More Details Emerge About Disney’s New ESPN Streaming Service

Last Updated on: November 11th, 2017

One of the ever-present storylines throughout Disney financial releases for years has been the performance of their sports entertainment franchise ESPN. Between a decline in subscribers and revenue losses, ESPN has been a real problem spot for Disney for the better part of the past half-decade.

One of the top reason’s often given for ESPN’s decline has been the infamous ‘cord cutter’ generation: a new generation of millennials that see less value in traditional cable TV offerings and opt for newer over the top (OTT) streaming services that give them the specific TV shows and movies they want when they want them without having to pay for a bunch of the fluff you get with cable.

Earlier this year, we found out that Disney has decided that it is smarter to join them than beat them in announcing that they would be launching a couple of paid OTT streaming services for their Disney and ESPN content. At the time of the announcement, we learned that the ESPN streaming service would launch next year but the Disney/Pixar/Star Wars/Marvel version wouldn’t begin until 2019. During this week’s fiscal year-end earnings call, Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, filled in a few of the blanks about the ESPN streaming service. Here are a few of the nuggets we learned:

Service Name: ‘ESPN Plus’
Launch Target: Spring 2018
Content: Live ESPN channel content, additional live sporting events

So that’s what we know about ESPN Plus currently. As always, I will be posting more about this in the future as more details emerge, so be sure to subscribe!

About the Author

Craig Smith

I am founder and editor of DisneyNews.us. My passion for all things Disney goes pretty far back to my first trip to Walt Disney World in the mid-80's. I have since returned to the magical place more than 20 times. I started this site when I came to the realization that I spent a significant portion of my day reading articles about Disney and watching Disney content with my 8-year old, so it made sense that I would start sharing some of what I read and see and building a little community around it. Other interests include 80's nostalgia, vintage toys, video games, LEGO, Star Wars and tech gadgets. Other sites include DMR and VideoGamesStats.com.