Walt Disney’s ESPN debuted its long-planned flagship streaming app on Thursday, giving sports fans full access to all 12 ESPN linear channels and the ESPN+ library without a cable subscription for the first time. The direct-to-consumer service, simply branded “ESPN,” promises more than 47,000 live events a year, spanning the NFL, NBA, NHL, college sports, tennis and golf, alongside studio shows and documentaries. Subscribers can choose an Unlimited tier at $29.99 a month or $299.99 a year, or an ESPN Select tier—essentially today’s ESPN+—for $11.99. A promotional bundle that folds in Disney+ and Hulu is available at the same $29.99 monthly price for the first year, while an ESPN–Fox One bundle will arrive on Oct. 2 for $39.99. Existing pay-TV customers authenticate into the same app at no extra charge. The revamped platform layers in commerce, fantasy and ESPN Bet integration, a multiview option for watching up to four games at once, and AI-generated highlight feeds such as “SportsCenter for You” and the vertical-video “Verts.” Chairman Jimmy Pitaro called the launch “the first inning,” saying more features will roll out over time. Disney is stocking the service with fresh rights. Earlier this month ESPN agreed to buy NFL Network and RedZone in exchange for the league taking a 10 percent equity stake, and it struck a five-year deal worth about $325 million annually to become the exclusive U.S. streamer of WWE premium live events starting in 2026. The network also renewed its NBA and SEC packages and remains in talks with MLB. The move underscores Disney’s shift toward streaming as cord-cutting accelerates; ESPN’s pay-TV footprint has fallen from roughly 100 million U.S. homes in 2010 to about 61 million today. Competition is intensifying: Fox Corp. launched its own all-in-one service, Fox One, on the same day at $19.99 a month, setting the stage for a pivotal autumn in the battle for digital sports audiences.