Predicting the price and name of ESPN’s new streamer
Predicting the price and name of ESPN’s new streamer
Disney will reveal the name and price of its forthcoming ESPN streaming service next week, but we’ll take a stab at predicting them here
Get ready to say goodbye to the name “Flagship”… probably. That has been the working title that ESPN has been using presumably as a placeholder while the worldwide leader in sports was working on a standalone streaming service that would include access to all of its cable and streaming programming. During this week’s earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that the company would announce the name and details for the new sports streamer next week, ahead of the advertising Upfronts. While the streamer’s details are still being kept closely under wraps, I’ll give you my best guess at what the platform’s new name will be and how much viewers can expect to pay. Though as of Friday, it’s been all but confirmed to be simply, “ESPN”.
Key Details:
- The final countdown: Disney will unveil official details about its new streamer ahead of Disney’s upfront presentation.
- More than $30?: Disney may keep the initial price low to attract customers, before raising it later on.
- What’s in a name?: Customers can expect the name of the streamer to be fairly unsurprising.
The details about the service currently known as Flagship, including its official name and price will be handed down by Disney before its upfront presentation on Tuesday. Fans will finally know how much to start budgeting if they want to sign up for service when it launches ahead of the 2025 college football and NFL seasons.
The Streamable has already predicted that the launch of the standalone service will be the top streaming story of the year. The power of the service to be disruptive to the already-fragile pay-TV ecosystem is hard to overstate, and it could lead to a fresh wave of mass subscriber defections from cable, satellite, and live TV streaming distributors.
Previous reporting has indicated that the streamer will cost between $25 and $30 per month, which could mitigate some of the concerns that pay-TV companies have about the possibility of customers canceling. While $30 is still cheaper than any live TV streamer that carries the ESPN networks, all of those other options provide numerous other channels, including additional sports options. Since paying that much just to stream one group of channels might be more than many cord-cutters are comfortable with, it could convince some pay-TV customers to pay a little more to get the ESPN offerings, and other sports and entertainment channels. Nonetheless, we are going to use that earlier reporting as a baseline to formulate our final prediction on how much the forthcoming ESPN streamer might cost.
I actually believe that Disney might decide to lean toward the lower end of this range. That prediction is based on information that came out about the Venu Sports joint venture between Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery during the antitrust lawsuit brought by Fubo. Venu was to be priced at $43 per month, which would have meant its three owners would have lost money on it initially. Once Venu had a steady subscriber base, the companies intended to raise the price — though they also promised to keep the $43 cost in place for at least a year.
The new ESPN streamer could follow a similar plan to lure new subscribers with an attractive starting price. Therefore, my official prediction is that the new ESPN streamer will cost $25 per month, at least to start. I’m also predicting that it won’t have a free trial, just as Disney’s other sports streamer, ESPN+, does not.
As for the name, viewers who are hoping to see Disney and ESPN go with something creative will probably be disappointed. Company executives have repeatedly stated that the new streamer won’t be called Flagship, but that has become so widely used throughout the industry, they might change their minds. Earlier this year, we thought that one executive let the name slip when he repeatedly called the new offering “ESPN All Access” at a tech conference in March, but other ESPN officials explained that All Access was simply a placeholder name used behind the scenes at the company; but still, we have seen worse names for streamers.
If I had my way, ESPN would take the next logical step and call its new streamer “ESPN+ Plus.” Since ESPN+ already exists, and its content will be included in the new streamer, it makes sense to use that as a starting block. Then, when you include in the programming from linear channels, you are adding to ESPN+, so ESPN+ Plus does make sense.
However, if you want to go with something more straightforward, maybe I suggest “ESPN Online”? Since streaming comes from your broadband internet, it does make logical sense. Plus, I think it has a nice ring to it and is really easy to shorten to ESPNO, which I think could become a fun marketing gimmick.
“Is there any better place to stream college sports?”
“ESP-No!”
In reality, I would expect to see a name like “ESPN All Access,” “ESPN All In,” or “ESPN Stream” used. Disney will want to make the ESPN branding front-and-center, but it will have to give the new service a name that clearly differentiates it from ESPN+, at least, while there still is an ESPN+. I don’t think the company will follow the lead of Warner Bros. Discovery, which confusingly decided to cut the HBO brand out of the name of its Max streaming service in 2023.
In terms of some darkhorse candidates, I do think ESPN Flagship still has a shot, while the company could recycle Venu Sports, or even that service’s unserious nickname “Spulu.”
As a cord-never who struggles to find a solution when his favorite NBA, NHL, or NFL teams are playing a game exclusively on ESPN, I’m cautiously excited for the launch of Flagship. It will greatly expand access to the channel and will unlock a huge inventory of sports for viewers like me. We don’t officially know the name or price of ESPN’s new streamer yet, but we are about to find out.
ESPN Select
ESPN Select is a streaming service that replaced ESPN+ and provides access to live NHL, MLB, and MLS games, PGA Tour Golf, international sports events, ESPN original programming, and a complete archive of “30 for 30.” Find out our review of the service and how to start streaming ESPN Select.