ESPN Boosts Disney to Top of Streaming Charts
By Movieguide® Contributor
Disney’s move to integrate more sports content into its streaming platform has paid off in a major way.
“Disney Plus now accounts for 32.9% of all available sports programming across the leading streaming services,” The Desk reported, citing data collected by Gracenote. The reason? Disney’s integration of ESPN+ into Disney+.
While all Disney+ subscribers don’t automatically have access to ESPN+, many customers have opted for the bundle package that offers them access to the sports channel.
Amazon still remains the number-one distributor of sports streaming content, with a 34.8% share. After Amazon and Disney, Netflix comes in third (23.4%), Paramount+ fourth (7.7%) and Apple TV+ last (1.3%).
“Live sports programming continues to be an important driver of user growth, retention and engagement for streaming services,” Bill Michels, the Chief Product Officer at Gracenote, said in a statement. “We are also seeing that relevant metadata, such as synopses, scores, highlights and imagery, have the power to help streamers build world-class user experiences that keep users engaged beyond the live game.”
The inclusion of ESPN+ also helped push Disney to the top when it came to total TV viewership in January.
“Disney accounted for 12.0% of time spent watching TV in January 2025,” Nielsen reported, adding, “Disney’s success was primarily due to the College Football Playoffs, which represented the seven highest rated cable telecasts in January, and which drove an 84% monthly increase in ESPN viewership.”
READ MORE: DISNEY’S ESPN MORE PROFITABLE THAN MOVIE, TV DIVISION
The group noted that this is significant because semifinal and national title game audiences have seen steady declines in viewer numbers over the years.
Disney isn’t the only company hoping to leverage live sports into higher streaming numbers. Netflix has recently earned major viewership numbers through its live streams of NFL games and WWE programming.
READ MORE: WWE’S ROYAL RUMBLE SETS ALL-TIME VIEWERSHIP RECORD
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