E Unit

So are they trying to make the D+/Hulu/ESPN+ a better option by doing this? Or probably getting ready to raise their price on the bundle.

MLBFan24

I keep forgetting I have this streaming service, since I have the Hulu Live bundle (only using Hulu and Disney+).

Maybe I should use the ESPN login for reading the ESPN paywall articles.

lwhy?

I pay for the $19.99 commercial free Disney bundle. I wouldn't subscribe to ESPN + without that. They should just up the price to $14.99 and include all ESPN content. It's ridiculous that you have to have a cable or streaming cable subscription to watch ESPN, ESPN 2, and SEC Network games. Just let people pay for it and cut out the cable companies.

Decker

Wow that is an insane price. Literally doubled in just over a year. I like some of their exclusive content like College Basketball and NHL, but that asking price is bonkers.

DJariya

My subscription ends in August and I’m a sports fan, but I’m not sure I can justify that increase. $100 per year is a lot for a service I don’t use regularly.

dvd-4-life

ESPN+ lost the MLS to Apple TV starting next season so there will be less soccer programming.

They need to get minor league baseball and minor league hockey or the price increase isn't worth it.

davidh777

Per year, I assume.

DJariya

Yup typo

Deftones

Sounds like they aren't raising price of the bundle at this point. Basically trying to push people into the bundle, so it can boost their subscription numbers for Disney+ and Hulu. Makes it more attractive for investors since they can show growth.


I know they can't yet, but if they could get linear ESPN on ESPN+, it would almost be enough to ditch cable services. But Disney still makes billions of dollars from advertising in cable/sat services. They are basically slowly moving that way, but they can't do it yet because they would lose our in a ridiculous amount of money.

Why So Blu?

^ The bundle is not affected:

That's what I have and having it this way over the a-la-carte price is like I'm getting ESPN+ for free.

DJariya

I don't think Minor league sports is in demand as you think it is.

If you like live sports, ESPN + is mainly good for UFC, some NHL, some MLB and a lot of college sports.

Alan Smithee

Was almost going to go for the bundle but a few months ago they let me add Disney to the Hulu subscription for $2.99 a month. Am not into sports at all so would never watch it, my dad said he might watch it a bit if I shared it with him but didn't care too much. Wondering how the quality of it is though- if they had old games from the 70s from videotape sources I might watch those. Found out a secret about Hulu today also which I'll share in the Kodi thread if I can find that.

dvd-4-life

They have USL(minor league soccer) and USLOne(or whatever it's called which is the equal to Double A baseball).

Plus they have the Championship League and lesser soccer leagues from the UK.

They also have NBA G League which most people could care less about it.

They do show most of the NHL games (except for TNT and TBS games).

The AHL(yes it's minor league) but supposedly its the second best hockey league in the world.

DJariya

Not many here seem to have ESPN plus. But, it's seen some pretty solid growth

Twitter

I have it with the Disney + bundle with Hulu. The bundle with Disney + has probably helped it's growth. Who knows how many of the 24.9M have it with the bundle but just never watch it.

fujishig

I was going to say how much of that growth is from Disney+ bundles? It's actually cheaper to get the bundle with all three than Hulu+ and Disney+ without ads separately, last I looked.

It's like how much has sportsline's subscriber base ballooned because they have that insane deal to get paramount+ for free?

whotony

I have E+ from a Verizon bundle and only use it to watch Flyers games

stingermck

I have it with the bundle and watch it often.

Deftones

Yeah that growth is absolute due to the bundle.

jjcool

It's the streaming service that I use most frequently.

lwhy?

I have it as part of the bundle. I use it to watch the ESPN + exclusive Tennessee games. some sports documentaries and Peyton's Places, but it's linked to my Hulu and I watch everything on it via Hulu. I don't care for ESPN's Roku app.

dvd-4-life

Since they lost the MLS contract what will ESPN+ have to replace it?

Decker

ESPN+ will be increasing their subscription cost to $109.99/yr. Seriously what are they thinking? I barely use the service and won’t re-up at that insane price.

Meathead

Ugh! Will this be the increase that busts the Verizon Disney Bundle...?