November means it’s time for companies to reveal their quarterly earnings for the three-month period between the start of July and the end of September. That period is Disney’s fiscal fourth quarter, and the company revealed on Wednesday evening that during its Q4 of 2023, it had 26 million subscribers on ESPN+.

That means the service added 800,000 users in the months since its last quarterly earnings report. In August, Disney reported that ESPN+ had 25.2M subscribers after having lost 100,000 in Q2.

Disney+, the company’s flagship streaming service reported that an impressive 7 million customers joined the platform during the final quarter of the fiscal year to groundout 2023 with 150.2 million subscribers. The company’s third streaming service Hulu added 300,000 customers in Q4 2023 to come in at 48.5 million paid users. This total includes 4.6M on its live TV streaming service Hulu + Live TV. Collectively, Disney reported having 224.7 million streaming customers, not factoring for all of the redundant subscribers via The Disney Bundle.

How Much Longer Will ESPN+ Exist?

Signs have increasingly appeared that ESPN+ may not be in existence for much longer during the quarter. Disney is moving ahead with plans to create a streaming version of the full ESPN family of channels that won’t require a cable subscription by 2025; once that service is up and running, ESPN+ and its content will likely be simply folded into the platform, and will cease to exist as a standalone streamer.

What Were ESPN+’s Biggest Stories of the Quarter?

Until ESPN+ is folded into the larger ESPN streaming service, however, it will continue to offer thousands of live sporting events and other programming that fans won’t see anywhere else. Users who watch the ESPN app on Xbox and Apple TV devices can now watch up to four games at once on ESPN+, and best yet, they can swap out games from the pre-set four game blocs to completely customize their experience.

Unfortunately for users, ESPN+ was not left out of Disney’s calculations when determining how much more it would charge its streaming customers this quarter. Prices rose across the board for Disney streaming services on Oct. 12, and ESPN+ increased from $9.99 per month to $10.99 for customers who don’t wish to bundle it with other Disney streamers.

The streamer will once again serve as the home of select “ManningCast” alternative broadcasts of “Monday Night Football” games. Hosted by Peyton and Eli Manning, and featuring special guests with ties to one of the two teams playing that night, the ManningCast offers viewers a totally new and incredibly fun way to watch “MNF.” Check out the full schedule of ManningCast games here.

ESPN+ was a big piece of the puzzle in Disney’s new carriage contract with Spectrum, which was agreed to in September. That deal called for the creation of a new, sports-channel focused Spectrum TV plan, whose subscribers would be granted access to ESPN+ as a part of their monthly cable subscription fee.

That means ESPN+ could have a wave of new subscribers soon, and if it does those users will continue to be able to stream Patriot League football on the service. This NCAA conference will send 750+ college football, basketball, baseball, softball, field hockey, volleyball, and other events to ESPN+ every season, after the two sides renewed their broadcasting contract in September.

Animated NFL games could also have an expanded presence on ESPN+ after this year. In Week 4 of the 2023 NFL season, ESPN+ and Disney+ presented a special, live-animated edition of the game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Atlanta Falcons, complete with a “Toy Story” theme.

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