ESPN Streaming Service Attracts 1 Million Paid Subscribers

The $4.99 a month streaming video service from ESPN has attracted more than 1 million paid subscribers since its launch in April of this year. Disney, which owns ESPN has decided to pull its content from Netflix in favor of starting a branded streaming service dedicated to its movies and shows.

ESPN+ will stream 10,000 live sporting events in its first year, in addition to on-demand content and past sporting events. It features games from Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and global soccer events. It does not require its subscribers to buy a cable or satellite subscription, appealing to cord-cutters. The service costs $4.99 per month, or $49.99 per year.

I know a lot of sports fans that have cable because of content they can't get. ESPN used to be on the list - $4.99 a month seems reasonable I guess. (I'm not a sports fan so no value to me)

see, why couldn't the canadian channels offer their plan for 5/month. That seems very reasonable, while in canada, it cost 25/month....

Not sure if this will appeal to most sports peeps or not. It'd probably work for me, since about the only thing I'd consider watching is the major Tennis tournaments (so maybe 10 or 15 bucks a year), but if i wanted Basketball or Football, I think I'd still have to get cable. Nevertheless, kudos to them for a decent price that doesn't require cable to stream.

while I enjoy sports, I don't like that ESPN has turned into a political statement channel. Just do sports, damnit.

hesho said:

see, why couldn't the canadian channels offer their plan for 5/month. That seems very reasonable, while in canada, it cost 25/month....

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Because Canada is a bigger country and getting the signal through the maple syrup infested telcom/cable infrastructure is 5 times more expensive for the poor telcom triopoly. And it would be horrible if those downtrodden telcoms lost their position in the world's top 10 most profitable consumer ripoff organizations.

clockdogg said:

Because Canada is a bigger country and getting the signal through the maple syrup infested telcom/cable infrastructure is 5 times more expensive for the poor telcom triopoly. And it would be horrible if those downtrodden telcoms lost their position in the world's top 10 most profitable consumer ripoff organizations.

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That was worded funny, thanks for that...

I thought espn streaming was free if you had a cable/satellite account you can attach to... usually your parents who still pay for tv

Nukester said:

while I enjoy sports, I don't like that ESPN has turned into a political statement channel. Just do sports, damnit.

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Read or heard somewhere in the last day or so that Disney recognizes that and is moving to return to sports first. Maybe on CNBC this morning while they were discussing the OP topic. I will believe it when I see it happen. But it had become very apparent that ESPN was pushing an agenda beyond sports reporting.

It has been said that ESPN retrans costs are so high that even cable subs that do not have ESPN tier service pay like 10 bucks a month due to cost spreading among all subscribers. Tons of people I know have upper tier cable just for sports. Personally if there is a game that I need to see I would rather watch it at a bar with some brews and tater skins for waaay less than a month of paid TV.

mmmmm.. tater skins..

When Disney pulls all of their kids shows and movies off of Netflix....it is going to be a bloodbath for Netflix. I don't think people realize how much content Disney controls now with the Fox acquisition. Netflix will have to change their spaghetti against the wall approach for original content. Too much lost money on crappy shows.

Plus they will start enforcing multiple users on the same account issue which is going to be a rude awakening to all you freeloaders out there!

TheHig said:

It has been said that ESPN retrans costs are so high that even cable subs that do not have ESPN tier service pay like 10 bucks a month due to cost spreading among all subscribers. Tons of people I know have upper tier cable just for sports. Personally if there is a game that I need to see I would rather watch it at a bar with some brews and tater skins for waaay less than a month of paid TV.

mmmmm.. tater skins..

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Not sure I put the blame entirely on ESPN though, it's more the sports teams that want to get their greedy little mitts into as much revenue from televised events as possible. I mean anyone who lives in a region with any major sports teams, and has cable/satellite and that dreaded "Regional Sports Fee", I swear I've never San Francisco Giants game before outside of maybe the later games of the World Series but sure enough those fuckers manage to get money from every single TV subscriber in the area whether or not they want it or not.

There's a bunch of new UFC content coming to ESPN+ in the next year. I'm interested in some of that depending on the quality of it.

*SportsDevil* works fine for me. I don't mind "hunting" for a decent stream. If sports were that important, i'd sign up for a package - but its not. My home teams suck anyways. : (

Dead Parrot said:

Read or heard somewhere in the last day or so that Disney recognizes that and is moving to return to sports first. Maybe on CNBC this morning while they were discussing the OP topic. I will believe it when I see it happen. But it had become very apparent that ESPN was pushing an agenda beyond sports reporting.

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I also heard this. People can say whatever they want, but when you poke half the country (and probably more than half your viewership) in the eye, you lose revenue. NFL affiliates lost like $400m last season.

I'm not sure they have been punished enough. I would like to make the price to be paid for becoming a political organization instead of a sports broadcast so high, that the networks bury the idea and then bury the shovel they used to dig the hole. Then salt the earth. I want a sting so bad in their institutional memory that it is not even considered again in my lifetime.

Then an apology.

At that time, the price will have been paid, and we can all go on about our lives.

After a while here will come the deaths of Cable companies, before the only thing keeping them really going was Soap Operas and Sports, as more of these companies gain their own streaming service more people will be cutting cords, My largest worry is that ISP markets will pay the price because Cable companies couldn't evolve, and instead will just to flat out try recouping revenue for shareholders with wonky pay tiers for land lines that no one will want, currently subscriptions are cheaper with ISP service versus paying ever creeping high costs for cable packages.

Dead Parrot said:

Read or heard somewhere in the last day or so that Disney recognizes that and is moving to return to sports first. Maybe on CNBC this morning while they were discussing the OP topic. I will believe it when I see it happen. But it had become very apparent that ESPN was pushing an agenda beyond sports reporting.

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I stopped watching ESPN years ago because of this. I have limited time to watch sports, and I don't want to be bothered with bs during that time.

tbonepat11 said:

When Disney pulls all of their kids shows and movies off of Netflix....it is going to be a bloodbath for Netflix. I don't think people realize how much content Disney controls now with the Fox acquisition. Netflix will have to change their spaghetti against the wall approach for original content. Too much lost money on crappy shows.

Plus they will start enforcing multiple users on the same account issue which is going to be a rude awakening to all you freeloaders out there!

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Netflix is really going to struggle when more services like youtube tv become available. I'd be surprised if they last 10 years.

The problem all of these services create is that we're suddenly going to have like 50 online providers (each with their own content) charging us a-la carte the same amount that Comcast/Cox/TW/etc. were charging us for a bundle of everything.
I don't want a dozen content delivery services nickel and diming me to "watch only what I want" when I can have every channel for the cost of 5-6 of them.
I see us regretting all of this in a few years.

Domingo said:

The problem all of these services create is that we're suddenly going to have like 50 online providers (each with their own content) charging us a-la carte the same amount that Comcast/Cox/TW/etc. were charging us for a bundle of everything.
I don't want a dozen content delivery services nickel and diming me to "watch only what I want" when I can have every channel for the cost of 5-6 of them.
I see us regretting all of this in a few years.

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I've said this on here for years: communications researchers have said for decades that Ala Carte is coming and that we'll pay more to get less.
IF the streaming model allows you to come and go from a service at will, then I think it can be cheaper. Given that we tend to binge shows these days, one could easily sign up for CBS to watch, for example, Star Trek or The Good Fight during the month that the series finishes up. Pay 10 bucks, watch it and cancel. Same with Netflix, though they put out far more exclusive (non-broadcast) content than CBS. Amazon may benefit from people just paying for Prime, because they buy from them anyway, but I could easily go for a month of prime, binge most shows and move on.

Now if AMC or FX end up with an exclusive streaming service for each channel, then it may change the calculus, but over all, I think that's unlikely. Fox (or is that all Disney now?) and AMC Networks might exclusively stream for their shows, but that could be a sub for a month watch what I want and move on.
Time will tell what Disney has, but their movies aren't going to pull me in and more than likely their broadcast programming won't either, so that leaves exclusive content and again, I can probably get all I want from them by subbing 1-2 months out of the year.

Obviously if you're into Football, Basketball and/or Baseball, you'll probably need a sub for most of the year (if not the entire year).