The offering, coming in the fall in time for football season, will have two tiers. The Unlimited plan will cost $29.99 a month and $35.99 a month in a bundle with Disney+ and ESPN+. At launch, the company is offering a discounted price, at $29.99 for those signing up for the three-service bundle.The Select plan will deliver all content currently available on ESPN+ and remain priced at $11.99 a month.A launch date has not yet been disclosed and is not part of Tuesday’s announcements.Rosalyn Durant, EVP, Programming & Acquisitions, said the two-plan approach was aimed in part at “getting fans off the sidelines.” The Unlimited plan combines ESPN+ with every ESPN cable network as well as ESPN on ABC broadcasts.“We kept coming back to our four letters,” ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a press briefing Tuesday at Disney’s New York headquarters. “There’s power in our name and there’s trust in our name.” Younger audiences, he added, “see us as a digital brand,” so executives opted for something “simple, straightforward, clear.”Pitaro said the push into direct-to-consumer streaming does not signal an abandonment of traditional pay-TV distribution. He emphasized the importance of balancing “traditional distribution business and at the same time audience trends toward digital.”Pitaro estimated that a potential untapped market of about 60 million subscribers could be attracted to the new offering, though he declined to offer subscriber projections.“We are ultimately going to judge ourselves based on the totality of people subscribing to ESPN,” he said. “We are not going to look at one specific platform.”Pay-TV distributors have been integrating streaming into their video and broadband packages. The new ESPN offering could receive similar treatment, though existing agreements will give certain subscribers access to the revamped ESPN streamer at no extra charge.The roster of networks and services coming to the Unlimited tier includes linear channels ESPN; ESPN2; ESPNU, SEC Network; ACC Network; ESPN News as well as ESPN on ABC. Digital platforms include ESPN+, ESPN3, SECN+ and ACCNX. The total offering spans 47,000 live events a year.The briefing, ahead of Disney’s upfront presentation to ad buyers Tuesday afternoon, featured senior members of the ESPN management team as well as top Disney execs. CEO Bob Iger briefly mingled with colleagues and reporters but did not take part in the briefing, which was held at the Robert A. Iger building, which opened last year in the Hudson Square neighborhood of Lower Manhattan.Pitaro, who is one of the internal candidates to succeed Iger when his contract ends in 2026, joked about his task in stepping in front of several dozen reporters Tuesday. “No pressure, doing the first press briefing in the building named after my boss,” he quipped.
© 2025 Deadline.