Why ESPN’s Standalone Streaming Bet Might Fall Short

It was a tumultuous few years for Disney but they finally figured it out. Disney+ streaming numbers were all over the place but now they’re not, there was the Hulu debacle and now it’s a bundle feature, and always the question of what to do with ESPN as cable tv saw a 30% decline in household subscriptions over the last decade…

…But now the solution is finally coming into view. At least their leadership thinks so.

ESPN is coming out with a digital only offering later this year priced at 25-30 bucks. It’ll probably include all of ESPN’s linear TV offerings, and ‘user generated content’ available only in the digital channel (so like..TikTok but make it sports?).

But there’s a lot ESPN has to figure out holistically. A digital offering is NOT the salve to all of ESPN’s problems.

Let’s talk about it.

Stay informed. And sane.

Instead of getting your news from increasingly partisan news sources or social media feeds built to inflame, try out Ground News.

Compare how sources from the left, right, and center report the same story, so you can see the full picture.

Proudly trusted by hundreds of thousands of readers across the political spectrum.

Start your free trial today

The Cable TV Issue

In 2013, Cable used to be in about 100 million households. As of last year, that number has dwindled to 70 million, which would make it the 5th largest streaming service in America.

Cable however, offers a unique proposition that none of the streamers can. Whether it’s news or sports, cable still has the ability to cut through the ‘Severance’ or ‘Adolescence’ noise and tie the country together for days/weeks at a time on multiple occasions throughout the calendar year. 

News events. Game 7’s.

Now you could make many arguments refuting this claim:

1. ‘cable’ is not a single category - it’s multiple channels bundled into one

2. if ‘sports’ and ‘news’ were part of the big streamers, that attention would go there instead of this weird ‘cable’ entity you’ve just defined.

Yeah sure. Valid points. But just a thought here…

Think of ESPN, where SportsCenter ratings are at their highest since 2017, and Scott Van Pelt rates higher than network giants like The Tonight Show some weeks. Now think of all this linear content, and your biggest proposal for it is having it as an app on your phone.

Seems…uninspired…no?

What ESPN should be doing instead

We get it. If you nail content and execute successfully on distribution of that content, you’re going to win. And ESPN is already winning.

This isn’t an argument against change, or against innovation. It just shouldn’t be a huge rollout of a 30 dollar service. Part of us thinks that it’s an easy lift to get those 30 million eyeballs back to ESPN, which the company is already doing with ESPN+.

It’s an argument that ESPN should invest heavily in deals congruent to the one it has with Pat McAfee.

There is a sea of sports influencers and independent outlets out there that have big followings that cross demographics. ESPN should be first mover in acquisitions or partnership deals with high profile influencers and sports podcasts to build a federated network of content.

This ‘digital offering’ seems to less about being creative to capitalize on brand strength and more like ‘hey remember when you cut your cable? Well here’s an option on your phone that you would also see on cable as well‘.

Prediction: Underwhelming response at first. ESPN’s streaming service won’t be a flop, but won’t generate the buzz the company thinks it will, and they’ll fine-tune it success with cost controls.

ESPN’s upcoming deal with NFL Network

This is going to be one of the more interesting business stories of 2025. ESPN is negotiating to buy the NFL’s media arm, which is being driven by the need to house as much content as possible in the new digital offering.

Let’s keep it simple: ESPN should just buy RedZone. 5 million dedicated subs, half a billion dollars in revenue each year from subscriptions. It’ll be the easiest upsell they have to do.

How ESPN should package RedZone:

RedZone would give ESPN a bonafide offering for its new digital subscription. Entice users as a free option for the first year, and then uncharge starting from year 2.

Since RedZone is a unique property without anything else like it (besides the way pricier Sunday Ticket), a large percentage of customers will renew and end up paying 45-50 bucks a month instead of the base rate of 30.

Let’s assume attrition is at 15% (it’s an assumption, no logic behind it) - You still have 4(ish) million paying subscribers on the RedZone upcharge.

So now while it’s an uninspired choice to just go release a streaming app, this might just be a back-in to a very successful incremental revenue device.