ESPN+ continues to see strong growth, with the continued push of the Disney Bundle. The streaming service now has over 12.1 million subscribers as of January 2nd, 2021 (FY 2021 Q1). Over the course of the year, the service nearly doubled adding 5.5 million subscribers.
Disney says average revenue per paid subscriber for ESPN+ increased from $4.44 to $4.48 due to their price hike in August that saw it increase from $4.99 to $5.99 for new subscribers, but would have been higher had not many new customers come from the Disney Bundle. In early January, they raised the price of their annual plan from $49.99 to $59.99 per year, along with the price of PPV UFC fights to $69.99.
In December, Disney announced that ESPN+ had 11.5 million subscribers, up from 10.3 million subscribers they had at the end of the previous quarter. In Q3, the company revealed ESPN+ was at 8.5 million subscribers, up from 7.9 million subscribers in Q2.
Last quarter, Disney CEO Bob Chapek, said that September 2020 was the best month ever for ESPN streaming. The growth was helped by the return of College Football, as well as the debut of Bundesliga, which was exclusively available on the sports streaming service.
In December, ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro announced that ESPN had reached a deal that will SEC football to ESPN starting in 2024, but starting next season ESPN+ will stream select SEC games. Las month, they debuted a reboot of “Sports Nation” and a studio show featuring Stephen A. Smith exclusively to ESPN+.
Shortly, customers will be able to purchase and stream ESPN+ content in the Hulu app for the first time.