Disney CEO calls hypothetical ESPN streaming package ‘the ultimate fan offering’

Image: Disney

On an earnings call earlier today, Disney CEO Bob Chapek sounded like a person with clear ideas of the future of sports. He told analysts and investors that he believes the ultimate fan offering will appeal to the superfan who loves sports.

This isn't the first time we've heard a Disney executive talk about the potential of a streaming service, and former CEO Bob Iger said in 2015 that it will happen eventually. Disney isn't ready to give any details on how long it would take to reach profitability or the impact such a shift would have on its existing cable business deals, without bothering to include any far-off timetables as reassurance for his.

One analyst asked what was holding the company back from making a fully a la carte sports network. The subscription can occasionally offer simulcasts of the cable networks, but it can't replace traditional ESPN for most viewers because of money.

Disney's reluctance to upset the existing business model is due to the fact that legacy linear networks like ESPN and the cable fees they bring in are huge cash generators.

The collapse of cable companies is no secret. The US had 105 million pay-TV households in 2010. In a report released in March, Leichtman Research Group said that the subscriber counts of the biggest pay-TV companies in the US would fall in the years to come.

He continued, "We're very conscious of our ability to go more aggressively into the direct-to-consumer, or streaming, area of ESPN, so what we're doing."

At some point, we will be able to fully go into an Disney offering, the way that you describe, and we believe that there.

Disney has done a lot to upset this balance by shifting its focus away from cable channels with the launch of Disney Plus and similar to the one that Warner is navigating with. Disney's bottom line is too impacted by traditional pay-TV setup to launch the full experience as its own streaming subscription, even though it has been for many years.