By India McCarty
ESPN just announced the upcoming launch of a new streaming service, ESPN Flagship.
“If you are a subscriber of linear ESPN, you will automatically get what I know we’ve been referring to as ESPN Flagship,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said during a recent investor call.
He explained that linear subscribers will receive access to “interactive features” on the new platform, which is set to debut this fall.
“The plan would be to basically be somewhat agnostic from a subscriber perspective, so that we can still do our best to preserve the multi channel ecosystem, but at the same time, we obviously want to grow our DTC business,” Iger added.
ESPN Flagship — a new name will be revealed at a later date — will give users a different experience from the traditional linear channel, with more personalized features. Disney execs have also shared that the platform will feature content geared towards sports betting and fantasy sports.
ESPN will soon reveal the name of its upcoming DTC platform, which has long been referred to “Flagship.”
The company plans to do so ahead of next week’s upfront presentation.https://t.co/X82z9Do3gM pic.twitter.com/JMFuhYEmUS
— Sports Business Journal (@SBJ) May 7, 2025
This is the latest move from Disney to reach a new audience, including younger viewers who won’t subscribe to traditional cable or satellite services.
Related: How ESPN Became Disney’s Latest Problem
“The growth of live, advertising-ripe, sports is a literal layup for Disney’s upcoming launch of its ESPN direct-to-consumer platform,” Mike Proulx, a vice president and research director at Forrester, an industry consultancy, told Variety. “The company continues to tease its innovativeness, which means there are high market expectations for Disney to deliver here.”
The announcement of ESPN Flagship also comes after a disappointing quarter for their existing streaming service, ESPN+.
“The ESPN+ streaming service ended the quarter with 24.1 million paid subscribers, down 3% from the end of 2024 and equal to the level it reached in mid-2022,” Front Office Sports stated, adding that the platform’s subscriber number has been “essentially flat” since then.
ESPN+ might be suffering, but Disney+ announced a surprisingly high number of new subscribers over the last quarter — 1.4 million.
“Overall, we remain optimistic about the direction of the company and our outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year,” Iger said during the investor call. “Our outstanding performance this quarter — with adjusted EPS up 20% from the prior year driven by our Entertainment and Experiences businesses — underscores our continued success building for growth and executing across our strategic priorities.”
This new streaming service is ESPN and Disney’s latest move to find a way to turn a profit on sports streaming, but time will tell if ESPN Flagship will outperform ESPN+.
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