Fox And ESPN To Launch Standalone Streaming Services Later In 2025

As the cable bundle continues to unravel, Fox recently announced plans to launch a direct-to-consumer streaming service featuring content primarily from sports. The launch is expected in the latter half of 2025 prior to the beginning of the NFL and college football seasons. Previously, ESPN had announced their own DTC streaming service consisting of sports programming. Similar to Fox, the launch is expected later in 2025.

Both Fox Sports and ESPN (along with Warner Bros Discovery) had been a part of Venu, a streaming service providing sports content. In January Venu was scrapped amid antitrust concerns.

Fox

Last month, CEO Lachlan Murdoch announced Fox would be launching a streaming service. At the time, Murdoch gave no information on the pricing or name of the would-be streaming service. Unlike other media companies that own linear TV networks such as Paramount, Disney, Comcast and WBD, Fox does not own or operate a prominent SVOD service. Murdoch noted the announcement was not an indication the company was giving up on their lucrative pay-TV networks.

At present, Fox owns two streaming services, Fox Nation which is operated by Fox News and Tubi, a free ad-supported television (FAST) channel. Fox Nation has a monthly fee of $7.99 to subscribe with a reported 2-to-2.5 million subscribers. Last month, Fox Sports simulstreamed Super Bowl LIX on Tubi. The game averaged 13.6 million viewers and peaked at 15.5 million viewers on Tubi. Both figures set Super Bowl audience records.

Earlier this month, Fox COO John Nallen at an investment conference noted the new streaming service would be targeting cord-cutters and cord-nevers. Current cable subscribers would be able to access the new streaming service at no additional charge. Nallen noted, “The worst thing we could do is take a consumer from the traditional side of any of our big partners and move them out and bring them into [streaming]

. So, our target market and therefore our aspirations for the size of the platform from a subscriber standpoint are pretty modest.”

Financially, Fox had a strong final quarter in 2024 reporting $2.42 billion in ad revenue, a year-over-year increase of +21%. Over 80% of the revenue emanated from broadcast television and sports programming. Nonetheless, every year millions of customers are cancelling their cable subscription.

At its launch content for the new endeavor will come from programming drawn from Fox News and Fox Sports. Fox has a strong bullpen of sports content such as the NFL (including the NFC championship game every year), MLB (including the World Series every year), NASCAR (including the Daytona 500 every year), IndyCar racing as well as college football, college basketball and FIFA Men’s World Cup.

Heading up the Fox streaming venture will be Pete Distad. Previously, Distad had CEO of the ill-fated Venu. Distad had also been at Apple TV and Hulu.

ESPN

Also, later this Disney will launch their long anticipated standalone DTC for ESPN. Similar to Fox, the launch is expected to be in the early fall to coincide with the start of the NFL and college football season. The ESPN streamer has been known as “Flagship”.

Last December, Disney launched a dedicated ESPN tile to their Disney+ app providing selected free content to subscribers. In March 2024 Disney had launched a Hulu tile on the Disney+ app. For the new streaming service Jimmy Pitaro the ESPN Chairman says no pay-TV subscription will be needed.

At a recent investment conference, Disney CEO Robert Iger said, “The more ESPN can be present for a new generation of consumers with a product that serves them really well, the better off ESPN’s business is. Flagship is not really designed to preserve a business. It’s designed to grow a business in a market that’s evolving or changing right before our eyes. We’re extremely, extremely excited about what’s coming and bullish about it, because we think it’s not only a good business proposition, but it’s a sports fan’s dream.”

Content on Flagship will include all programming across the ESPN linear television channels as well as content available on Disney’s SVOD ESPN+. Dubbed the “World Wide Leader in Sports”, ESPN televises the NFL, NBA, WNBA, NHL, college football (including the college football playoffs), college basketball, Grand Salm tennis, PGA golf among other live events. (Unless they can negotiate a renewal, MLB will be leaving ESPN after the 2025 season.) While no cost information has been announced, it is anticipated at its launch Flagship will cost between $25-$30 each month.

As a standalone, ESPN+ now costs $11.99 a month of $119.99 over an entire year. (In October, Disney had rate hikes to ESPN+ and other SVOD properties.) At the end of fourth quarter 2024, the number of paid subscribers for ESPN+ dropped from 25.6 million in the previous quarter to 24.9 million.

Despite the drop-off in subscriber counts, with increases in ad dollars and subscriber costs, Disney reported an increase of +7% in revenue per subscriber. While ESPN+ streams 30,000 hours of live sports per annum, they do not stream any content on any ESPN televsiion channels. ESPN+ is also available as part of the Disney bundle along with Disney+ and Hulu.

In the aftermath of Venu’s demise, there were reports that ESPN would be licensing content from Fox Sports for Flagship. With Fox launching their own DTC later this year, any dialog has ended

Besides the upcoming Fox and ESPN there are other sports streaming services already available. Earlier this year, DirecTV launched a MySports streaming skinny bundle using content from sports channels. Also, Comcast’s Xfinity debuted a new streaming skinny bundle that includes content from top tier sporting events from the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and college sports among other non-sports content.

In recent years sports had been the only genre that cable operators could rely on to maintain subscriptions. By the end of 2025 there will be less of a need for consumers to have a pay-TV subscription.