Yahoo Lifestyle Disney Brings Last Piece Of Its Streaming Bundle To Disney+, With ESPN+ Joining Hulu Under The Main Tent
Disney’s “trio” bundle of Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ is now up and running under a single roof at Disney+.
As signaled last month, the addition of ESPN+ took effect this morning, giving subscribers to select live sporting events and library and studio fare via a branded ESPN tile on the home screen. The integration follows that of Hulu earlier this year.
More from Deadline
In a Zoom briefing with reporters, executives said initial sports programming due to be featured on the home page of Disney+ will include NBA and WNBA games, Australian Open tennis and studio shows like Pardon the Interruption. The effort to cross-pollinate sports and entertainment programming offers a preview of a more ambitious undertaking slated for fall 2025: the planned launch of ESPN’s “flagship” streaming service. (It, too, is slated to get real estate on Disney+.)
The move comes a bit more than five years after the launch of Disney+. In the intervening time, a clear consensus has built around two things: Disney+ programming is potent but too narrow; and the streaming landscape is littered with complexity and too many platforms.
Alisa Bowen, President of Disney+, called the move “the next step in both the evolution of Disney+ and also ESPN’s streaming future.”
Disney reported 122.7 million “core” subscribers to Disney+ (a tally omitting Disney+ Hotstar) and 25.6 million ESPN+ subscribers as of the September 28 end of its fiscal year. It does not report how many subscribers opt for bundles.
Execs were asked on the briefing why customers would be incentivized to continue subscribing to ESPN+ as a stand-alone service.
John Lasker, SVP of ESPN+, said the 5,000 live events set to be offered via Disney+ to bundle subscribers in the first 90 days represent “a small fraction” of the 30,000 events available each year on ESPN+. “Part of the design there is to stimulate engagement and interest in sports to a casual sports fan that might not otherwise come to ESPN in their normal media behavior. So it’s not creating an alternative to ESPN or ESPN+, but more an extended reach opportunity.”
ESPN+, which launched in 2018, initially was positioned as a supplement to the main ESPN pay-TV offering. Over the years, it has added more and more consequential live sports, but it still falls well short of delivering fans a comprehensive experience. As cord-cutting has continued to erode ESPN subscriber numbers, execs made the call to bring the full ESPN offering into direct-to-consumer streaming.
On the sports front, Disney’s streaming efforts have been compromised by a legal challenge to its joint venture with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, Venu Sports. That service, whose planned launch was wiped out earlier this year by a federal judge’s injunction in an antitrust lawsuit filed by Fubo, brings together sports-focused programming on 15 linear networks. Disney and its partners have appealed the injunction ruling and will make oral arguments next month in their appeal.
Best of Deadline
'Wednesday' Season 2: Everything We Know About The Cast, Premiere Date & More
'The White Lotus' Season 3: Everything We Know About The Cast, Premiere Date & More
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
