With ESPN’s direct-to-consumer plan, the network is attempting to uphold its mission statement of, “Serving sports fans. Anytime. Anywhere.”
In the process, Disney CEO Bob Iger and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro are looking to make deals. Anytime. Anywhere.
Iger and Pitaro are trying, through equity stake talks with the biggest leagues and with distribution discussions with the largest digital players, to add to ESPN’s already impressive content lineup and have price points to serve every sports fan.
It all sounds simple, but they are engaged in complicated negotiations with a full ESPN direct-to-consumer subscription product launching this fall in combination with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, and then ESPN’s standalone service slated for 2025.
At a fee of more than $10 per subscriber, no company has been more important to the cable bundle than ESPN, and no one has benefited more. While ESPN will still be offered on cable, Disney/ESPN are trying to stack the sports content and distribution deck even more in their favor.
In 2011, ESPN peaked with 100 million cable homes, according to Nielsen, but now is at around 71 million homes. One of the overarching goals for Iger and Pitaro is to reverse the subscriber trend with its direct-to-consumer plan.
ESPN’s goal is to sell…
