ESPN's Streaming Service Will Cost Up To $30/mo

Clonehomer

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I bet it hits the sweet spot of not losing too much money, but cheep enough that people will jump for it

It makes sense if you’re only keeping a streaming service for sports. I’m close to that. If I could get locals without a convoluted antenna system, I doubt we would keep YTTV. $82 / month for YTTV vs $30 for ESPN makes sense for some.
 

PickSix

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Everybody wanted a la carte for years, now it's basically happened and the reality is hitting hard...

I'm actually surprised that the new ESPN service is only $30 (for now). I expected it to the be in the $40-45 range.
I've long said that ESPN+ is the best value in sports. This new ESPN app will be no different.

If your goal is only to watch ISU basketball/football, than I can understand some posters frustration.

But if you're at all interested in broader sports, the depth and breadth of the app's live offerings blows me away. And now you'll have fuil access to the live channels on top of that. It's a no brainer.

I just hope it's easier to navigate, because I give the current app about an F+ in that category.
 

clonedude

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Driving fans away in droves…. great strategy! Hope viewership goes way down, but I’m sure it won’t.
 

simply1

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What about this plan drives away fans? Right now existing sources haven’t changed, this is just an additional way to buy the content.
 
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Mr Janny

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Driving fans away in droves…. great strategy! Hope viewership goes way down, but I’m sure it won’t.
So which is it? Are they driving fans away or are you sure that their viewership won't go down?
 

theshadow

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  • We will offer two flexible plans when we launch. The unlimited plan ($29.99/month) will give fans access to all of ESPN’s content, including all our linear networks, ESPN on ABC, ESPN+ and more. There will also be bundling opportunities for the ESPN unlimited plan with Disney+ and Hulu, including a special offer at launch for $29.99/month for the first 12 months. And if you’re a bundle subscriber, you’ll get ESPN on the Disney+ platform, which will be another frictionless way to access ESPN alongside all the award-winning content Disney offers. The select plan ($11.99/month) will give fans access to all content available on ESPN+ and existing ESPN+ customers will automatically become subscribers to the select plan.
 

Clonehomer

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  • We will offer two flexible plans when we launch. The unlimited plan ($29.99/month) will give fans access to all of ESPN’s content, including all our linear networks, ESPN on ABC, ESPN+ and more. There will also be bundling opportunities for the ESPN unlimited plan with Disney+ and Hulu, including a special offer at launch for $29.99/month for the first 12 months. And if you’re a bundle subscriber, you’ll get ESPN on the Disney+ platform, which will be another frictionless way to access ESPN alongside all the award-winning content Disney offers. The select plan ($11.99/month) will give fans access to all content available on ESPN+ and existing ESPN+ customers will automatically become subscribers to the select plan.

****. They’re going to cram more content on the Disney app? It’s already impossible to find the Disney stuff you want on it. Why does sports and Star Wars need to be on the same app? Give me an app with all sports to be able to flip and put everything else on its own apps cause I’m not watching multiple episodes of shows at the same time.
 

Chitowncy

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Interesting news.

Maybe the next evolution of this a la carte revolution is getting the "Iowa State Package" or "insert NBA Team / college school / MLB Team here" package? Interesting to think about. There's probably a fair number of people like me that really don't watch TV but watch a fair amount of live sports. Of that live sports, however, the sports I watch are typically Iowa State events. I watch a little NBA during the playoffs, a little pro soccer of various leagues or World Cup, a little major golf action, a little NFL, and that's it for other sports. If I could choose an "ISU only" subscription option, I would consider it. They could charge a fan like me quite a bit, because that's all I really care to watch.

Anyway, wonder if anyone else feels that way and wonder if we'll ever get to that very specific point.
 
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Clonehomer

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Interesting news.

Maybe the next evolution of this a la carte revolution is getting the "Iowa State Package" or "insert NBA Team / college school / MLB Team here" package? Interesting to think about. There's probably a fair number of people like me that really don't watch TV but watch a fair amount of live sports. Of that live sports, however, the sports I watch are typically Iowa State events. I watch a little NBA during the playoffs, a little pro soccer of various leagues or World Cup, a little major golf action, a little NFL, and that's it for other sports. If I could choose an "ISU only" subscription option, I would consider it. They could charge a fan like me quite a bit, because that's all I really care to watch.

Anyway, wonder if anyone else feels that way and wonder if we'll ever get to that very specific point.

I think the next evolution will be the better ability to track viewership more precisely. With that, can conferences get paid based on the subscriptions they bring rather than population or generic viewership numbers.

For example, can it be determined that I have an ESPN subscription for ISU based on my viewing habits. Certainly I’ll watch other games, but the reason I pay that fee is for ISU. Can that be tracked enough to be able to say that ISU brings this many subscribers, not just viewers for a particular game. Because the Big12 is spread over multiple networks, we pay more to watch the Big12 games. Cause in the end the contracts are becoming more about how many subscribers a conference brings rather than how many viewers. The days of everyone with a cable subscription is paying for ESPN are ending. So how do you get more people to pay that fee every month? That’s why it’s financially beneficial for networks to get one game a week rather than all the games cause they know you’ll still subscribe for that one game. So can the conference be able to monetize that somehow?
 

aeroclone

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LOL the lengths some people will go through to save $10 is pretty hilarious.
So much this. You can fully eliminate adds from a couple streaming services per month for about the cost of a lunch at McDonald's. How many hours of your life are you getting back for that $10? Great investment. I'm happy to take it every time.
 
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im4cyclones

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We go YTTV and ESPN+ from August through April and then cancel. We carry Netflix year round. After we cancel YTTV annd ESPN, we get Max, Disney+ w/ Hulu and Apple+ to binge the shows we’ve missed. I miss the days of one payment to a dish company to get everything we want but I do like that these providers are having to create content to get viewer. You wouldn’t get something like Andor, I don’t think, if Disney didn’t need to attract viewers to their service. So the fact they all have streaming services is good for consumers. But they all want some live sports because it is probably more cost effective than creating original content with high production values. That sucks for sports fans.
 

Clonehomer

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We go YTTV and ESPN+ from August through April and then cancel. We carry Netflix year round. After we cancel YTTV annd ESPN, we get Max, Disney+ w/ Hulu and Apple+ to binge the shows we’ve missed. I miss the days of one payment to a dish company to get everything we want but I do like that these providers are having to create content to get viewer. You wouldn’t get something like Andor, I don’t think, if Disney didn’t need to attract viewers to their service. So the fact they all have streaming services is good for consumers. But they all want some live sports because it is probably more cost effective than creating original content with high production values. That sucks for sports fans.

Problem is that they’ve moved all their production to streaming services and still expect people to pay for the basic channels. Paramount, Peacock, and Hulu have all the good shows and they seem to put half efforts into CBS, NBC, and ABC shows. So why pay for the bundles outside of sports?

We’re doing the Disney/hulu/max bundle in the summer. Not sure what we’ll do in the fall if we go back to YTTV or try breaking it up into individual streamers.
 

Tailg8er

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Everybody wanted a la carte for years, now it's basically happened and the reality is hitting hard...

I'm actually surprised that the new ESPN service is only $30 (for now). I expected it to the be in the $40-45 range.

Yeah, and I think the vast majority of people still want a la carte... Some people were/still are paying $250+ for cable/satellite - you can get damn near every channel subscribing to ~3 or so streaming services for wayyyy less than that. Not to mention you can start/stop subscriptions at any time, saving even more during times when you don't watch as much.

Other than convenience of having it all in one place, a la carte/streaming options are still much better than what we had before.