Henry Cejudo reacts after defeating TJ Dillashaw in the first round during their UFC Flyweight title match at UFC Fight Night at Barclays Center on Jan. 19, 2019. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
ESPN’s over-the-top streaming service ESPN+ has reached two million paid subscribers, double the number the platform had five months ago. Disney CEO Bob Iger announced the news in a Q1 earnings call for The Walt Disney Company on Tuesday.
After launching in April 2018, ESPN+ reached one million paid subscribers within its first five months. ESPN+ hosted its first UFC Fight Night last month, which led to 568,000 new subscribers in one weekend. As part of a five-year deal between UFC and Disney announced last year, ESPN+ will offer 20 exclusive UFC Fight Night on ESPN+ events per year and all preliminary fights for UFC on ESPN Fight Night programs.
“We expect the expansion of combat sports content on the streaming service to drive continued growth in the months ahead,” Iger said in Tuesday’s call with investors. “ESPN+ operates on BAMTech’s platform, which has proved to be reliably stable during peak live streaming consumption and easily handled the volume of more than 0.5 million people signing up in a single 24-hour period.”
Despite the subscription growth of ESPN+, the company said that its direct-to-consumer and international segment lost $136 million on revenue of $918 million in Q1, according to a press release from Disney. During the earnings call, Iger also said that Disney is considering offering a bundle for subscribers who want access to ESPN+, Hulu, and Disney+, the company’s new streaming service that is due for launch in September. Disney currently owns a 30 percent stake in Hulu, but that number is expect to increase to 60 percent once the Disney-21st Century Fox merger closes.
“Ultimately, our goal would be to use the same tech platform to make it easier for people to sign up for all three should they want to—same credit card, same username, same password, etc.—but give the consumer the kind of choice that we think consumers are going to demand more and more in today’s world,” Iger said. “If they wanted to buy all three, we’d give them that opportunity, potentially at a discount, or two for that matter.”
SportTechie Takeaway
Although ESPN+ has achieved two million subscribers paying a subscription of $4.99 per month within less than a year from launch, the cost of rights fees and tech investments associated with building a streaming service have prevented Disney’s direct-to-consumer branch from becoming profitable. Both ESPN+ and rival sports streaming service DAZN, which signed a deal with UFC’s chief competitor Bellator MMA, are relying heavily on combat sports to drive subscriptions among U.S. fans.
