelf content, including live sports.
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“We see this as a first step to bring to ESPN-Disney+ viewers as we ready the enhanced stand-alone ESPN streaming service in the fall of 2025,” Iger said. The company is also partnering with Fox Sports and Warner Bros Discovery on yet another sports streaming offering due to launch later this year. That still-unnamed joint venture differs from stand-alone ESPN or the bulked-up Disney+ service in that it is an aggregation of 14 linear feeds from sports-heavy networks. Nicknamed “Spulu,” the offering does not have any programming from major sports rights holders NBCUniversal or Paramount Global.
ESPN has shored up many of its key properties, including NCAA sports, the expanded College Football Playoff and, according to recent reports, the NBA. Iger did not indicate which games would be made available on Disney+. Already, a sampling of ESPN fare is simulcast on free, over-the air broadcast TV via ABC, a concession to the dwindling pay-TV bundle. The company called out subscriber declines as a headwind for ESPN in the quarter.
During a conference call with analysts, Iger said a “modest” amount of programming from ESPN would be sprinkled into Disney+. He added that he was “bullish” on the prospect of those pieces of content enhancing engagement. “It’s a start in terms of conditioning viewers that sports is going to be there,” he said. ESPN, he clarified, is making “a pivot toward digital without abandoning linear.”
Streaming (along with the Experiences) drove a solid quarterly report for Disney. It hit a milestone in its entertainment streaming operation (Disney+ and Hulu), which posted a profit for the first time. Including ESPN+, which had an operating loss of $18 million in the quarter, the company still expects its overall streaming portfolio to be in the black by the end of fiscal 2024. That was a goal the company first established in 2019.
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