🚨 A BIG Change Is Coming to Disney+ This Year 🚨

May 7th is a big day for Disney fans because it’s the Q2 earnings call!

It is common for Disney to share what has been happening within the company and discuss big updates that may be upcoming during earnings calls. Recently, Disney has been making it a point to talk about ESPN — how the sports entertainment company has been doing and any important directions Disney plans to take it. Now, we have some important developments to share with you.

Disney has been busy with running EPSN. They have launched a new sports betting app and plan to start a new sports streaming service by teaming up with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery. But it’s clear that isn’t enough for Disney CEO Bob Iger, who is hoping to continue to build the sports entertainment sector.

During the Q2 earnings call, Disney shared that by the end of the calendar year, an ESPN tile will be added to Disney+ giving all US subscribers access to select live games. Sports streaming for The Walt Disney Company continues to stand out when it comes to convening large audiences. Disney also reported that ESPN had a fantastic April in terms of total day viewership and in terms of Prime Time viewership, ESPN has seen its highest on record which seems promising to the company.

The NCAA women’s tournament seems to have made the difference here! The NCAA women’s final four in Cleveland was the most viewed on record and the championship between Iowa and South Carolina was ESPN’s most-viewed college basketball game ever, men’s or women’s, and Disney also reported record-breaking ratings for the WNBA draft.

Monday night football had its most-watched season since 2000 and the NFL postseason also broke viewership records. The divisional playoff game between the Houston Texans and Baltimore Ravens was ESPN’s most-watched NFL game ever with 32.4 million viewers.

Disney also reported that ESPN domestic ad sales were up 20% in the quarter partially due to an extra college football playoff game.

According to Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, Putting ESPN on the Disney+ app is “a start in terms of essentially conditioning the audience or subscribers to Disney Plus and Hulu the fact that sports is going to be there.” Iger went on to mention that The Walt Disney Company has worked to lock up long-term deals with significant sports organizations, including college football championships, NCAA championships, and the NFL. Iger seemed confident during the call that Disney would end up with an NBA deal for ESPN as well, but when pressed to speak more on the cost of an NBA contract, Iger shied away from a straight answer to it saying, “We continue to look at the NBA as a growth market with great demographics” and “we feel good about the potential package we will end up with.”

Hugh Johnston also commented that the timing on ESPN Plus subscriptions was “normal seasonality for the decline.” He also went on to list that the end of college football season has happened and that tends to be the reason why people would drop their subscriptions.

When asked about the addition of international sports to ESPN, Iger went on to note that currently, they have selective international rights for sports. Their rights seem to primarily cover the United States, but said they have an” array of sports rights in Latin America.”

Iger went on to add that they’re being selective about adding international sports rights now. But if you’re holding out hope that will be growing soon, you might not want to hold out hope right now. Iger said, “We’re not interested at this point in growing international rights… we’re walking before we run in that regard.”

While there’s not much more conversation around it currently, Disney also announced that an enhanced standalone ESPN streaming service is expected to launch in the Fall of 2025.

We’re not surprised to hear Iger has some significant plans for ESPN. It seems to be at the top of his list of ways to keep improving the company. There’s a lot more information and announcements coming, so stay tuned to AllEars for more news.

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What are your thoughts on this news? Tell us in the comments!

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