Disney Will Add ESPN Tile to Disney+ This Year

Caitlin Huston
·2 min read
40
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Disney plans to add an ESPN tile to Disney+ as it prepares to launch its new standalone ESPN streaming service.

The tile will be added by the end of the calendar year, Disney CEO Bob Iger said, and will feature “select live games” as well as studio programming, to watch within Disney+. This feature will be available for all U.S. subscribers.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

“We see this as a first step to bring ESPN to Disney+ viewers as we ready the launch of our enhanced standalone ESPN streaming in the fall of 2025,” Iger said Tuesday on the company’s second quarter earnings call.

“It’s a start in terms of essentially conditioning the audience or subscribers to Disney+ and Hulu to the fact that sports is going to be there and it also will help us in terms of overall engagement with our bundle,” Iger added.

This comes after the launch of Hulu on Disney+, in March, for bundle subscribers, with Iger saying the company is “encouraged by early results.”

Iger added that while ESPN will “make a pivot toward digital, but without abandoning linear.” In terms of sports rights, Iger noted ESPN’s long-term deals including college football championships, NCAA championships and the NFL.

“We’re confident or optimistic we’re going to end up with an NBA deal that will be long term in our best interest in the best interest of our subscribers,” Iger said.

Iger previously said the standalone ESPN streaming service will be part of the Disney+ bundle. The standalone product will include all of ESPN’s channels, including all of its major rights packages (including the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL and a host of college sports). ESPN+, its current streaming service, has some live events now and library programming including the 30 for 30 documentary banner.

Disney is also part of the joint sports venture with Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox and is expected to feature live streams of sporting events on ESPN, ABC, Fox, TNT and TBS. The new service is slated to launch later this year and would feature some NFL games, virtually all national telecasts for Major League Baseball, the NBA and the NHL and college sports. Iger previously said that the stand-alone ESPN platform will have “many more features” than the joint service.

Best of The Hollywood Reporter