Disney’s ESPN and Fox Corp. will sell their forthcoming direct-to-consumer streaming services as a single subscription for $39.99 a month starting Oct. 2. The offer, confirmed by both companies on Monday, combines ESPN’s flagship streaming product, priced at $29.99, with the new Fox One service, set at $19.99, and represents a roughly $10 discount versus buying the platforms separately. Both stand-alone apps debut on Aug. 21, just ahead of the college-football and National Football League seasons. ESPN’s service will mirror its linear networks—ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network and others—while folding in ESPN+ programming, new wagering features and an expanded NFL package. Fox One aggregates the company’s sports, news and entertainment brands, including Fox Sports, FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, Fox News and local Fox stations, on a single platform. The partnership revives elements of Venu Sports, a three-way streaming venture that ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery abandoned earlier this year after Fubo won a preliminary injunction on antitrust grounds. By retaining separate ownership of their apps and simply packaging them together, Disney and Fox aim to avoid similar regulatory hurdles while testing consumer appetite for ‘re-bundled’ streaming products. Executives Bob Iger and Lachlan Murdoch have signaled that additional alliances could follow as media companies look to curb customer churn and replicate the value of the traditional cable package in the streaming era. The ESPN–Fox One bundle will be available nationwide and can be cancelled monthly, giving cord-cutters a discounted path to marquee NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and college-sports programming alongside Fox’s news channels.
It is a lot. That's the whole point — to re-educate consumers on the value of the cable bundle. Eventually, consumers come around to the idea that, for a few dollars more, they get more channels (and some network-owned streaming apps too), and that changes the equation. https://t.co/2PFc5BYMTj
“The sheer absurdity of needing 1o separate streaming services to access everything you used to get for one simple monthly price demonstrates just how excessive sports fragmentation has become.” https://t.co/bPkafqXTML
ESPN and Fox, fierce rivals across much of sports, will offer their respective streaming apps in a new joint bundle. Seven months after Venu Sports was killed, the concept lives on with the combining ESPN and Fox One in a single subscription offering.