Check out our good and bad first impressions of the new ESPN streamer
Check out our good and bad first impressions of the new ESPN streamer
Sports fans have been waiting for the new ESPN streaming option for a long time. Does it live up to expectations?
The moment sports fans (myself included) have been waiting for for decades has finally arrived. As of Thursday, Aug. 21, audiences can now stream the entirety of the ESPN family of networks and streaming services without having to subscribe to a pay-TV subscription, thanks to the new ESPN Unlimited tier of the worldwide leader’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) service. The package costs $30 per month by itself, but fans can unlock a good discount if they bundle the streamer with Disney+ and Hulu.
Now that ESPN Unlimited is available, we at The Streamable felt we owed it to our readers to explore the platform a bit and see what the service is really all about. I’ll have an in-depth review of the service’s user interface available next week, but for now, check out the initial thoughts of a fan who’s been waiting a long time for the new ESPN streaming service to arrive.
Before I dig into the ESPN streaming service itself, a quick note about logging in. I signed into my ESPN account on my computer before linking my TV to my account, but when I entered the code for quick login to the ESPN app on my smart TV, I was still prompted to sign up for the new ESPN Unlimited service, even though I had already subscribed to the service. If this happens to you, click the “Browse All Plans” button on the device you used to enter the code; this should allow the ESPN app on your TV to link to your account and let you in. This is also true if you are logging in via your TV Everywhere credentials from a cable, satellite, or live TV streaming service that provides free access to the ESPN service.
Once I was inside the ESPN app, I confess to finding myself mildly disappointed. I’ve used the ESPN app plenty of times before, and even with the rollout of a massively new product that could change the way viewers access live sports forever, the app itself seems largely unchanged. Yes, there’s a prominent ad for ESPN Unlimited at the top of the screen, but other than that and the extra content, the layout seems fundamentally the same.
I’m sure this is intended to help viewers who have used the ESPN app to stream ESPN content for years through TVE authentication maintain the same experience they’ve always had, but I still wish that a user experience refresh of some kind had been in the plans when ESPN Unlimited launched.
Don’t get me wrong, the layout of the app is fine — perhaps even aggressively fine. The first row is packed with the top live events on ESPN channels and ESPN+, and the next row down is labeled “Also Live.” This is another area I think ESPN Unlimited could improve — I wish it had an electronic programming guide, to make it feel more like you’re getting a pay-TV experience without actually having to pay for a pay-TV experience. The “Also Live” row does a good job laying out what programming is live on specific ESPN channels at a given moment, but I think a full, old-school guide would simplify the process even further.
I do like that the left-hand menu on the new ESPN streamer has an option for “Films and Shows,” so I can filter out the extensive amount of live content on ESPN Unlimited if I want to watch a “30 for 30” episode. The “Browse” option in the main menu is also helpful, as it lets you search by sport and watch only content related to a specific sport or league, if you want to narrow things down. I can see why ESPN chose an attitude of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” with its app’s user experience.
In all, however, the minor quibbles I have with the new ESPN Unlimited service melted away when I started playback, and saw the trademark ESPN chyron pulling up relevant scores while I halfway listened to Stephen A. Smith make some rage-inducing point about the Dallas Cowboys. In this regard, the streamer does exactly what it promises to do: deliver ESPN programming without cable.
For all my gripes about the ESPN app, ESPN Unlimited does exactly what it’s supposed to do: stream ESPN.
I also appreciated that while watching, I could pull up a list of other live programming on ESPN channels, as well as a selection of multiview options to watch live sporting events (in this case, golf coverage). That kind of functionality will serve ESPN well in the future, and suggests that perhaps its app just needs a few more minor tweaks instead of a huge overhaul — at least in my opinion.
Is it worth the price? At $30 per month, there’s no denying that ESPN Unlimited is expensive as far as a single streaming platform goes. However, the value proposition is a bit different for me, since I get ESPN Unlimited for a net price increase of $18 per month with my Disney Bundle. I think ESPN Unlimited is worth the cost, but individual viewers will have to make that determination for themselves based on their budget and affinity for the sports properties ESPN has to offer.
One last quick note to ESPN: forget the ESPN Select label. You’ve already established ESPN+ as a brand, even if it created some confusion amongst customers who initially thought it was the service you could use to stream everything on ESPN cable channels when it was first released. Just keep ESPN+ as ESPN+ inside the larger app experience instead of trying to halfway morph it into ESPN Select, and sell it alongside ESPN Unlimited instead.
While there are some changes I would make to the new ESPN streaming service, I can safely say it will get plenty of engagement from me as the fall goes along. The interface itself may not be perfect, but it finally has all of ESPN’s content for viewers who don’t have pay-TV plans, and my key takeaway from my first experience with the streamer is that all other concerns with the service melt away in the face of that access.
ESPN Unlimited
ESPN launched its highly anticipated direct-to-consumer streaming service on August 21, 2025. For the first time, this service gives sports fans access to its full lineup of linear channels without a traditional cable or satellite subscription.