The news comes along with word that Disney is acquiring a majority of BAMTech, the streaming technology company owned by Major League Baseball, for a whopping $1.58 billion.
Though Disney had been rumored to be considering starting its own streaming service for some time, it moved quickly on that plan in recent days after an earnings report showed a drop in revenue compared to this time in 2016.
The ESPN-branded multi-sport service will offer a robust array of sports programming, featuring approximately 10,000 live regional, national, and worldwide games and events a year, including Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, Major League Soccer, Grand Slam tennis, and college sports.
Disney has agreed to buy an additional stake of 42 percent in BAMTech LLC for $1.58 billion.
The latter network will become "the exclusive home in the USA for subscription-video-on-demand viewing of the newest live action and animated movies from Disney and Pixar, beginning with the 2019 theatrical slate", the company announced. I'm not too bummed about this since our cable service sucks and only reason we have it is so my husband can watch baseball games. The new ESPN streaming service won't include National Basketball Association or NFL content, however, leading TheStreet's Eric Jhonsa to call it an "incremental move".
Disney said the new services would be based on technology provided by video-streaming firm BAMTech, in which the media company is increasing its stake to 75% by paying $1.58 billion. What's less clear is if Disney will be able to make big bucks from it, he said. "What they talked about were things that looked inevitable, at some point", said Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Weiser.
Trump's Approval Rating Plunges to 32 Percent
Former White House officials say the documents did not include top-secret intelligence or updates on legislative initiatives. The New York Times Company is a thriving business with the largest digital subscriber base of any news organization".
Disney's broadcasting revenues fell 4% to $1.8 billion and operating income fell 22% to $253 million.
Additional sports packages will also be available for purchase, such as MLB.TV, NHL.TV and MLS Live. The service will also feature original and proprietary content developed specifically for streaming.
As part of the new healthy eating initiative, all products advertised on Disney's child-focused television channels, radio stations and Web sites must adhear to a new set of strict nutritional standards.
Disney signed a landmark deal with Netflix for it to become the exclusive distributor of its properties (Marvel, Disney, ABC) - that is until today.
Until now, Disney has stuck by the cable bundle, restricting its ESPN content to paying cable subscribers.
Comments