Saw this article today from Awful Announcing about the losses Disney is currently taking as they continue to build the ESPN+ subscriber base while they are also in the process of bringing Disney+ to market.

Disney expected to lose about $300 million over the first 2 quarters.

It's not terribly surprising, but it's also not terribly concerning. Disney can afford to lose that sort of money on a project they expect to make big money down the road. It's a long term investment.

My question centers around this...what will Disney have to do in order to transition from an entry level product with a smallish subscriber base to a big time moneymaker?

Now, Disney+ will service a different segment so I'm not really going to focus on that. All of us sports fans should be looking at what they do with ESPN+.

Right now, the service has some decent content although mostly for niche fans.

-UFC
-MLS, Italian Serie A, and some other products for soccer fans.
-Select MLB games
-Select NHL games
-College sports from a few smaller leagues
-Some original programming like 30 for 30, etc...
-You also get access to written content that used to be branded as ESPN Insider.

All of that for $4.99 a month with no contract. It's not a bad deal and I've enjoyed my subscription so far. Nonetheless, after a year they only have about 2 million subscribers. They'll continue to grow, but I'm not sure the ceiling is terribly high given the current lineup.

It could be a lot worse, but the point is eventually ESPN is going to have to move more prime content onto ESPN+ in order for the subscriber base to be significant. I have to assume that was the plan all along. Unless they got really lucky, there was no way tens of millions of people were going to sign up for a service that didn't feature everyone's favorite sports on a regular basis.

I think the next round of contract negotiations for every league is going to be interesting.

The AAC is up soon and I would be surprised if they don't move some decent content to ESPN+ as a part of a deal with the network. Of course, it only starts there.

If the SEC expands and renegotiates with ESPN then I'm betting they'll want some games on ESPN+. The ACC may be put into a position where they need to do the same. If the Big 12 loses schools and is forced to craft a new deal then I would expect the same situation there.

What could be really interesting is what ESPN will have to do when it comes to the major pro leagues. Some way, somehow, they're going to have to talk some of these leagues into featuring more games on the service so that the average fan will be forced into a position where he misses some fairly important games if he doesn't subscribe.

Personally, I think ESPN is going to have to tighten their footprint if they want the streaming service to really take off. They have so many linear channels right now that it will be hard to fill all those windows and really stock up ESPN+ at the same time.

(03-11-2019 02:37 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  Saw this article today from Awful Announcing about the losses Disney is currently taking as they continue to build the ESPN+ subscriber base while they are also in the process of bringing Disney+ to market.

Disney expected to lose about $300 million over the first 2 quarters.

It's not terribly surprising, but it's also not terribly concerning. Disney can afford to lose that sort of money on a project they expect to make big money down the road. It's a long term investment.

My question centers around this...what will Disney have to do in order to transition from an entry level product with a smallish subscriber base to a big time moneymaker?

Now, Disney+ will service a different segment so I'm not really going to focus on that. All of us sports fans should be looking at what they do with ESPN+.

Right now, the service has some decent content although mostly for niche fans.

-UFC
-MLS, Italian Serie A, and some other products for soccer fans.
-Select MLB games
-Select NHL games
-College sports from a few smaller leagues
-Some original programming like 30 for 30, etc...
-You also get access to written content that used to be branded as ESPN Insider.

All of that for $4.99 a month with no contract. It's not a bad deal and I've enjoyed my subscription so far. Nonetheless, after a year they only have about 2 million subscribers. They'll continue to grow, but I'm not sure the ceiling is terribly high given the current lineup.

It could be a lot worse, but the point is eventually ESPN is going to have to move more prime content onto ESPN+ in order for the subscriber base to be significant. I have to assume that was the plan all along. Unless they got really lucky, there was no way tens of millions of people were going to sign up for a service that didn't feature everyone's favorite sports on a regular basis.

I think the next round of contract negotiations for every league is going to be interesting.

The AAC is up soon and I would be surprised if they don't move some decent content to ESPN+ as a part of a deal with the network. Of course, it only starts there.

If the SEC expands and renegotiates with ESPN then I'm betting they'll want some games on ESPN+. The ACC may be put into a position where they need to do the same. If the Big 12 loses schools and is forced to craft a new deal then I would expect the same situation there.

What could be really interesting is what ESPN will have to do when it comes to the major pro leagues. Some way, somehow, they're going to have to talk some of these leagues into featuring more games on the service so that the average fan will be forced into a position where he misses some fairly important games if he doesn't subscribe.

Personally, I think ESPN is going to have to tighten their footprint if they want the streaming service to really take off. They have so many linear channels right now that it will be hard to fill all those windows and really stock up ESPN+ at the same time.

I get to watch a lot of baseball and softball and sometimes hoops on ESPN+ which is what I get gratis for buying an upper sports tier. I don't love watching sports on my lap top but it's a very nice perk.

I'm assuming they'll start to move more and more baseball, womens basketball, and even a tiny bit of mens hoops/football over. It'll be gradual but in 3-4 I expect to see most non-revenue sports plus 1 or 2 football games a year over there.