Looking to streamline its streaming offerings, Disney has now added a ESPN tile and hub to ESPN+. The new digital area will serve as the destination for ESPN+ sports content.
The newest addition to the Disney+ streaming platform gives subscribers "access to sports, general entertainment, and kids and family programming, all within a single app."
Disney+ now houses its own content, as well as content from Hulu and ESPN+. Of course, you'll need a subscription to all these different services in order to actually watch them.
Disney offers multiple bundles and subscription options to all these different services — all in an effort to allow users to build their own package that's right for them. If you want access to all three services, there's the Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ bundle that starts for $16.99. There's a Premium version of this which removes ads from anything that's not considered "live and linear content" for $26.99.
There are also bundles offered for those who just want Disney+ and Hulu, as well as Disney+, Hulu and Max.
As for the new addition of ESPN+, it gives cord-cutters access to more than 30,000 liv sports events a year, including games and events from MLB, WNBA, college sports, tennis, golf, and more. There is also a library of on-demand replays, original content and studio programming.
Unfortunately, Monday Night Football, one of the biggest draws of the week, is not regularly offered through ESPN+. There are occasional weeks where you can watch Monday Night Football, but most of the time it's only offered through ESPN (and sometimes ABC) on regular cable television. This, to me, is the biggest downside to ESPN+, but I have a feeling it won't stay this way for long.
As cable numbers continue to dwindle, Disney will look to bring those viewers to its ESPN+ app. To do so, they need the big sports, and we are starting to see the shift slowly happen.
For example, ESPN+ is about to hose "The Simpsons Funday Football," an animated Monday Night Football game. We're also getting a Christmas Day lineup of five NBA games plus the "Dunk the Halls" animated presentation. So we are seeing bigger sports events hosted on ESPN+.
We just need the big, marquee matchups offered more frequently. Right now, ESPN+ feels like the catch-all for smaller sporting events and college football games.