By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man –Follow on & X.
Former Sony employee and editor of 4 TV magazines.

Disney CEO Bob Iger yesterday revealed that ESPN will launch its much-anticipated streaming service for cord-cutters in the fall of 2025, perhaps as early as August 2025. This won’t be like ESPN+, the $10.99 a month streamer that offers some of ESPN’s live events and in-studio shows. This will be the whole ESPN lineup, 24/7. Iger yesterday also suggested it would have data and other features, such as betting, currently unavailable on any other ESPN platform.

“We’ll launch it in probably August of ’25, is to bring out ESPN flagship, I say on its own, but it will be bundled ultimately with Hulu and Disney+,” Iger told financial analysts in a conference call following release of the company’s first quarter report. “And that will be a very, very immersive, very — obviously sports-centric app, which will have features that this combination with Fox and with Time Warner Discovery will not have, such as integrated betting, integrated fantasy, likely to have some sales arm or merchandise capabilities. Obviously, deep dive into stats and high degree of customization and personalization, again, another kind of feature that we’ll bring out to engage with sports fans. I can’t tell you right now how that ultimately will fit into all of this, except it will be a progression.”

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But what will ESPN charge for a streaming service that would not require you to subscribe to a cable, satellite or live streaming service such as YouTube TV or Sling TV? Let’s take a look at the numbers.

According to various analyst estimates and news reports, ESPN charges cable and satellite providers an average of approximately $10 per subscriber per month. This fee is often passed on to consumers as part of their monthly cable or satellite bill. To determine how much ESPN would have to charge if it sold the channel to consumers separately, we need to consider its current subscriber count.

In the fall of 2023, ESPN had approximately 74 million subscribers in the United States. However, these numbers have been steadily declining due to cord-cutting and the rise of streaming services. If ESPN were to sell its channel directly to consumers, it would start to lose some of the guaranteed revenue from cable and satellite providers. We don’t know how many people would cut the cord if ESPN was available as a standalone service. But to make up for a likely significant loss of pay TV subscribers, ESPN would need to charge a higher monthly fee per customer.

What Will the Standalone ESPN Cost?
Let’s do some rough calculations to estimate how much ESPN would have to charge per month if it sold the channel directly to consumers. Suppose we assume that ESPN needs the same revenue it currently generates from cable and satellite providers, which is approximately $10 per subscriber per month. Given that there are 74 million subscribers now:

Revenue Needed = $10 x 74,000,000 = $740,000,000 per month.

To make this amount of revenue, ESPN would need to charge each of its 74 million former subscribers the same $10 per month. However, in a standalone model, it’s likely that not all previous subscribers would be willing to pay that much. Some might opt for cheaper streaming services or forego ESPN altogether. If we conservatively estimate that ESPN takes away 50 percent of its previous subscriber base, it would have around 37 million subscribers. To cover the same $740 million in monthly revenue:

Monthly Fee = $740,000,000/37,000,000 = $20 per subscriber per month.

Therefore, if it were to launch now, ESPN would need to charge approximately $20 per month to each of its estimated 37 million standalone subscribers to maintain its current revenue level if it sold the channel separately. But that monthly sub base is likely to increase as pay TV subscribers decline, and ESPN’s revenue fall. To try to maintain current revenue totals, ESPN will likely have to charge more in 2025.

Plus, there’s another factor to consider. Disney wants to begin tapping the cord-cutting audience with the full ESPN lineup, but it doesn’t want to do it too quickly. It will still generate revenue from the cable and satellite audiences so it’s motivated to keep that revenue stream flowing as long as possible, even in 2025. If it sets the price of a standalone ESPN high enough, it will encourage more consumers to stay with cable and satellite a bit longer while attracting those who will never subscribe to a multi-channel pay TV service again, the cord-cutting audience.

The company also has to weigh the cost of the standalone ESPN against the price of the new joint streaming service from ESPN, Fox and Discovery Warner Bros. That price hasn’t been revealed yet, but it could be around $40 a month. 

Consequently, Disney might be inclined to offer the standalone ESPN for something like $25-30 a month in 2025, which would be competitive with other national streaming services such as NBA League Pass and MLB TV. Disney might even want to go higher than that to create the perception that ESPN is something special, but we suspect that it will stay in the $25-30 range at launch to give the service an early boost and avoid conflict with the new Fox/ESPN/Warner service.

Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvanswerman.com Please include your first name and hometown in your message.

The TV Answer Man is veteran journalist Phillip Swann who has covered the TV technology scene for more than three decades. He will report on the latest news and answer your questions regarding new devices and services that are changing the way you watch television. See the bio for Phillip Swann here.