During Disney Investor Day, Disney announced that ESPN+ had 11.5 million subscribers, up from 10.3 million subscribers they had at the end of last quarter. In Q3, the company revealed ESPN+ was at 8.5 million subscribers, up from 7.9 million subscribers in Q2.
On their Q4 earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Chapek, said that September was the best month ever for ESPN streaming. The growth in Q4 was helped by the return of College Football, as well as the debut of Bundesliga, which was exclusively available on the sports streaming service.
ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro announced that ESPN has reached a deal that will SEC football to ESPN starting in 2024, but starting next season ESPN+ will stream select SEC games. They also announced they will bring the a sports highlights show and a studio show featuring Stephen A. Smith exclusively to ESPN+.
Earlier in the presentation, Hulu’s Kelly Campbell announced that you will be able to purchase and stream ESPN+ content in the Hulu app starting next year.
In August, ESPN+ announced a price hike of the service from $4.99 to $5.99 for new subscribers. Existing monthly subscribers stayed at their $4.99 monthly price for one year.
Both the annual price of $49.99 per year and Disney Bundle of $12.99 a month (which includes Disney+ and Hulu), remain unchanged.
ESPN+ launched in April 2018 and includes a slate of UFC, college sports, soccer, and out-of-market coverage of NHL, MLB, and MLS. Earlier in June, ESPN announced that ESPN+ would air featured hole coverage from the PGA Tour.
In October, they launched “ESPN Radio TV on ESPN+” which moved their ESPN Radio shows: “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz,” “The Max Kellerman Show,” “Greeny”, “ Chiney & Golic Jr” and “Jorge Ramos y Su Banda”, exclusively to ESPN+.
They also moved much of their long-form content from popular writers like Bill Barnwell, Zach Lowe, Matthew Berry, Jackie MacMullan, and Jeff Passan behind the ESPN+ paywall.