ESPN+ Subscriber Numbers Fall Again Ahead of UFC Broadcast Deal Negotiations

The UFC will begin negotiations for a new broadcast rights agreement later in 2024, but the promotion's current partners at ESPN continue to face challenges in an ever-changing sports consumption market.

For the second quarter in a row and the third of the last four quarters overall, ESPN+ has been losing subscribers, which is where the UFC is thriving, especially with the pay-per-view business that runs on the streaming service. In the second quarter of 2024, the number of subscribers fell two percent, with total subscriptions at 24.8 million.

ESPN+ advertised roughly the same number of subscribers in early 2023.

ESPN+ also reported an operating loss of $65 million for the quarter.

As for the reason for the decline in ESPN+ subscriptions, Disney pointed to the usual churn that often occurs at the end of a sports season – this time as college and professional football are coming to an end before the end of the summer of 2024. Although these statements may be true. ESPN+ has grown steadily thanks to more than five years of growth as a streaming service.

On a brighter note, Disney reported that ESPN saw overall ratings success in April, including the conclusion of the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship. April also saw the highest ratings in UFC pre-broadcast history after UFC 300 drew a record number of viewers.

Of course, Disney CEO Bob Iger has talked a lot in recent years about plans to move ESPN into a more digital business rather than linear television, which includes launching a direct-to-consumer streaming platform in 2025. Disney also plans to launch a sports streaming service with Warner Bros. Discovery and FOX in late 2024.

“I see sports continuing to shine in a world where there is a lot more choice,” Iger said on a call with investors on Tuesday. “The other thing that’s really important is the engagement that live streaming generates. I mentioned in my comments that we haven't really talked about much, and I think a lot of the focus has been on (the joint venture) that we announced as well as the flagship that will go live on ESPN at the end of the season. (2025), but we're going to be putting the ESPN tile on Disney+ later this year, which will have a modest amount of programming, but it's a start in terms of significantly shaping what's going to happen in sports for Disney+ and Hulu subscribers. be here.

“Looking to the future, I think ESPN will pivot to digital without abandoning linear. It will remain linear, if people want to get ESPN and its various channels through a cable or satellite subscription, that's fine, or if they want to seamlessly pivot because there will be many different access points to deliver digital product to ESPN's digital channel. they can do it as part of a package with other sports services, they can do it directly from ESPN using the ESPN app, or as part of a package with our own services. So I'm very optimistic about it.”

In addition to the UFC broadcast rights, ESPN is also in separate negotiations with the NBA for what is expected to be a fairly expensive package that could be spread across multiple networks.

It remains to be seen how this latest subscriber decline could potentially impact the UFC when it comes time to negotiate a new broadcast rights deal, but those negotiations are expected to begin before the end of the year. The UFC's agreement with ESPN runs until 2025.