ESPN’s Flagship Streaming Service Has Landed

Introducing App-E, the vacant-eyed corporate cousin of WALL-E. Photo: ESPN

After years glued to the cable box, ESPN is finally letting its customers cut the cord on its sports offerings. The Disney-owned sports giant is launching a flagship streaming service today, creatively named ESPN. There is no plus in the name, but it does come with a ridiculous new mascot. In a first for the company, it will stream all of the live games from ESPN’s various cable channels, plus a wealth of documentaries and other content, and will feature new sports-betting tools integrated right into the app. Here’s everything you need to know about the new streamer.

What can you watch on the new ESPN streaming service?

“All of ESPN. All in one place” is the slogan ESPN is running with. And all of its linear TV offerings will be available to stream — live games, SportsCenter, First Take, everything. The new app will feature every game that airs on the cable channel ESPN, plus its suite of ancillary networks and services: ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, ESPN Deportes, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPN on ABC, ESPN+, SECN+, and ACCNX. That will amount to more than 47,000 live events shown annually, the company says. Along with that linear programming, a host of documentaries and other supplemental content will be available to watch, and the app will also host integrated game stats, commerce tools, multi-view options, and a personalization tool called SportsCenter for You.

What else is ESPN doing to lure subscribers in?

The company’s sewn up two major agreements with the NFL and WWE this month that users will want to know about before signing up. The NFL deal is huge: It will get a 10 percent stake in the network, and in exchange, ESPN will acquire the NFL Network, which will also be incorporated into the ESPN app, and other league assets like the linear rights to the RedZone channel. (The NFL will retain RedZone’s digital rights, so don’t expect it on the ESPN app.) ESPN is also absorbing the NFL’s fantasy platform into the app, to be renamed ESPN Fantasy Football. As part of the WWE deal, WrestleMania is coming to the ESPN app in 2026 as are events like SummerSlam, Royal Rumble, Survivor Series, and Money in the Bank. ESPN is also reportedly in the process of closing a deal for a whole suite of MLB games.

Given all that programming, you may be wondering whether ESPN and Disney are worried about cannibalizing their cable-subscriber base. If that’s the case, they’re not admitting it. “Holistic” is the word Disney CEO Bob Iger has used to describe their strategy for presenting all this programming across linear, streaming TV, and supplementary digital platforms. Disney and ESPN’s perfect-world scenario and bet is to offer it in a way that attracts cord cutters or -nevers but doesn’t lose linear customers. That brings us to the introductory pricing.

How much will it cost?

This is where things get a little complicated, as you can get the new ESPN app in a few different ways. The Unlimited subscription to ESPN via the flagship app costs $30 per month or $300 annually. This is the main plan that gets you access to all the programming we’ve mentioned above. There’s another tier being offered, ESPN Select, that will cost far less, $12 per month or $120 annually, but will include a lot less content. Select won’t include marquee offerings from leagues like the NFL, NBA, or MLB and is essentially a rebranded form of ESPN+. (More on that in a bit.) You definitely don’t need both; everything on Select is included with Unlimited.

Separately, a few cost-saving bundles have been announced. If you want, you can bundle Unlimited with Hulu and Disney+ for $36 per month with ads, or $45 per month without them. As a promotional offering timed with the launch of the new service, if you sign up for a year, Disney has dropped those monthly rates to $30 per month for the ad-supported plan and $39 per month for the ad-free plan — a total savings of 39 percent.

And another bundle is on the way: Fox’s new streaming service, Fox One, also launches today for $20 per month. On October 2, the two services will be offered in a bundle for a flat $40 per month.

Oh, and remember “holistic”? The pay-TV diehards will also want to keep an eye on this launch, as they may be able to access to it for free if they already pay for cable. Spectrum today announced that the new ESPN Unlimited, along with Hulu and Fox One, will be available at no extra cost to its qualifying cable customers.

Didn’t ESPN already have a streaming service? Is ESPN+ going away?

It did! And it sort of is going away. ESPN+ is essentially being rebranded into ESPN Select. Going forward, existing ESPN+ plans will be converted into the new ESPN Select subscription. (No pricing change there, as ESPN+ already cost $12 per month.) ESPN Select subscribers will have access to ESPN+’s same soccer, PGA Tour, NHL, UFC, college sports, and other programming — around 32,000 hours annually — it just won’t be called that anymore.

Should I pay attention to ESPN’s marketing on this?

That all depends. How weak is your stomach? How do you feel about John Cena fist-bumping a six-foot-plus-tall app icon? Can you say the word “App-E” out loud and maintain your faith in humanity? Because that’s the name of ESPN’s new and first mascot, a vacant-eyed corporate cousin of WALL-E. Long may he reign.

Tell me more about Fox One, that other streaming service that launched today?

We get into that here.