New data from Nielsen shows the New York Knicks triumph over the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals attracted the largest audiences since the Michael Jordan era in 1998, with all five games averaging 20.6 million for ABC and ESPN. That was up 157% over last year.

Saturday’s NBA Finals Game 5 on ABC delivered an average audience of 24.5 million viewers and peaked with 33 million viewers watching the closing moments of the New York Knicks Championship victory, the teams first in 53 years. It was the most-watched NBA Finals Game 5 since 1998 as well.

Game 5 also generated the largest viewing audience of the day across all of television and in every key male and adult demo, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel.

The Game 4, which saw the Knicks make a record breaking comeback from a 29 point deficit, was up 123% from last year’s Game 4 with 20.9 million viewers and peaked with 23.2 million viewers at 11:15 p.m. ET.

AudioShake said it will launch its Copyright Compliance System, an end-to-end workflow for detecting, identifying, removing and documenting copyrighted music in mixed media files.

The Copyright Compliance System is already in use across broadcast, sports, postproduction and rights administration, with early customers including ESPN, NFL Films, Jaywalker Music, CrunchLabs, Music Reports and amp, the company said.

The technology combines several manual processes into one automated system, helping studios, broadcasters, sports teams and other distributors use enormous volumes of library content that can’t be redistributed because copyrighted music is baked into the original sound mix, according to AudioShake.

Music copyright compliance is a meaningful bottleneck in monetizing and distributing such content on FAST channels and streaming platforms, AudioShake said.

The AudioShake modular system allows customers to use the full pipeline or adopt individual components (detection, identification, removal) inside their existing workflow. Extending upon AudioShake’s Music Removal model, the Copyright Compliance System combines:

• Music detection, flagging whether music is present in a piece of content, including noisy, fully-mixed audio where music is buried under dialogue, crowd noise and effects. This helps downstream cue sheet teams know where music is present and where to fill out the relevant information.
• Music identification, isolating the music in any media file and identifing the artist, song title, album, label, release date and ISRC for each segment. Teams can quickly QC the identified music, combine repeated segments and correct start and end times to accelerate cue sheet creation and approval.
• Music removal, removing music from a clip while preserving dialogue, ambient sound and effects. In scenarios such as social distribution, archival relicensing, or platforms where rights would otherwise create friction, AudioShake opens the downstream path for rightsholders to license replacement tracks, swap in their own catalog or recoup royalties for music that previously went unreported.

One early user is ESPN, which manages a vast library of live, archival, and digital content, AudioShake said. Constraints such as copyrighted arena and walkout music, expired licenses on archival programming and dialogue embedded into crowd noise have historically limited what content ESPN could distribute and how quickly it could do so, AudioShake said.

ESPN uses AudioShake to remove or isolate copyrighted music from sports highlights, preserving original commentary and crowd noise, and to accelerate the turnaround of rights-cleared assets across television, streaming, digital and social platforms. Similarly, NFL Films and the NHL’s Calgary Flames use AudioShake to clear sports clips and game footage for broadcast and social distribution, where music rights would otherwise create friction.

AudioShake said its solution addresses music-licensing problems that have restricted distribution of digital properties like ESPN’s “The Ocho.” Previously unusable content can be distributed across new platforms and to new audiences, extending its lifespan and the reach of ESPN’s archives, AudioShake said.

ESPN used this capability in a 2026 Super Bowl ad. AudioShake isolated the voice of Phil Simms, the Super Bowl MVP quarterback of the 1986 New York Giants, saying “I’m gonna go to Disney World” in the famous 1986 postgame commercial for Walt Disney World. Because of ambient in-stadium music, licensing the full clip would have been cost-prohibitive for just a few seconds of a 60-second commercial. AudioShake removed the ambient music and extracted Simms’ vocal, making the clip usable.

“As ESPN continues to expand the ways we reach and serve sports fans in an age of content abundance, it’s important to lean into groundbreaking technology solutions that can help us bring the right content to the fans that want it as quickly and efficiently as possible,” said Kevin Lopes, vice president, business development and innovation, ESPN. “Working with AudioShake to leverage their innovative audio separation lets us unlock more content for fans by accelerating and modernizing workflows and ensuring we can deliver more high-quality sports content to fans wherever they are.”

More information is available here and here.

As more major media and entertainment companies jump on the vertical video bandwagon and tech providers launch products to streamline its creation, analysts at LightShed Partners are pouring cold water over Hollywood’s approach to the format.

In a note to investors, LightShed analysts Richard Greenfield, Brandon Ross and Mark Kelley said, “We believe the strategy behind almost all of these products, including Netflix, is dead wrong and misses the far larger opportunity in mobile vertical video content.”

In recent days, Netflix launched a vertical video feed in its mobile app, joining Disney+ (Verts), ESPN (Verts), Peacock (Clips), Paramount+ (Clips), and CNN (Shorts). All are responding to the growing popularity of vertical video particularly among younger audiences.

At NAB Show earlier this month, AWS launched new AI-powered tools to automate vertical video creation creation of vertical video, with data showing Gen Z viewers consume 88% of the streaming content they watch on their phones, and that users are spending more time watching vertical video than content from Netflix, Disney+ or Prime Video on their phones.

While some companies like The New York Times and CNN have been creating compelling original vertical video content, “none of the major media companies are willing to take a small portion of their massive content budgets to attack original vertical programming for mobile devices,” the LightShed analysts said.

“While it is great to see so many media companies launching vertical content for mobile devices, creating clips of existing content is underwhelming at best,” they argued. “We doubt users spend meaningful time watching short clips of long-form content, and these feeds certainly do not make you want to come back regularly the way dedicated mobile entertainment apps do.”

“Only CNN is making its own original programming specifically formatted for vertical mobile viewing,” they noted. Worse, the analysts argued, some of the repurposed content for vertical video is badly done. “ESPN and Paramount+ are simply reformatting horizontal content into a vertical feed, and it looks awful, with text impossible to read,” they said.

Read the full post, along with examples of vertical video being produced, here.

BURBANK, Calif.—The CW Network has announced major streaming deals with ESPN and The Roku Channel that will greatly expand the availability of its sports and entertainment programming on major streaming platforms.

In terms of sports, The CW and ESPN reported that they are teaming up to make the ESPN App the exclusive streaming home for all CW Sports live events, combining premium sports offerings into a single viewer-friendly experience through this groundbreaking agreement.

All CW Sports will broadcast live on The CW Network as well as stream live on the ESPN App for fans with an ESPN Unlimited subscription plan, including live coverage of college football and men’s and women’s basketball from the ACC, Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, WWE NXT, PBA Bowling, PBR Bull Riding, AVP volleyball and the 2026 Arizona Bowl.

Fans with an ESPN Unlimited plan subscription will have the opportunity to watch all CW Sports offerings live on any device with the ESPN App as a complement to The CW’s free over-the-air broadcast model nationwide.

CW Sports on the ESPN App is expected to launch in Summer 2026.

“Joining forces with ESPN is a monumental next step in the evolution of CW Sports,” said Brad Schwartz, president, The CW Network. “The CW now offers more than 800 hours of premium live sports per year. This agreement extends the reach of CW Sports and enables us to capture audiences across the best of broadcast and the best of streaming, ensuring fans can access live CW Sports wherever they are and on whatever device they prefer. This new partnership will allow us to connect seamlessly with our audiences everywhere—from football and basketball to motorsports, professional wrestling, bowling, bull riding, and much more to come as CW Sports continues its exciting march forward.”

In addition, the network announced a partnership with Roku launching in Fall 2026 that will bring CW entertainment programming to The Roku Channel for next-day streaming.

The agreement will bring scripted and unscripted CW programming to more than half of U.S. broadband households via a CW-branded hub on The Roku Channel. Additionally, new installments of WWE NXT will be made available to stream on The Roku Channel every Wednesday following its live Tuesday night broadcast on The CW.

“Partnering with Roku supercharges the reach and accessibility of The CW’s premium entertainment content,” Schwartz added. “By combining The Roku Channel’s expansive audience with The CW’s nationwide linear footprint, we’re bringing together the best of broadcast with the best of streaming to unlock unprecedented scale for our content, our audience, and our advertisers.”

In addition to the fresh next-day premium broadcast content, The CW hub on The Roku Channel will feature over 800 hours of CW library content.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo.—Sling TV has launched Sling Essentials, a new programming package that costs $19.99, providing subs with what might be the lowest cost way to stream ESPN and ESPN2.

The channel lineup for Sling Essentials includes:

• Sports: ESPN and ESPN2
• Family & Kids: Disney Channel, Freeform, and Game Show Network (GSN)
• Movies & Drama: Lifetime Movies (LMN), Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, and Bounce
• Classic & Nostalgia: MeTV, startTV, GRIT, and Heroes & Icons (H&I)

In a note to investors, LightShed Partners financial analyst Richard Greenfield noted that the pricing undercuts ESPN DTC pricing by 33% and “appears to be the cheapest way to subscribe to ESPN and ESPN2 without taking a larger bundle of channels or subscribing to ESPN’s DTC service, ESPN Unlimited.”

ESPN’s Unlimited DTC product costs $29.99/month on a standalone basis. “With the launch of Sling Essentials, you can stream ESPN and ESPN2 for $19.99/month…and you can authenticate with Sling into the ESPN app," he wrote. "This is $10 or a 33% discount to the cost of ESPN Unlimited, albeit Sling Essentials subscribers cannot access ESPN Select or ESPN Unlimited exclusive content….It will be interesting to see if any other MVPDs/vMVPDs copy what Sling is doing with Essentials and how Disney responds.”

More information is available at Sling.com.

ESPN and Disney+ have launched ESPN on Disney+ in Europe and select Asia-Pacific markets, a move that will make the offering available in 53 countries and territories across the regions.

With this expansion, ESPN now reaches viewers through Disney+ in approximately 100 markets around the world.

In Europe, the expansion builds upon a growing portfolio of sports content on Disney+. In select Asia-Pacific markets, which includes Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, a selection of English‑language ESPN sports programming will be available on Disney+ in this initial phase.

All Disney+ subscribers in both Europe and select APAC markets can also access exclusive sports content including live sporting events, studio shows, films, and more, alongside general entertainment and kids and family programming – all within a single app.

“Sports and live events are an essential part of our Disney+ content library, and we’re excited to build on the success we’ve already had with sports fans, as we bring more of ESPN to Disney+ subscribers in Europe and APAC,” said Alisa Bowen, president, Disney+. “This launch adds to our growing portfolio of local sports rights around the world.”

The initial offering will vary by market but will grow to thousands of live events over the next year, Disney reported.

That content includes a diverse portfolio of programming such as US sports coverage of the NBA (National Basketball Association) and NHL (National Hockey League) – both starting with the 2026-27 season. The lineup also includes college sports, featuring NCAA championships including men’s and women’s March Madness, plus college basketball regular season and conference tournaments, college football, College Football Playoff, and bowl games, as well as the Little League World Series, Savannah Bananas, and more.

The expansion comes on the heels of the recently concluded NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships, which streamed on Disney+ across Europe.1

Disney+ subscribers will also have access to ESPN’s "30 for 30" documentary collection, a deep library of films and studio shows, including ESPN FC, ESPN’s global football news and information program.

This builds on the sports offerings on Disney+ already available in Europe, including the UEFA Women’s Champions League, LALIGA in the UK and Ireland, and the Copa del Rey, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Conference League and DFB Pokal in the Nordics. The offering will also feature KeSPA’s flagship events, including Esports Championships Asia Jinju 2026, and the 2026 LoL KeSPA Cup in APAC markets.

The launches are in addition to ESPN existing linear networks. It currently has 50 linear networks reaching fans across 130 countries and territories.

(Editor’s note: UFL action begins tonight on Fox with the Birmingham Stallions taking on the Louisville Kings at 8 p.m. EDT. First week matchups continue Saturday, March 28, with the DC Defenders taking at the St. Louis Battlehawks at noon EDT on ESPN; the Houston Gamblers vs. Dallas Renegades at 4 p.m. EDT on Fox; and the Colombus Aviators at Orlando Storm on ESPN at 8 p.m. EDT.)

LOUISVILLE, Ky.—Drones over the field, cameras embedded in helmets and chest pads and Steadicam operators running on and off the field during games are only a few of the television production technologies and techniques pioneered last season by the United Football League—better known as the UFL—owned in part by Fox Corp. and Disney.

No wonder then that the league is willing to push the envelope a bit when it comes to exploring ways production technology can enhance the viewing experience. While many of the same elements used last season will return for the 2026 campaign, both Fox Sports and ESPN will be relying on important enhancements behind the scenes to advance this season’s coverage, which begins tonight.

Fiber and 5G
Signal acquisition from the field and around the venues as well as contribution back to the sports broadcasters’ respective remote production centers will benefit from enhanced tech.

Fox Sports is expanding its use of a private 5G wireless network this season, according to Brad Cheney, vice president of field operations and engineering at Fox Sports.

“We've been at the forefront of private wireless networks, and we're going to deploy them this year full time on every one of our shows” said Cheney. “We are working with CP Communications and Verizon to do that, and we're really excited to see that in daily operation every single game for us across the UFL season.”

The success of last season’s trial use of a private 5G wireless network for camera acquisition proved successful with respect to reliability and ultra-low latency, leading the broadcaster to expand its commitment to the technology.

This season, it will deploy the private wireless network to support 1080p HDR video acquisition from three cameras, including two RF handhelds and its Megalodon camera, as well as 15 wireless comms packs. Each 5G camera transmitter is “roughly the same size and weight” as its traditional COFDM counterpart, said Cheney.

Cheney noted that even though Fox Sports is deploying its own private 5G network at each UFL venue, the wireless network still exists within the broader 5G footprint of the carrier in general and more specifically of the public wireless networks at the various league venues. That fact at the moment limits how many wireless cameras the broadcaster will use on its private 5G network.

“Obviously, the cell networks in the U.S. have been built around download—somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% download and 20% upload. Carriers are slowly changing that. But as that is done, it affects the people and the frequencies around you,” he said.

“The closer you get to 50-50, or inverting it to 80% [upload] and 20% [download], that's when things start affecting other things around you.”

“That's a really dynamic piece of the puzzle. The No. 1 thing we have to work on in every single venue is understanding the other cell networks around us,” said Cheney. “We’ve spent a lot of time mapping out these stadiums to figure out these things and make sure we can provide extensive coverage, not just coverage on the field.”

Cheney noted that for now, other wireless cameras—especially specialty cameras like pylon and player-worn cameras—will remain COFDM because there is no pressing need to re-engineer existing off-the-shelf traditional wireless camera backs simply to accommodate a miniaturized 5G alternative.

Like Fox Sports, ESPN is entering this UFL season with an eye towards how it can best produce games. Several new venues will be used this season. Six, including those in Washington, D.C., Orlando, Fla., Houston, Frisco, Texas, Louisville, Ky., and Columbus, Ohio, are used for professional soccer.

“A lot of these MLS [Major League Soccer] stadiums don't have the same robust fiber infrastructure that, say, an NFL stadium might have,” said Eric Kimmel,  supervisor of remote operations at ESPN.

ESPN, along with Fox Sports and the UFL worked together in the offseason to ensure sufficient fiber-optic resources would be in place prior to tonight’s season kickoff, said Jim Birch, senior manager of remote operations at ESPN.

“A lot of this planning started well in advance of the season—months in advance—doing site surveys,” said Birch. “The league, Fox and ESPN got together and looked at the infrastructure of these new venues to establish a foundational infrastructure.”

Those surveys identified a pressing need to build out the fiber infrastructure in place for the broadcasters’ UFL productions. “The league did a lot of installs,” said Birch. “It seems like we put in thousands of strands of fiber [in the aggregate] across all of these new stadiums to prepare them to produce our games.”

ESPN will make best use of available fiber bandwidth to support its REMI productions with the help of new encoding technology it first used last fall. “For the past college football season, we utilized new transmission encoders from Appear,” said Kimmel. “They were a great success.”

The encoder enables ESPN’s A Crew to transport 23 paths of HEVC-encoded 1080p HDR video back to its REMI control rooms in Bristol, Conn., and its B and C Crews to use 20 paths, he said.

School of Hard Knocks
One notable addition to the production was the use of wireless cameras embedded in select players’ chest pads. The results were mixed.

“Frankly, we learned from the chest camera last year,” said Bryan Jaroch, vice president of sports production at ESPN. “They [the league] thought it would be able to take the impact of hits, and they tested it. There were times when it did crack, or it didn’t work as well as we all had hoped.”

That lesson directed ESPN to try a different approach this season. “The chest cam cannot take that impact,” he said. “We actually tested the POVORA camera on kickers a couple of weeks ago in Arlington.” The POVORA tilt control CapCam, which ESPN used last college football season and has been nominated for a George Wensel Technical Achievement Emmy Award, may be used in other applications.

“We may try to put that on coaches or players on the sidelines. But in terms of the impact, that was one of the shortfalls with MindFly [used during the 2025 UFL season], where it could not take those hits. We’re going to work with POVORA to see what we can do with their CapCam like put it on some referees,” said Jaroch.

“They also have a BodyCam version of their cameras, so we’ll try some new technology there.”

The Ramifications
The UFL’s willingness to try innovative technologies and production techniques attracted the interest of other sports leagues throughout last season, and the efforts of Fox Sports and ESPN to implement them paid off, both broadcasters agreed.

ESPN’s Jaroch pointed to the ACC’s decision to give the sports network greater access to its replay command center during some 2025 ACC football action as an outgrowth of what the broadcaster accomplished last season with the UFL replay command center.

Fox Sports, too, points to various tech deployments during the 2025 UFL season that influenced how sports were covered in other leagues. “The automated first-and-10 setup is something the NFL did this season,” said Cheney, adding that it is one of the most visible examples.

Another is drones. “Our use of the drone at UFL games has definitely driven access across all sports,” he said.

Only time will tell how this year’s new tech deployments will influence sports production beyond the UFL.

For more information on the 2026 season, visit https://www.theufl.com/

ESPN has announced that it will air its third animated version of a live NHL game on Sunday, April 5th with animated NHL players and characters from Pixar’s “Inside Out” show depicting a live game between the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers players.

It is the third ESPN/Disney animated NHL presentation created with Sony’s Beyond Sports visualization technology, NHL Edge positional data (NHL Puck and Player Tracking), and Sony’s Hawk-Eye Innovations optical tracking data.

ESPN+, Disney+, Disney Channel, and Disney XD will present the real-time, animated telecast, while the traditional telecast will be available on ESPN. In 2023, the “NHL Big City Greens Classic” featured the Capitals vs. Rangers and was the first-of-its-kind real-time volumetric animation presentation in sports.

"Inside Out Classic" will feature virtually created real-time animation of the action between the Washington Capitals and the New York Rangers modeled after characters on Pixar’s award-winning franchise Inside Out.

The animated telecast will leverage tracking technology to present the action on the ice in real-time while featuring "Inside Out" characters skating alongside animated versions of the NHL players. Highlights for this year’s animated telecast include:

• The presentation will blend two types of tracking technologies – NHL Edge positional data (NHL Puck and Player Tracking) and Sony’s Hawk-Eye Innovations’ optical tracking – to create more dynamic player and character movement to help fans better visualize detailed limb and stick movement and mannerisms.
• Inside the mind of "Inside Out" character Riley, Hockey Island will host the animated presentation where Riley’s Emotions will skate alongside animated versions of the NHL players.
• Using Sony’s Beyond Sports’ Virtual Commentator technology, the ESPN commentators calling the action on the animated telecast – Drew Carter, Kevin Weekes and Arda Öcal – will wear virtual reality headsets for motion capture, immersing them in the animated environment of Hockey Island in Riley’s Mind.
• "Inside Out" voice talent will also be featured in the animated presentation, including Phyllis Smith (Sadness), Lewis Black (Anger), Tony Hale (Fear), and Maya Hawke (Anxiety).
• The real-time animated telecast will be produced in association with ESPN Edge Innovation Center and NHL partner, Sony’s Beyond Sports. Driven by Sony’s Beyond Sports’ proprietary virtual recreation technology, the broadcast transforms tracking data from fellow NHL partner Sony’s Hawk-Eye Innovations into animated action on the ice.

In 2025, ESPN and Sony’s Beyond Sports expanded its agreement to continue to produce alternate telecasts utilizing Disney’s extensive portfolio of Intellectual Property to expand its audience. Along with Sony’s Hawk-Eye Innovations and the use of state-of-the-art technology, ESPN has already produced multiple animated alternate telecasts under the new agreement.

"Inside Out Classic" will be available internationally on Disney+ in Latin America, the Caribbean, Australia and New Zealand, South Africa (live, no replay), and Europe. Video on demand will also be available in most markets, including the United States and its territories, on Disney+ shortly after the real-time telecast.

ESPN has announced the upcoming launch of Women’s Sports Sundays, a programming move that it is billing as a first-of-its-kind, weekly primetime programming franchise showcasing the best of women’s sports.

Debuting in Summer 2026, the new Sunday night destination will feature top-tier WNBA and NWSL action on ESPN.

“Women’s sports are experiencing continued momentum, and Women’s Sports Sundays is ESPN’s next step in meeting that demand,” said Rosalyn Durant, ESPN Executive Vice President, Programming & Acquisitions. “This franchise is about more than showcasing games — it’s about building a consistent, high-profile destination that reflects the passion, excellence and cultural impact of women’s sports today, while giving athletes and leagues the stage they deserve.”

ESPN said that Women’s Sports Sundays marks a major commitment to establish women’s sports as the main event on Sunday nights. Across nine consecutive weeks and 12 games, ESPN will deliver a premium viewing experience offering women’s sports are for everyone, and more accessible than ever.

Anchored by live WNBA and NWSL games, Women’s Sports Sundays will be supported by ESPN’s entire best-in-class media ecosystem, including studio programming, storytelling, and digital and social coverage, creating a unified platform that deepens fandom and amplifies the athletes and leagues driving the movement forward.

ESPN is already a leading home of women’s sports. Across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, and ESPN Select, ESPN airs more than 30,000 hours of live events annually and accounts for a significant share of all exclusively women’s sports minutes broadcast on nationally measured television.

The network’s year-round coverage spans premier professional leagues and competitions including the WNBA, NWSL, WSL, WLL, Grand Slam tennis, Athletes Unlimited and more, while ESPN networks are home to 23 NCAA women’s championships annually, including the most-viewed women’s college basketball game ever.

In addition, espnW, ESPN’s global multiplatform brand dedicated to engaging and inspiring women through sports, features a wide range of original programming, including Vibe Check, a female-led sports studio show exclusive to Disney+ and produced by ESPN.

ESPN is reporting that its coverage of women’s and men’s college basketball is delivering significant year-over-year audience growth this season. Through Feb. 9, women’s college basketball games across ESPN networks are up 33% year-over-year and on pace for the sport’s best audience in 17 year while men’s college basketball viewership is up 25% compared to last season and is on pace for its most-watched season in 11 years.

ESPN networks have aired nine of the 20 most-watched women’s games across all networks this season, including five of the top 10 and three of the top four. Three games have topped one million viewers.

The most-watched game of the season across all networks — South Carolina’s win over Tennessee on Feb. 8 — averaged 1.5 million viewers and peaked at 2.1 million. The Feb. 1 top-10 showdown between Oklahoma and Texas averaged 1.1 million viewers, while December’s Jimmy V Classic Cy-Hawk rivalry matchup delivered 1.0 million viewers.

In the season through Feb. 9, ESPN networks have televised 12 games averaging more than 500,000 viewers — four more than at this point last season — and account for 19 of the top 20 games on cable.

Overall, ESPN networks represent nearly half (48%) of all women’s college basketball live minutes watched this season, more than any other network group.

In terms of men’s basketball, ESPN networks have televised 10 of the top 20 most-watched men’s college basketball games across all networks this season, including three telecasts eclipsing two million viewers.

The first Duke–North Carolina matchup of the season — a 71–68 Tar Heel buzzer-beating victory on Feb. 7 — averaged 3.5 million viewers and peaked at 4.8 million in the closing minutes. The game ranks as ESPN’s most-watched men’s college basketball telecast since Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final home game in 2022 and the second-most watched since 2019. Across all networks, it stands as the third-most watched game of the season and the top game that did not benefit from an NFL game lead in.

On Jan. 31, Kentucky at Arkansas and BYU at Kansas delivered ESPN’s second- and third-most watched games of the season to date. The telecasts were the two most-watched sporting events of the day across all networks.

The Big Monday franchise — a cornerstone of ESPN’s men’s college basketball coverage since 1987 — is also off to a strong 2026 campaign. The Feb. 9 Arizona at Kansas game (1.8M) and Jan. 26 doubleheader featuring Arizona at BYU (1.8M) and Louisville at Duke (1.7M) marked the three most-watched Monday men’s college basketball games on any network in seven years. Through the first three weeks of Big Monday, games are averaging 1.5 million viewers, up 81% YoY.

The 86 games on ESPN alone are averaging 969,000 viewers, up 12% year-over-year and on pace for its best audience in six years.

Overall, ESPN networks account for 45% of all men’s college basketball live minutes watched this season — the largest share of any network group. ESPN also represents the top 19 games on cable, and 29 of the top 30.

ESPN has taken over the distribution of MLB.TV in a deal that will allow fans to buy MLB.TV on ESPN and strengthen ESPN’s streaming presence.

As the new streaming home of MLB.TV, subscribers to MLB.TV will be able to watch thousands of out-of-market live games each season on the ESPN App and ESPN.com.

“ESPN and MLB have a partnership rooted in decades of delivering marquee baseball moments to fans,” said Rosalyn Durant, executive vice president, ESPN Programming & Acquisitions. “With MLB.TV now available through ESPN, we’re taking a significant step forward in reinforcing ESPN as the home of the MLB regular season while deepening the value proposition of the ESPN Unlimited plan – giving fans even more flexibility in how and where they watch all season long.”

Starting Feb. 10, fans can purchase MLB.TV through ESPN platforms in a variety of packages, including:

• Current ESPN Unlimited plan subscribers can purchase MLB.TV for $134.99 for the 2026 season, renewing seasonally at the then-current price.
• Fans without an ESPN Unlimited plan can purchase MLB.TV for $149.99 seasonally, with a free month of ESPN Unlimited included.*
• Monthly subscription options are also available for $29.99, with new subscribers eligible for a free month of ESPN Unlimited.*
• Existing MLB.TV subscribers who auto-renew their subscription through MLB platforms – and are not currently subscribed to ESPN Unlimited – will receive a one-month free trial offer for ESPN Unlimited.*
• At the start of the season, fans subscribed to MLB.TV in the U.S. – whether purchased through ESPN or previously through MLB – will be able to watch the MLB.TV out-of-market games, MLB Big Inning, and MLB Network on both ESPN and MLB digital platforms, ensuring fans have choice and flexibility throughout the season.

At the start of the season, MLB.TV games will be discoverable across most ESPN connected TV and mobile experiences, with fans also able to take advantage of ESPN App features including multiview, integrated stats, key plays and catch up to live, fantasy and betting information, and home/away feed selection.

All of ESPN. All in One Place.

ESPN offers its full suite of networks and services directly to fans on the ESPN App, providing more choice, flexibility and access to all of ESPN, including more than 47,000 live events per year, on-demand replays, industry-leading studio shows and original programming, and more.

The ESPN App gives fans a unique viewing experience that includes multiview and synchronized two-screen viewing options, swipe-able shortform vertical video and a personalized SportsCenter For You, as well as integrated game stats, ESPN Fantasy sports, betting odds and information from DraftKings, sports merchandise, and more.

These features are available to all fans who watch on the ESPN App on mobile and connected TV devices, whether they subscribe directly or through a pay TV package. Bundling options available for fans include a limited time offer for the ESPN DTC Unlimited plan with Disney+ and Hulu for $29.99/month for the first 12 months.

For more visit stream.espn.com.

BRISTOL, Conn.—The PGA TOUR and ESPN are doubling sports betting coverage for the 2026 PGA TOUR Season with a new watch-and-bet experience.

PGA TOUR LIVE Betcast presented by DraftKings will air on ESPN during 12 PGA TOUR events throughout the year, beginning with the WM Phoenix Open, Feb. 5-8, at TPC Scottsdale.

The Betcast at each event will air more than eight hours during each of the four days of play on the ESPN App, alongside the Main Feed, Featured Group and Featured Hole streams. With more than 400 hours in total across the 2026 PGA TOUR Season, the Betcast will feature golf-related betting discussion, live betting analysis, upcoming previews and tournament features, such as tournament winner and matchups.

PGA TOUR LIVE Betcast, which debuted in the 2025 season with 50 hours of coverage across six events, is now presented by DraftKings.

Jonathan Coachman will serve as host, joined by Matt Every and Michael Collins as the show’s analysts. Graham DeLaet, Jeff Eisenband, Steve Scott and Kevin Sylvester will offer additional hosting and analyst support, while Rick Gehman will contribute across the betting feeds throughout the season.

In addition to the WM Phoenix Open, Betcast will include:

• The Genesis Invitational, Feb. 19-22.
• Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, March 5-8.
• THE PLAYERS Championship, March 5-8.
• RBC Heritage, April 16-19.
• Cadillac Championship, April 30-May 3.
• Truist Championship, May 7-10.
• The Memorial Tournament presented by Workday, June 4-7.
• Travelers Championship, June 25-28.
• Fed Ex St. Jude Championship, Aug. 13-16.
• BMW Championship, Aug. 20-23.
• TOUR Championship, Aug. 27-30.

More information is available on the ESPN website.

Following regulatory approval by the U.S. Justice Department and other government agencies, ESPN and the NFL have announced that ESPN's purchase of the NFL Network and other league digital assets has been finalized.

Last August, ESPN and the NFL reached a wide-ranging series of deals that included an agreement for ESPN to acquire NFL Network, NFL Fantasy and other media assets in exchange for the league taking a 10% stake in ESPN.

In addition, ESPN and the league announced agreements for media rights and content distribution that were important for ESPN’s launch of its direct-to-consumer app. As part of those agreements, the NFL Network will be included in the direct-to-consumer app.

The content distribution agreements included the right to distribute RedZone channel to cable and satellite operators. "With the closing, we will begin integrating NFL employees into ESPN in the months ahead," ESPN and the NFL said in a joint statement. "As we look to the future, NFL fans can look forward to expanded NFL programming, greater access to NFL Network, innovative Fantasy experiences and unparalleled coverage of America's most popular sport."

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but CNBC estimated that stake in ESPN could be worth $2 billion to $3 billion.

ESPN’s website reported that “NFL will continue to own, operate and produce the channel and retain the rights to distribute the channel digitally. ESPN would also get rights to the RedZone brand, meaning RedZone channels for college football, basketball or other sports could be coming in the future. NFL Fantasy Football will merge with ESPN Fantasy Football, giving ESPN the official fantasy football game of the league.”

More information is available here.

BRISTOL, Conn.—ESPN is reporting data showing a strong start to its 2025-26 NBA regular season, with its first 21 games through Christmas Day producing the second-highest NBA viewing levels the network has ever seen.

According to Nielsen Big Data Plus Panel, the NBA on ESPN networks is averaging 2.6 million, up 35% from last season.

ESPN said viewership for the 2025-26 regular season trails only the 2010-11 campaign. That ranking excludes the 2011-12 and 2020-21 seasons, which were shortened by a player lockout and the pandemic, respectively, and had nontraditional schedules.

ESPN’s coverage of the NBA has also delivered significant year-over-year growth in key demographics this season. Through 21 games, viewership among P2-17 is up 45%, while viewership among women is up 47%. Additionally, Hispanic viewership is up 37%.

Overall, ESPN networks have carried seven of the top 10 most-watched NBA games this season according to Nielsen, including all five Christmas games – three of which averaged more than 6 million viewers for the first time ever.

The data is important for the league, which negotiated significant increases in media rights in 2024 for a new round of contracts with ESPN, NBCUniversal and Prime Video that began with the 2025-26 season. Those deals totaled $76 billion for media rights over an 11 year period.

ESPN has also generated substantial viewership for its NBA studio programming this season. Through Christmas, TNT Sports import “Inside the NBA” is averaging 1.2 million viewers across ESPN and ABC. “NBA Countdown” is averaging 582,000 viewers so far this season, up 20% from last year’s regular-season average. In addition, “NBA Today,“ ESPN’s weekday studio offering, is averaging 361,000 viewers this season, an increase of 26% from this time last year.

ESPN has reached a new multi-year agreement with The Heisman Trophy Trust to remain the exclusive home of the Heisman Trophy Ceremony.

ESPN televised the 91st annual Heisman Trophy Ceremony Presented by Nissan on Saturday, Dec. 13, with ABC broadcasting the event for the first time. The 2025 Heisman Trophy Ceremony averaged 4.3 million viewers, delivering the event’s best audience since 2012 and finishing up 69% year-over-year. Viewership peaked at 5.8 million viewers during the broadcast.

With this extension, ESPN will remain the exclusive home of the Heisman Trophy Ceremony for the long term, pushing the relationship beyond 35 years since first presenting the event in 1994.

“The Heisman Trophy Trust is thrilled to continue its long-standing partnership with ESPN,” said incoming Heisman Trust CEO Jeff Price. “For decades, ESPN has helped to tell the stories of the outstanding Heisman Trophy Winners, and we look forward to building on that tradition in the coming years. This partnership also accelerates our mission to harness the power of the Heisman to positively impact underserved youth, enabling us to donate millions annually to organizations that broaden opportunities for young people through sports and education.”

“ESPN is incredibly proud to continue our enduring relationship with the Heisman Trophy Trust — a collaboration that will soon span more than 35 years,” said Kurt Dargis, senior director of programming, ESPN. “The Heisman Trophy remains one of the most prestigious distinctions in sports, and we’re honored to help present this moment to fans every year as we celebrate the very best of college football.”

ESPN also announced that in addition to continuing to exclusively televise the presentation of the Heisman Trophy Ceremony each year, ESPN will also continue to exclusively announce the Heisman Trophy finalists, present the Heisman Top 10 show and a Heisman Preview Show each year.

In addition, Disney Advertising will continue to work with the Heisman Trust in driving sponsorship opportunities around Heisman Trophy content and programming.

NASHVILLE—The mobile and REMI production company TNDV has announced that it headed south into Mexico to live-produce the three-day 2025 Zane Grey Championship Playoffs, a sport fishing tournament streamed live on ESPN+ from Oct. 18-20.

For the production, TNDV shipped a REMI flypack and camera jib to the production site in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for what was the company’s first live-to-air project outside the United States.

TNDV managed all content acquisition and live set audio for the streaming broadcasts over all three days, delivering live, three-hour program feeds to the TCL REMI broadcast facility, located at The Plex production facility in Fort Worth, Texas. TNDV leveraged SRT connectivity for secure, low-latency signal transport between the two points, ensuring a consistent near-real-time feed for all live broadcasts, reported the company, which is part of the Live Media Group.

TNDV’s custom flypack kit included four Kokusai Denki HD cameras for video capture and Haivision Makito X H.264 encoders for SRT transport, plus Sennheiser MD46 handheld mics and HMD 27 headsets for talent audio. Commentators on the live set used personal Model 214A announcer’s consoles from Studio Technologies, a Dante-enabled audio product that eliminates talkback, delays and other problems that interfere with discussion and intelligibility. This was a bit of a changeup from TNDV’s previous work with the TCL REMI team, which typically handles commentary locally.

“TCL’s usual strategy of producing commentary in-house removes all video and audio delay concerns,” Rob Devlin, president, TNDV, said. “The commentators for this event would often talk about what they are seeing on TV, and they needed to hear themselves in real time rather than on a two-second delay from flowing to the control room and back. The announcer’s consoles remove those distractions, and since we provide our own audio feed, we use them to manage each commentator’s mix.”

While the live set was staged in an open-air plaza by the action, TNDV had to get creative in other areas. The sole TNDV technician on-site, Devlin, transformed a hotel conference room into a temporary control room that was almost precisely 300 feet from key acquisition and production points. That kept home runs for all cables within the distance threshold, including dedicated camera cables and Cat5 for audio. Key components included an AJA router, Haivision encoding and camera engineering gear.

Three of the Kokusai Denki cameras were arranged in fixed positioned along the shoreline, while the fourth was added to a jib for live set coverage. And since no truck was required for the production workflow, shipping a jib required another dose of creative thinking, TNDV explained.

“Jib systems are largely built on site at events using barbells as a counterbalance to camera weight, which keeps everything nice and level,” Devlin said. “Shipping barbells amounts to extremely expensive shipping weights. We developed the idea of using water weights, which means shipping empty bags and adding 250 pounds of water on location. That made it feasible to ship an 18-foot arm, which was the ideal size for this event.”

Devlin also explained that driving a truck to Cabo San Lucas, located on the southern tip of Baja California, proved impractical for both business and technology reasons. “It’s a 20-hour drive from San Diego to Baja California, and there are desert roads all along that route,” Devlin said. “The fuel savings alone made sense, but the expense of sending a full truck crew for a modest-sized production didn’t equate. We restructured an existing TNDV flypack to meet size and weight parameters, and TSA and FAA air shipping requirements. Our flypacks have grown in popularity for many reasons, but this project was a prime example of positioning the flypack as an economical choice.”

More information is available at www.tndv.com.

The NBA has released encouraging viewing and social media data that the beginnings of its $76 billion deal with NBC/Peacock, Prime Video and ESPN are paying off for its broadcast rights partners.

More than 60 million viewers watched NBA games during the first month of the regular season, the NBA reported, the highest first-month viewing in 15 years if you exclude the 2011-12 season, which opened on Christmas Day.

The NBA also reported record levels of social-media engagement, with more than 30 billion views across social media platforms operated by the league and others.

In addition, sales at NBAStore.com were up more than 20% and subscriptions to out-of-market package NBA League Pass were up 10%. Time spent viewing games on the NBA app was also up 8%.

Major League Baseball has announced deals with ESPN, NBCUniversal and Netflix covering 2026-2028 that make ESPN the exclusive distributor for MLB.TV, put regularly aired games on NBC for the first time in 26 years and expand Netflix’s role from presenting documentaries to live baseball coverage for the first time.

ESPN
MLB awarded ESPN the right to distribute MLB.TV, its subscription package of thousands of live and on-demand out-of-market games, on the ESPN App and on MLB platforms. Its agreement with the sports network also includes a broad range of national and in-market rights.

New MLB.TV subscribers will be able to purchase and stream the service through the enhanced ESPN App. New and existing MLB.TV subscribers will be able to access the service on the ESPN App and through MLB platforms.

ESPN has also secured exclusive local in-market streaming rights for the San Diego Padres, Cleveland Guardians, Seattle Mariners, Minnesota Twins, Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies. Next year, their in-market games will be available to purchase and stream on MLB platforms.

The sports broadcaster will also deliver more than 150 out-of-market regular season games per season across a special game-of-the-day offering for subscribers to ESPN Unlimited.

ESPN also gets a 30-game package of exclusive national games for its linear network and ESPN Unlimited, consisting mainly of weeknight games during the core summer months. It will also retain rights to the MLB Little League Classic as part of its coverage of the Little League World Series, and will air games on Memorial Day and on the first day of the season’s second half.

NBCUniversal
Baseball’s rights deal with NBCUniversal sees the return of baseball to NBC and Peacock beginning with primetime coverage of the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. the Arizona Diamondbacks on March 26, 2026—the only primetime MLB game on Opening Day.

NBC’s coverage consists of 25 primetime games each season; “MLB Sunday Leadoff,” which will return to Peacock and NBCSN from The Roku Channel with 18 late-morning start games; 17 Peacock/NBCSN exclusives; one Peacock-NBC simulcast over the 2026 season; a Sunday afternoon whip-around show looking at live action from across the league on Peacock; a Sunday, July 5, “Roadblock” featuring all 15 MLB games that day on Peacock-NBC; Peacock-exclusive regular season and postseason games on the NBCSN sports cable network; and Telemundo Deportes presentation of all NBCUniversal-produced MLB games in Spanish with Universo televising all games broadcast on NBC.

Netflix
The MLB awarded Netflix the rights to air MLB’s Opening Night game, starting in 2026 with a March 26 New York Yankees-San Francisco Giants contest; special-events games such as the Field of Dreams game in Iowa; and the T-Mobile Home Run Derby, held ahead of the All-Star Game. Netflix will also air the World Baseball Classic, an international tournament involving MLB players.

Baseball’s other primary TV partners, World Series and All-Star Game rightsholder Fox Sports and TNT Sports, will retain their current packages.

A post on MLB.com quoted MLB commissioner Robert Manfred as calling the new deals “a great opportunity to expand our reach to fans through three powerful destinations for live sports, entertainment and marquee events.”

ATLANTA—Gray Media has concluded an agreement with the Ohio Valley Conference (“OVC”) to broadcast OVC college basketball games across 20 Gray markets in five states.

As part of the Conference’s multi-year contract with ESPN, the entire package will also be simulcast live nationally on ESPN+ and available through the ESPN app without digital blackouts.

As part of the agreement, Gray’s Tennessee Valley Sports & Entertainment Network looks forward to bringing three Tennessee institutions – Tennessee State University, Tennessee Technological University, and University of Tennessee – Martin, to Tennessee viewers across the state.

The Tennessee Valley Sports & Entertainment Network broadcasts over-the-air in Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Gray’s WMC+ in Memphis also participates in the network. The OVC is headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee (just south of Nashville).

In addition, Gray’s Matrix Midwest in St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, Missouri, will serve hometown viewers of OVC’s Southeast Missouri State University, Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville, and Lindenwood University and Gray’s Illinois stations in Peoria, Quincy, and Rockford will serve fans of OVC’s Western Illinois University and Eastern Illinois University. Gray’s Indiana stations in Evansville, Ft. Wayne, and South Bend will focus on University of Southern Indiana, and Gray will also bring the package to fans of Morehead State University in Lexington, KY.

Gray reported that it anticipates signing an agreement for a third-party broadcast partner in Little Rock for the University of Arkansas – Little Rock.

Garson of Excelsior Sports and Entertainment represented OVC in the deal.

BRISTOL, Conn., and BOSTON—ESPN and DraftKings today announced an agreement naming DraftKings the sports programmer’s exclusive official sportsbook and odds provider, effective Dec. 1.

Beginning in December, DraftKings entertainment products will be exclusively integrated across ESPN platforms with a full rollout expected in 2026. Fans will be able to access betting features and offerings, such as DraftKings’ sportsbook, daily fantasy and DraftKings Pick6, at launch. The pair will also collaborate on responsible gaming, ESPN said.

DraftKings will also power the betting tab within the ESPN app. DraftKings customers will also receive special promotions for ESPN Unlimited, ESPN’s newly launched direct-to-consumer product.

“Our betting approach has focused on offering an integrated experience within our products,” ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said. “Working with DraftKings, a leader in the space, will allow us to build upon that foundation, continue to super-serve passionate sports fans and grow our ESPN direct-to-consumer business. We are excited about this new collaboration with DraftKings.”

ESPN BET will shift to a sports-betting content brand with DraftKings sportsbook integrations, anchored by ESPN’s betting show, “ESPN BET Live,” which currently airs weeknights at 6:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2, and dedicated social and digital channels.

“ESPN’s unmatched visibility across the world of sports make this collaboration a natural fit,” said Jason Robins, CEO and co-founder of DraftKings. “As an innovative leader in digital sports entertainment, DraftKings is uniquely positioned to integrate our technology and products with ESPN’s iconic brand and storytelling power. Together, we’re delivering a seamless, engaging and responsible experience that elevates how fans connect with live sports.”

DraftKings operates in 28 states, Washington, D.C., and Ontario, and has more than 10 million customers across its products.

More information is available on the ESPN website.

The College Football Playoff (CFP), ESPN and TNT Sports have announced kick times and broadcast information for the 2025 CFP First Round, which will launch the second year of the 12-team Playoff.

“We are pleased to work with both ESPN and TNT Sports to deliver these first-round games to fans across the country in premier viewing windows,” said Rich Clark, executive director of the College Football Playoff. “We also appreciate the collaboration with the National Football League in coordinating schedules to best serve fans of both college and professional football. This all reflects the growing reach and excitement surrounding the new Playoff format, and we look forward to showcasing the best of college football on both networks.”

The 2025-26 edition of the 12-team College Football Playoff will begin with the first CFP First Round game on Friday, Dec. 19 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and ESPN. First round action will continue on Saturday, Dec. 20, as ABC and ESPN will broadcast the first game of Saturday’s tripleheader at noon ET, while TNT will present games at 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. ET, respectively. All games on ESPN networks will be available on the ESPN App, while the first-round games airing on TNT and truTV will also be streamed on HBO Max. Each of the four first-round games will be played on campuses to be announced on Selection Day, Dec. 7.

In April, it was announced that ESPN will present each of the four Playoff Quarterfinals, the two Playoff Semifinals and the 2026 CFP National Championship, slated for Monday, Jan. 19, at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.

The CFP National Championship returns to Miami for the first time since the 2021 contest, marking the second straight season the national championship game will return to a city for a second time, after Atlanta hosted the title contests in 2018 and 2025.

Last season, the inaugural CFP First Round delivered 10.6 million average viewers across ESPN networks and TNT Sports.

The quartet of Playoff Quarterfinals scored multi-year viewership highs, while the CFP Semifinals produced the most-watched Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic on record (20.6M viewers) and the second-most-watched Capital One Orange Bowl in nearly 20 years (17.8M viewers). The 2025 CFP National Championship between Ohio State and Notre Dame attracted 22.1 million viewers, the most-watched non-NFL sporting event over the past year. The showdown peaked with 26.1 million viewers. ESPN reported.

The contentious contract negotiations between The Walt Disney Co. and YouTube TV have resulted in a blackout of Disney-owned programming on the pay TV operator. That will leave subscribers without access to high-profile NFL, college football, NBA and other sports and entertainment programming until a new carriage deal is concluded.

The blackout includes ESPN; ABC broadcast programming; and other Disney-owned networks. The channels were removed from YouTube TV Thursday evening.

As usual in these negotiations, both sides blamed each other for the impasse.

YouTube TV attacked Disney for insisting on terms that would push up prices for pay TV subscribers, while Disney complained that “with a $3 trillion market cap, Google is using its market dominance to eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms we’ve successfully negotiated with every other distributor.”

The dispute comes as pay TV operators have been trying to control prices as a way to slow subscriber losses from cord-cutting, and as large programmers like Disney have been launching direct-to-consumer streaming services that allow consumers to access high-profile programming outside the pay TV ecosystem.

In a statement, YouTube said: “Last week, Disney used the threat of a blackout on YouTube TV as a negotiating tactic to force deal terms that would raise prices on our customers. They’re now following through on that threat, suspending their content on YouTube TV. This decision directly harms our subscribers while benefiting their own live TV products, including Hulu + Live TV and Fubo.

“We've been working in good faith to negotiate a deal with Disney that pays them fairly for their content on YouTube TV,” the vMVPD said. “Unfortunately, Disney is proposing costly economic terms that would raise prices on YouTube TV customers and give our customers fewer choices, while benefiting Disney’s own live TV products—like Hulu+Live TV and, soon, Fubo. Without an agreement, we'll have to remove Disney’s content from YouTube TV and if it remains unavailable for an extended period of time, we will offer subscribers a $20 credit.”

In response, a Disney spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter: “Unfortunately, Google’s YouTube TV has chosen to deny their subscribers the content they value most by refusing to pay fair rates for our channels, including ESPN and ABC. Without a new agreement in place, their subscribers will not have access to our programming, which includes the best lineup in live sports—anchored by the NFL, NBA and college football, with 13 of the top 25 college teams playing this weekend. With a $3 trillion market cap, Google is using its market dominance to eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms we’ve successfully negotiated with every other distributor. We know how frustrating this is for YouTube TV subscribers and remain committed to working toward a resolution as quickly as possible.”

ESPN said it will produce animated telecasts for NFL, NHL, NBA and WNBA games across The Walt Disney Co. and ESPN platforms during the 2025-26 season under an agreement it signed with Sony’s Beyond Sports and Hawk-Eye Innovations.

The telecasts will use Disney’s intellectual property portfolio in game presentations that transform live play into real-time animations, an innovation ESPN first introduced in 2023. More alternate telecasts are planned for the 2026-27 sports calendar, the broadcaster said.

“At ESPN, innovation has always been a driver in serving sports fans, including reaching new audiences,” said Kevin Lopes, vice president of sports business development and innovation at ESPN. “The Beyond Sports team has helped fuel our animated alternate casts, along with our league partners, creating an entirely new way for fans to consume our content. We look forward to continuing to produce these unique experiences for fans both this year and in the years ahead.”

ESPN, Disney, Sony’s Beyond Sports, and multiple league partners have collaborated on several previous animated alternate presentations, beginning with the NHL Big City Greens Classic in 2023 and a second the following year. Since then, the NFL has partnered on multiple Funday Football presentations, powered by the NFL’s Next Gen Stats and featuring characters from “Toy Story” and “The Simpsons.” The NBA has also joined in with “Dunk the Halls,” featuring Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters.

“The addition of four new telecasts this season will bring our total with ESPN to nine, a reflection of how this partnership continues to grow year on year,” Sander Schouten, managing director and co-founder of Beyond Sports, said. “Enabled by our technology, together we’re driving the evolution of fan engagement, creating new ways for fans to experience the game and redefining live sports storytelling.”

Expanding audiences is the primary motivation driving the animated alternate casts. They are intended to promote co-viewing and attract casual fans. ESPN research reveals that more children watch these telecasts with an adult, the broadcaster said.

More information is available online.

ESPN and the Ohio Valley Conference have announced a new six-year media rights agreement. The new agreement extends ties between ESPN and the conference that span multiple decades, dating back to the league playing midnight basketball games to a national television audience in the early 1980s

Financial terms were not disclosed.

The new agreement to air games across ESPN platforms and networks includes ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer offering, which is inclusive of ESPN+ and launched in August.

As part of the deal, a minimum of 725 events per year will be available digitally on ESPN+. Linear exposure includes regular season basketball telecasts on either ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU, the semifinals of the Men’s Basketball Tournament on either ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU or ESPNEWS and the Men’s Basketball Tournament Championship game on either ESPN or ESPN2.

Additionally, the agreement allows the OVC to retain the rights to telecast up to 50 linear events per year locally in the Conference footprint.

“We’re excited to build on our longstanding partnership with the OVC with this new agreement,” said Mallory Kenny, ESPN Director of programming and acquisitions. “This deal underscores ESPN’s commitment to elevating college sports and we look forward to showcasing the OVC’s student-athletes on a national stage across our platforms in the years ahead.”

“We are thrilled to continue our valued partnership with ESPN through this new long-term agreement,” said OVC commissioner Beth DeBauche. “This deal provides an exceptional platform to showcase the extraordinary talent of our student-athletes and the outstanding competition that defines the OVC. ESPN’s commitment to our conference supports our strategic growth initiatives and ensures our member institutions receive the quality broadcast coverage they deserve. We’re deeply grateful to our ESPN partners for their partnership and vision. Equally important, we thank our member institutions for their continued dedication to producing high-quality content that makes these broadcasts possible. This partnership represents more than just media covera

ESPN has announced that its coverage of NCAA men’s and women’s ice hockey on its networks and streaming platforms will total more than 620 games during the 2025-26 season, including the Men’s and Women’s Frozen Four championship events. All games will be available to stream on the ESPN App via ESPN DTC or Pay TV authentication.

ESPN+ will stream over 620 games with matchups from ECAC Hockey and Hockey East.

The puck drops for the first game of the season across ESPN networks on Friday, October 17, ESPN reported.

In addition, both the men’s and women’s NCAA College Hockey Selection Show will return to ESPN networks. Leading into the Women’s Frozen Four Championship game on Sunday, March 22, the men’s selection show (3 p.m.) will air on ESPNU. The women’s selection show will take place on Sunday, March 8 (11:30 a.m.) on ESPNU.

ESPN is reporting that its networks delivered its most-watched WNBA regular season, with 25 games across ESPN and ABC that averaged 1.3 million viewers this season, up six percent from last season’s record year, according to data from Nielsen.

ESPN networks aired eight of the top 10 most-watched WNBA games during the 2025 season, highlighted by its most-watched WNBA game ever, the Chicago Sky at Indiana Fever matchup on May 17 (ABC) that attracted 2.7 million viewers.

During the regular season, ESPN’s studio shows also saw significant audience growth:

• ESPN’s WNBA Countdown Presented by Google averaged 549,000 viewers, up seven percent year-over-year, across 17 episodes (including All-Star Weekend).
• ESPN’s WNBA digital programming Hoop Streams presented by Google and The Wrap-Up presented by AT&T viewership per show grew 15% year-over-year, while average watch time increased 61% year-over-year, streamed across the ESPN App, YouTube and Facebook with extensions on Instagram.

ESPN will exclusively televise the entire 2025 WNBA Playoffs Presented by Google, tipping off Sunday, Sept. 14, at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN. This year’s postseason features the defending champion New York Liberty, top overall seed Minnesota Lynx, Las Vegas Aces, Indiana Fever, Atlanta Dream, Golden State Valkyries, Phoenix Mercury and Seattle Storm.

A football season unlike any other is taking shape in a conflicted broadcast environment where big-game producers are delivering unprecedented viewing experiences digitally as TV station owners count on the sport’s popularity to help them weather a weakened ad market.

The challenges were highlighted by The Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger during an early August earnings call, when he discussed the now-launched ESPN direct-to-consumer streaming service, which encompasses all content delivered over the seven ESPN cable channels and online assets, including ESPN+.

While stressing that Disney views what it’s doing with ESPN as part of its TV business, Iger acknowledged, “the features and functionality of the ESPN app will have more on them or in the app than obviously any linear channel can provide. It will really be a sports fan’s dream in terms of everything they’ll be able to do and watch on that channel.”

ESPN-NFL Deal
Adding to the drama, the NFL and Disney also announced a landmark deal that, if approved, would give the league an unprecedented 10% stake in a media partner in exchange for ESPN’s takeover of NFL Network, with the addition of more games and other benefits. A taste of what’s in the offing on the ESPN service, which launched Aug. 21, can be found on the NFL+ streaming service, which remains under the NFL’s control, delivering all its games, but is available in the deal with ESPN for bundling with the latter’s streaming service.

It happens that the advanced in-game betting, personalized fantasy team features and other data-rich enhancements available on NFL+ are supported by technology from Genius Sports, which has also been supporting features on ESPN+. While declining to go into details of what his company is bringing to the new streaming service, Matt Fleckenstein, chief product officer at Genius Sports, says the arc of development on ESPN and NFL+ is parallel.

Specifics are “just a question of whether we’re working directly with NFL+ or ESPN,” he says.

The Genius BetVision app—a single-screen display of betting options supported by all the major sports-betting books, with video lagging just two to three seconds behind real time—is an especially noteworthy example of game-changing aspects to what ESPN might be offering.

With nearly all major pro and college football games now available on streaming services, the stakes couldn’t be higher for the broadcasters whose distribution via cable, satellite and OTA accounts for the lion’s share of the football audience. As they’ve done before, station group owners in their latest earnings reports cited football as a significant counterforce to economic headwinds impacting ad revenues.

During Sinclair’s Q2 earnings call in early August, Chief Operating Officer Rob Weisbord, acknowledging the overall advertising environment “remains rough,” said that with “larger buys coming down the pipeline … we’re cautiously optimistic as we move through the summer months into September with the return of college football and NFL.”

Building on the popularity of football, Sinclair has launched four podcasts devoted to college football programs at Ohio State, Alabama, Texas and Notre Dame, and “will shortly be announcing a landmark events and media partnership” devoted to “producing original content and brand activations,” says Chris King, Sinclair’s vice president of investor relations. This will include a “nationwide tailgate tour during the upcoming college football season” and an exclusive event at February’s Super Bowl in Santa Clara, Calif., he said.

Scripps’ Sports Strategy
E.W. Scripps also touted the importance of football to its second-half expectations following first-half revenue performance that was down just 2% from levels reached in a national election year, marking a “best-of-class” performance that tied “directly back to our sports strategy,” according to Chief Financial Officer Jason Combs. While “there’s a lot of hesitancy out there” in the overall second-half advertising picture, Combs voices “optimism around our ability to monetize football as it starts to kind of roll back in here.”

One aspect to that optimism relates to Scripps Sports’ longstanding relationship with the NCAA Division I Big Sky Conference, which consists of 10 full and two affiliate member universities in eight Western states. The contract with the Big Sky, renewed for another five years in March, makes Scripps responsible for producing and broadcasting at least 12 conference games a year over its seven Montana stations involving either or both of the state’s conference members, Montana State and Montana University, James Raffety, Scripps Sports senior director of sports production, says.

Scripps is generating coverage that “brings big market, big production to FCS [Football Championship Subdivision] football,” Rafferty says. And Scripps also benefits from the fact that the Big Sky relationship runs deeper than basic game production, he says, with the broadcaster acting as league supporter in event productions like the annual Big Sky Hall of Fame banquet and the Media Day season kickoff. It’s a relationship that goes to the heart of Montana culture with the broadcast of the annual “Brawl of the Wild” showdown between MU and MSU, which Rafferty says draws the biggest statewide audience for any TV program other than the Super Bowl.

Local Ties
Many other station owners benefit from relationships they’ve built with colleges at regional and local levels, in some cases enabling game coverage not supplied by the national networks and, in others, resulting in ancillary programming with games broadcast nationally. Gray Media, for example, is leveraging multiple university partnerships with its launch of regional sports networks, says Robert Folliard, the station group’s senior vice president of government relations and distribution.

“This is a strategic initiative for the company to get into local sports where there’s a ton of advertising and sponsorship opportunities,” Folliard says. “We provide the only platform that can get them into every home.”

On another front, Gray with six other partners in the NextGen TV Pearl TV alliance will be broadcasting college and NFL games in HDR-enhanced 4K, marking a major advance in viewing experience over what consumers typically get through cable and online services. With FCC Chair Brendan Carr voicing enthusiasm for NextGen TV, it looks like “all signals are a go” for expeditious transition to ATSC 3.0, Folliard says, which means TV stations will be in a much stronger position to hold football fans with the combination of superior signal quality and OTA access to interactive game playing and real-time betting.

Nobody is doing more than Fox Sports to keep all its boats afloat, including the new Fox One DTC streaming service, by delivering superior viewing experiences across all affiliated TV and digital outlets. On the big home screen, whether NFL games are delivered via pay TV, OTA or online, Fox is tapping things it introduced at this year’s Super Bowl to enhance the lean-back experience, says Michael Davies, executive vice president of field operations at Fox Sports.

“We’re looking at picking up where we left off,” Davies says. He cites wider use of things like dual SkyCams, Lidar technology for nonobstructive on-screen placements of AR-embellished graphics displays and officials’ Hawk-Eye play-review systems to help commentators with real-time analysis. At some point, Fox Sports anticipates embellishing some NFL broadcasts with output from field-based 180-degree cameras that Fox partner Cosm has deployed to support immersive off-site theatrical viewing of game action.

ESPN launched today its new direct-to-consumer streaming service and a set of new features on an enhanced ESPN App, making ESPN’s full suite of 12 networks and services available directly to fans for the first time ever.

Branded as “ESPN Unlimited,” monthly subscriptions go for $29.99 per month or $299.99 annually. The sports network’s first digital service, “ESPN+” is being rebranded as “ESPN Select,” and remains at $11.99 per month or $119.99 per year. Customers can also bundle ESPN’s “Unlimited” service with Disney+ and Hulu (both with ads) for $29.99 per month for the first 12 months.

Channels on the new service include:

• ESPN, the main channel
• ABC, specifically any ESPN sports production airing on the flagship broadcaster
• ESPN2, the secondary channel
• ESPN3, digital-only games
• ESPN+, digital-only games
• ESPNU for college sports
• ESPNEWS for simulcasts, reruns and event overflow
• ESPN Deportes for Spanish-language programming
• SEC Network for the Southeastern Conference
• SEC Network+, digital-only
• ACC Network for the Atlantic Coast Conference
• ACCNX, digital-only

Cable subscribers who want to watch the new service can enter their credentials into the updated ESPN app. ESPN currently has agreements with the following pay-TV providers:

• Fubo
• Charter
• DirecTV
• Hulu
• Verizon

“This is a monumental day for all of us at ESPN, for The Walt Disney Company and, most importantly, for our fans,” said Jimmy Pitaro, Chairman, ESPN. “ESPN DTC and the ESPN App are a powerful combination marking a major turning point in how we serve sports fans – anytime, anywhere – for years to come. We’ve put a lot of hard work into this launch, with the full force of ESPN and Disney behind it, and we can’t wait for fans to experience all of ESPN in the ESPN App. The best part is, we’re just getting started. What we’re launching today will evolve with regular enhancements over time. As we have since 1979, we’ll continue to listen, adapt and innovate, with sports fans at the center of everything we do. There is no finish line.”

In addition to ESPN DTC, the enhanced ESPN App is introducing an expansive set of new features and functionality including a personalized SportsCenter For You, a vertical video carousel (currently in beta) for mobile devices, a synchronized two-screen experience for live games, and multiview options for connected TV devices.

Fans will also be able to get integrated live game stats, real-time ESPN Fantasy stats and results, live ESPN BET information, personalized in-game commerce, and more. All of these new features are available to all fans who subscribe to ESPN, whether through a traditional pay TV package or directly with an ESPN DTC subscription.

In an extensive interview on CNBC this morning, Disney President Bob Iger and Pitaro discussed the type of audience ESPN is targeting.

"The marketing is focusing on people that are on the sidelines, people who have cut the cord are people who have never subscribed in the first place,” Pitaro said. This is a really important point—we are adding value to the traditional ecosystem, the pay TV ecosystem, as a part of today's announcements."

"And what I mean by that is, if you are a subscriber to traditional paid television, whether it's charter or Comcast or direct TV, you will, through authentication within the ESPN app, get access to all of our new features and function, which is a ton of for the sports fan and a ton of value for our partners.”

Iger stressed that in launching a DTC app, ESPN is not ignoring its traditional pay-TV partners and that he doesn’t yet know what its impact will be.

“We manage our television assets as one business, not as individual businesses, meaning we don't manage linear in the linear business and the digital business separately, we manage it as one,” he said. “It's one group of executives. It's essentially one bottom line, because we want to be agnostic when it comes to how people watch or consume our product.”

Iger also pointed out that Disney is not backing away from the traditional linear TV model, which is falling out of favor with viewers who prefer on-demand.

“A number of other companies are exiting their linear business completely, meaning they're selling off the channels that serve the linear television ecosystem,” Iger said. “We're doing the opposite actually. We're combining them, which gives us the ability to aggregate both subscription fees and advertising on both sides, and essentially end up with a business that's actually larger and more impactful than it would be if we were to separate them completely.”

Initial reactions to the launch have revolved around customers being aware of all of their options in what is becoming an increasingly crowded DTC market or its programming decisions.

BRISTOL, Conn., and LOS ANGELES—As ESPN and Fox prepare to launch new direct-to-consumer services on Aug. 21, the two companies have announced that starting Oct. 2, consumers will be able to purchase ESPN DTC and Fox One bundled together for $39.99 a month.

The bundle represents a discount on ESPN DTC, which is regularly priced at $29.99 a month, and Fox One, available separately for $19.99.

Both the ESPN DTC offering and Fox One become available to individually consumers beginning Aug. 21. The combined bundle will be available for purchase beginning on Oct. 2.

"Working with Fox One on this bundle offer allows us to bring ESPN's world-class sports content to even more fans in a seamless and innovative way," said Sean Breen, executive vice president, Disney Platform Distribution. "This collaboration reflects our shared commitment to delivering premium experiences across platforms and meeting consumers where they are—anytime, anywhere."

Tony Billetter, senior vice president of strategy development, Fox Direct to Consumer said: “Announcing ESPN as our first bundle partner is evidence of our desire to deliver the best possible value and viewing experience to our shared customers. Viewers will have access to an incredible portfolio of content through this bundle, including NFL, NBA, WNBA, MLB, NHL, College Football and Basketball, NASCAR, Indycar, UFC, as well as the upcoming FIFA World Cup, and more as we continue to look for opportunities to streamline the user experience, especially for the ultimate sports fan.”

The ESPN DTC offering will give fans access to all of ESPN's linear networks —ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, and ESPN Deportes—in addition to ESPN on ABC events, ESPN+, SECN+ and ACCNX, covering 47,000 live events each year, on-demand replays, studio shows, original programming, as well as newly expanded NFL content and more.

Fox One will bring all of Fox’s news, sports and entertainment on one streaming platform. For the first time, cord-cutters and cord-nevers will have live streaming and on-demand access to the full portfolio of Fox brands, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business, Fox Weather, Fox Sports, FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, Fox Deportes, Fox local stations and the Fox network, as well as the option to bundle SVOD services Fox Nation and B1G+ within one platform.

BRISTOL, Conn.—In a long-awaited move that could have a major impact on the pay TV ecosystem, ESPN said it will launch its previously announced direct-to-consumer streaming service on Thursday, Aug. 21.

The new app will offer two plans, including an unlimited plan for $29.99/month that gives fans access to all of ESPN’s linear networks—ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS and ESPN Deportes—in addition to ESPN on ABC events, ESPN+, ESPN3, SECN+, and ACCNX, covering 47,000 live events each year, on-demand replays, studio shows, original programming, and more.

Bundling opportunities for the ESPN unlimited plan with Disney+ and Hulu include a special offer at launch for $29.99/month for the first 12 months.

The announcement of the launch date, came as ESPN also announced a new deal with the NFL that will provide subscribers with more content on the app.

The August launch of ESPN DTC was timed to coincide with the start of the college football and NFL seasons, the tennis U.S. Open, international soccer, women’s college soccer, volleyball, field hockey, and more. In the future it will also offer access to the start of the WNBA playoffs, PLL playoffs, and NBA and NHL seasons, as well as UFC and WWE events.

ESPN reiterated that all subscribers to ESPN’s unlimited plan—either through ESPN DTC or a traditional pay TV provider—will have live and on-demand access to all of ESPN’s leading studio shows as well as a robust, on-demand library featuring “30 for 30” films, ESPN Originals, replays, and more.

ESPN also stressed that the enhanced ESPN App will introduce a more personalized, dynamic viewing experience for fans. Those include multiview options, integrated game stats, betting information, fantasy sports and commerce, along with a personalized SC For You.

For more details, including subscription pricing, bundle options, visit https://bit.ly/ESPNDTC.

NEW YORK and BURBANK, Calif. —ESPN and the NFL have reached a wide-ranging series of deals that includes an agreement for ESPN to acquire NFL Network and other media assets in exchange for the league taking a 10% stake in ESPN.

In addition, ESPN and the league announced agreements for media rights and content distribution that will be important for ESPN’s upcoming launch of its direct-to-consumer app.

The wide-ranging series of agreements involving both equity and media rights have been speculated about ever since Disney indicated it was looking for potential partners in ESPN in the run-up to the launch of its DTC app, which will go live Aug. 21.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but CNBC estimated that stake in ESPN could be worth $2 billion to $3 billion.

As part of the deals, ESPN, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Co., will acquire NFL Network and certain other media assets owned and controlled by the NFL (including NFL’s linear RedZone Channel, and NFL Fantasy) in exchange for a 10% equity stake in ESPN.

In addition to the sale of NFL Network, the NFL and ESPN also reported that they have entered into a second non-binding agreement for the NFL to license to ESPN certain NFL content and other intellectual property to be used by NFL Network and other assets, the league and ESPN reported.

The deals come as ESPN announced it would launch its $29.99-per-month on Aug. 21.

“Today’s announcement paves the way for the world’s leading sports media brand and America’s most popular sport to deliver an even more compelling experience for NFL fans, in a way that only ESPN and Disney can,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said. “Commissioner [Roger] Goodell and the NFL have built outstanding media assets, and these transactions will add to consumer choice, provide viewers with even greater convenience and quality, and expand the breadth and value proposition of Disney’s streaming ecosystem.”

Added Goodell: “Since its launch in 2003, NFL Network has provided millions of fans unprecedented access to the sport they love. Whether it was debuting ‘Thursday Night Football,’ televising the Combine, or telling incredible football stories through original shows and breaking news, NFL Network has delivered. The Network’s sale to ESPN will build on this remarkable legacy, providing more NFL football for more fans in new and innovative ways.”

In addition, ESPN and the NFL have reached new licensing agreements, extending ESPN’s NFL Draft rights and, separately, adding NFL programming and content to ESPN’s upcoming DTC service, as well as to Disney+. The agreement also includes the opportunity for fans to bundle ESPN’s DTC service with NFL+ Premium.

Those licensing agreements include a multiyear extension of ESPN’s rights to the NFL draft. In addition, beginning with the 2026 draft, Disney+ and Hulu will also stream ESPN, ABC, and ESPN Deportes’ trio of draft presentations. All offerings will be available on ESPN’s DTC service. Additional alternate NFL draft presentations from ESPN will be available on the same streaming platforms, as will a new daily show dedicated to the draft. The new show, which will air on ESPN2 most days, will launch the day following the Super Bowl and continue through that year’s draft. More highlights:

Separately, ESPN and the NFL have reached an agreement to expand the NFL experience across ESPN’s DTC service and Disney+. The agreement includes rights for additional NFL content for ESPN as well as robust interactive features to deepen the experience for fans. ESPN’s DTC offering will also stream select out-of-market NFL preseason games during the 2025 and 2026 seasons.

In addition, ESPN will also be able to sell and bundle NFL+ Premium, the League’s DTC service that launched in 2022, with ESPN’s DTC service, which gives fans the ability to watch NFL Network and NFL RedZone through the NFL+ Premium offering. ESPN described the additional rights and features that ESPN will offer as follows:

• Highlights for ESPN’s new, innovative, and personalized SportsCenter for You, and the industry-leading ESPN Fantasy Football platform.
• Fans can utilize the new ESPN App multiview feature while watching ESPN’s NFL games and shows through the ESPN App, such as the traditional “Monday Night Football” telecast and “MNF with Peyton and Eli” at the same time, or multiple games when “MNF” has two games on the same night.
• Deeper customization with enhanced interactive features that engage fans watching and following the NFL, including the ability to view personalized ESPN Fantasy Football team performance, legalized sports betting information and bet tracking, and integrated game stats on their connected television or mobile device.
• Exclusive to ESPN DTC subscribers, a video-on-demand “Monday Night Football.”
• Additional NFL content on Disney+, including the potential for select NFL simulcasts for Disney+ subscribers and the inclusion of incremental highlight rights within shows like “Vibe Check” and SportsCenter+.

Penn Entertainment said it will upgrade the ESPN BET Sportsbook experience with the launch of FanCenter, a major new product feature. The personalized hub will make it easier for users to “find wagering markets” based on their favorite teams, players and ESPN fantasy football rosters, the companies reported.

The dedicated hub, which is powered by ESPN and ESPN BET’s account-linking technology, will launch this summer.

ESPN BET Sportsbook is a partnership between ESPN and Penn Entertainment, which operates the Sportsbook. As part of the 10-year deal, Penn paid ESPN $1.5 billion.

“FanCenter introduces a completely new level of personalization for ESPN BET and represents our biggest product leap yet,” said Aaron LaBerge, chief technology officer and head of interactive at Penn Entertainment. “It taps into our players’ fandom in smart, creative ways while connecting seamlessly with ESPN’s industry-leading fantasy football platform. This is what sets ESPN BET apart and football season is the perfect time to show it off.”

“FanCenter is the perfect combination of fandom, fantasy and personalized betting all wrapped into the ESPN BET betting experience,” said Mike Morrison, vice president of ESPN BET and ESPN Fantasy. “FanCenter showcases how we can serve fans across our platforms in a way that nobody else in the market can because of our industry-leading ESPN Fantasy platform and account-linking capabilities.”

Penn Entertainment described the key features of the new FanCenter hub as follows:

• "A ‘For You’ page of curated player props, game markets, and custom parlay offerings to help fans quickly find bets related to their favorite teams, fantasy rosters and wagering history.
• "The ‘Fantasy Bet Builder’, which highlights markets correlated to a user’s ESPN Fantasy roster, allowing them to back their squad in just a few taps.
• "Integrated functionality with ESPN BET’s player insights feature, enabling users to quickly browse recent player stats and trends to inform their prop betting selections.
• "Quick access to view current Mint Club promos and rewards.
• "In addition to fantasy-related markets within FanCenter, a new ‘Find a Bet’ icon on the ESPN Fantasy app will allow players to view markets related to their roster and add selections directly to their ESPN BET bet slip. Last year, ESPN Fantasy Football set an all-time mark with more than 13 million people playing the game."

The betting platform said that some of the new features will require regulatory approval.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.—DirecTV has announced that millions of streaming, satellite and U-verse customers will gain access to ESPN’s upcoming direct-to-consumer app for free when it launches in the next few weeks.

The operator reported that all DirecTV streaming and MySports customers will receive access to the upcoming ESPN app, which is priced at $29.99 a month separately. ESPN is expected the announce the launch date of the app as soon as next week when Disney reports quarterly earnings. Following its launch DirecTV satellite and U-verse customers are expected gain access later this fall.

The offering is part of a push by DirecTV to rebundle its offerings. As part of that effort it has been launching genre packs like MySports. In addition, DirecTV streaming customers with a Gemini device who subscribe to a Signature Package will receiving the new ESPN app as well as Disney+, Hulu Bundle Basic within their fully integrated DirecTV experience at no extra charge, the operator reported.

Later this year, the operator also reported that it plans to make HBO Max and Peacock ad tiers available within select DirecTV packages.

DirecTV introduced the MySports Genre Pack in January, an industry-first sports-centric package, shortly after forging a licensing agreement with Disney. This Genre Pack combines all the best live sports from Disney, Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, major professional and college leagues and more.

ESPN said ABC’s telecast of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s victory over the Indiana Pacers in Game 7 of the NBA Finals on June 22 was the most-watched finals game in six years, since 2019.

According to preliminary data from Nielsen, the winner-take-all Game 7 averaged 16,353,000 viewers and peaked with 19,281,000 viewers from 9:45-10 p.m. ET across ABC and ESPN+.

The seven-game series averaged 10,266,000 viewers and delivered the seven most-watched broadcasts on all of television since the first week of May, ESPN reported. The audience for the 2025 NBA playoffs across ESPN and ABC—34 games—averaged 6,118,000 viewers, up 10 percent from 2024.

But other reports indicated the average audience for the seven-game NBA Finals was down from last year, with an average of 10.66 million viewers in 2025 compared to 11.3 million average viewers during the five-game 2024 series between the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks.

The final viewership figures from Nielsen will be available on Tuesday, June 24.

(Editor’s note: The 2025 UFL Championship Game between the D.C. Defenders and Michigan Panthers kicks off Saturday, June 14, at 8 p.m. Eastern. The game will be televised on ABC and ESPN Deportes and streamed on ESPN+.)

ST. LOUIS—In sports and television production, playing to one’s strengths is a recipe for success—at least that’s what the UFL and ESPN are banking on for the league’s championship game this weekend here at The Dome at America’s Center.

In its brief history, the UFL has embraced the use of television technology to bring audiences closer to games and create a viewing experience that’s far more immersive than the typical college or NFL game on TV.

The league has pioneered using technology like Mindfly cameras embedded at chest level in the pads of players, drone-mounted cameras that circle around on-field action, Steadicam operators who run on and off the field during the game and multiple mics—for players, coaches and referees—that convey to viewers a sense of not simply being in the stands but being a part of the game.

ESPN, which is producing the June 14 UFL Championship Game between the D.C. Defenders and the Michigan Panthers in St. Louis, is tweaking that formula to further heighten the experience. The sports network will rely on additional chest and POV cameras compared to regular-season coverage, announcer-free audio for its ESPN+ video stream and other refinements to make that happen.

Almost Feel the Hit
For the announcer-free ESPN+ alternate-cast of the championship game, the broadcaster has set up an entire control room at its Bristol, Connecticut, headquarters, said ESPN REMI operations manager Eric Kimmel.

While ESPN has run what it calls “Audio Blitz” segments during the regular season to highlight fan sounds and the audio of coaches and quarterbacks, the ESPN+ alt-cast will be announcer-free for the entire game.

“We’re really providing an opportunity for fans to watch the game as though they're on a sideline—as though they’re part of that team—and hearing every bit,” Kimmel said.

This focus on the sounds of the game should accentuate the nearly visceral experience ESPN has sought to create during the season. “What I really love is, you almost feel the hits in those audio moments when the players are running—a running back running through the line. You can almost feel the sound—the hits, those grunts, the equipment-on-equipment sounds, helmets on shoulder pads,” ESPN senior operations manager Jim Birch said. “It’s so abrupt, you almost feel like you’re there hearing it as if it’s happening right next to you.”

There’s more to the audio than creating that sense of being a part of the action, though. “Every week, we’ve had eight player microphones and roughly about 25 channels of intercom that we can listen into,” Kimmel said.

“Coaches talking to players; coaches talking to each other; Mike Pereira or Dean Blandino from the replay center—we can listen in on their communication from the replay command center in California directly to officials on the field,” he said. “We really bring the viewer into every decision, every emotion, everything that goes into each and every play.”

Chest and POV Cams
Audio is only part of the story when it comes to transforming the UFL experience for the fan at home. For the league championship, ESPN will increase the number of Mindfly chest cameras from the two typically used to four. Feeds from the cameras, available to the production crew in real time, are integrated into the coverage of plays as they unfold, Kimmel said.

“We’re really trying to get the viewer experience as close to the game action as possible,” he said. “We're trying to accomplish that with these body-worn cameras and the abundance of microphones worn by players, coaches and referees.”

ESPN will also deploy additional point-of-view (POV) cameras to capture players entering the stadium through the tunnels. “We want to get that feeling of going from the locker room pregame with our cameras, taking them out of the locker room, through the tunnels and onto the field,” said Birch. “We want viewers to feel as if they’re part of the team going onto the field.”

The additional POV cameras as well as two more handheld cameras on the field will create greater demand for RF channels. To handle the demand, the broadcaster will rely on the same format it uses during the college football playoffs, said Kimmel.

“We have a proven model that's reliable and flexible,” he said. “We're going to be at a 30 path transmission, and we'll have some flexibility to access close to 40 sources across those 30 paths.”

Looking Ahead
While the broadcaster preps for production of Saturday’s game, it’s not too soon to look back on the season and recall the successes and areas where improvement is needed for next year. Kimmel and Birch agreed that the biggest success of UFL television production is the willingness of the UFL, ESPN and Fox Sports (Fox is a 50% stakeholder in the league) to focus on giving viewers greater access to the games through innovative technology and production techniques.

When it comes to the areas where improvements will help, the ability of the chest cameras to stand up to hits is top of mind, Kimmel said.

“I think we may have underestimated a little bit how much of an impact hits may be having—either a broken camera lens or some other things that have to be tweaked if a player gets knocked down,” Kimmel said.

“Both Fox and ESPN have provided feedback to the vendor and the league,” he added. “They continue to make adjustments to ensure video and audio remain reliable when you have a 250-pound person crashing into you and tackling you to the ground.”

In an announcement that is likely to widely reverberate through the pay TV industry through the rest of 2025 and beyond, The Walt Disney Co. has unveiled important details about its new direct-to-consumer ESPN app. The app will be branded as ESPN and will be offered in packages ranging from a $29.99 per month unlimited plan to a select plan for $11.99 a month.

Disney also announced a special launch offer that will price an unlimited bundle of Disney+, Hulu and ESPN at $29.99 per month for the first 12 months.

There has been wide speculation about how the ESPN DTC app, expected to launch in early fall, will impact the pay TV industry. In recent years, popular sports networks like ESPN have been the glue that held together pay TV video packages as consumers were migrating to streaming services and cord-cutting reduced pay TV subs.

In response, operators have been working to craft deals that will provide existing subscribers access to the ESPN app along with the linear network. Last week, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that the app will be available to pay TV subs. He stressed that new DTC app would help the company capitalize on new streaming opportunities and that it was also being launched in a way that wouldn't further harm the existing pay TV ecosystem still so important to Disney and other programmers.

With the new app, consumers will have two ESPN DTC plans from which to choose, including an unlimited package that delivers the entire suite of ESPN networks and content, priced at $29.99 a month. A select option, providing access to all the content currently on ESPN+, is priced at $11.99/month.

Disney also stressed that there will also be bundling opportunities for the ESPN unlimited plan with Disney+ and Hulu, including a special offer at launch for $29.99 per month for the first 12 months. It was previously announced that the direct-to-consumer offering will launch in early fall and that ESPN will continue to be available through traditional MVPDs and vMVPDs.

“We are providing everything ESPN has to offer directly to fans and all in one place,” ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said. “As we thought about the name, we kept returning to the fact that, across every generation, ESPN is the most trusted, loved and recognized name in sports, and that we should keep it simple and double down on the power of ESPN. Our straightforward approach to name and pricing will help fans cut through the clutter and provide them compelling options to access all our content within the enhanced ESPN App. It will be the ultimate sports destination for personalized experiences and features, and, on top of that, fans will be able to choose to bundle ESPN with the industry-leading Disney+ and Hulu streaming services.”

The unlimited plan will give fans access to all of ESPN’s linear networks—ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS and ESPN Deportes—in addition to ESPN on ABC, ESPN+, ESPN3, SECN+, and ACCNX, covering 47,000 live events each year, on-demand replays, studio shows, original programming and more.

ESPN’s rights portfolio includes the NFL; NBA; NHL; MLB; WNBA; UFC; UFL; SEC; ACC; Big 12; College Football Playoff; 40 NCAA championships including the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship; La Liga, Bundesliga, NWSL and FA Cup soccer; Australian Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open tennis; The Masters, PGA Championship, PGA Tour and TGL golf; Little League World Series baseball and softball; Premier Lacrosse League; and more.

The app will also provide access to ESPN’s leading studio shows including “SportsCenter,” “Get Up,” “First Take,” “NFL Live,” “The Pat McAfee Show,” “Pardon the Interruption,” “College GameDay,” “NBA Today” and others, along with on-demand content including “30 for 30” films, ESPN Originals, and more.

ESPN provided these additional details about the subscription plans for the unlimited plan:

• Monthly subscription: $29.99
• Annual subscription: $299.99
• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN unlimited bundle: $35.99/month (with ads on Disney+/Hulu), $44.99/month (no ads on Disney+/Hulu*)
• Special offer at launch: Disney+, Hulu, ESPN unlimited bundle for $29.99/month for the first 12 months (with ads on Disney+/Hulu)

ESPN provided these additional details about the select plan:

• Monthly subscription: $29.99
• Annual subscription: $299.99
• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN unlimited bundle: $35.99/month (with ads on Disney+/Hulu), $44.99/month (no ads on Disney+/Hulu*)
• Special offer at launch: Disney+, Hulu, ESPN unlimited bundle for $29.99/month for the first 12 months (with ads on Disney+/Hulu)
• The select plan will provide subscribers with access to all content available on ESPN+, including more than 32,000 live sports events annually, a robust library of exclusive studio shows, on-demand replays, acclaimed original content, and more.

The Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger told analysts the direct-to-consumer ESPN app often referred to as “ESPN Flagship” will be available to the linear channel’s existing pay TV subscribers.

The comment, which came during Disney’s second-quarter earnings call, was designed to reassure pay TV operators that the DTC app wouldn’t accelerate cord-cutting. Iger stressed that ESPN’s current linear subscribers will have access to all of the features of the upcoming DTC offering.

“First of all, to the last point, if you are a subscriber of linear ESPN, you will automatically get what I know we've been referring to as ESPN Flagship,” Iger told analysts. “By the way, it will not be called that. And next week, [ESPN Chairman] Jimmy Pitaro plans to reveal not only the name, but he'll also talk about our pricing strategy."

Disney will be holding its upfront on Tuesday May 13.

“The plan would be to basically be somewhat agnostic from a subscriber perspective, so that we can still do our best to preserve the multichannel ecosystem but, at the same time, obviously, want to grow our DTC business,” Iger stressed. “The difference is that the ESPN linear service will, if that's all the consumer chooses to watch, will not have the bells and whistles and those additional features that the DTC service will have. But again, we're giving the consumer the option of consuming both.”

Added Iger: “From a critical mass perspective, we have obviously an unrivaled portfolio of licensed sports on ESPN and an unrivaled portfolio of studio programming and shoulder programming, the bulk of which will be on the linear service and, of course, on Flagship. At some point, I've got to stop using that word.”

BRISTOL, Conn.—ESPN is reporting that its platforms delivered its third largest audience for the NCAA Women’s Championship since the network began its exclusive rights agreement in 1996. The viewing levels were behind only last year’s record-breaking game and 2023’s matchup between LSU and Iowa.

On broadcast TV, ABC aired the University of Connecticut Huskies defeating the 2024 champions South Carolina 82-59 on Sunday April 6. The victory gave UConn its 12th national title

The game averaged 8.5 million viewers and peaked at 9.8 million viewers. The audience was up 75% from the matchup between the same schools in 2022, when it aired on ESPN.

ESPN reported that the 2025 Championship game was the second most-consumed NCAA WCBB Tournament on record with 8.5 billion minutes consumed.

The whole tournament was third most-watched NCAA WCBB Tournament for ESPN platforms since 1996. Preliminary audiences for the whole tournament finished up +22% from 2023

ESPN host Stephen A. Smith told an NAB Show audience Monday that he is open to the possibility of running for president of the United States in 2028.

“I have no desire to be a politician … but I am no longer going to close that door,” Smith said on stage during an interview with Mike McVay, president of McVay Consulting.

Smith, host of “First Take,” recently inked a $100 million, five-year contract extension with ESPN and until recently had joked about making a run. However, over the past few weeks, he said, he’s “had no choice but to get a bit more serious about it.”

Speaking during the NAB Show Welcome, Smith told McVay and those gathered on the Main Stage in West Hall that he has been approached by “people on Capitol Hill,” governors and others about a run.

Smith — whose memoir is titled “Straight Shooter” — threw shade on both political parties, the Trump administration and politicians in general, saying they put their interests above the people they are elected to serve.

He described the Democratic Party as “an absolute mess.”

“It’s leaderless for a variety of reasons,” he said. “And it’s disgraceful, as far as I’m concerned, because there is no excuse for it. They veered this country in an extreme direction. They were so busy talking about the MAGA right, they didn’t look at themselves looking like the MAGA left.”

Meanwhile Republicans shouldn’t forget what they are about and rest on their laurels from an election that gave them both houses of Congress and the presidency, Smith continued.

“One party should be purged, and the other party should watch themselves because there is a midterm election coming up,” he said, “and how you feel sticking out your chest, thinking you’ve got it made right now. In a little over a year you could find yourself on the outside looking in all over again.”

Smith criticized the president over a “haphazard” approach to implementing tariffs. “Tariffs are not a bad thing,” Smith said. “I just think the way he is imposing them has been disastrous,” he said.

“He is coming across as somebody who is devoid of having a plan. If he has a plan, he is the only one who seems to be aware of it, and he’s not thinking about the ripple and collateral effect it ultimately has,” he said.

“You’re scaring the markets; you’re scaring prospective employers; you’re scaring … the American citizen.”

The session opened with Perry Sook, Nexstar chairman and CEO and chair of the NAB Board’s Executive Committee, welcoming the audience and introducing NAB President/CEO Curtis LeGeyt.

LeGeyt said the NAB expects more than 60,000 registrants from broadcasters, creators, innovators and storytellers.

“Stories inspire us. They connect us in ways that nothing else can. … In the past year, Americans wept as we grappled with the personal impacts of wars in Gaza and Ukraine. We were inspired as we watched heroes battling blazes that rippled through California neighborhoods and communities rallying together to rebuild in the aftermath of hurricanes,” he said.

“And we escaped, into the silver screen and our phones, as your storytelling swept us away to magical lands to defy gravity, and our sports heroes thrilled us in a chase to break a decades-old NHL goal-scoring record. Stories — whether real or fantasy — are the invisible threads that weave our shared human experience.”

At the heart of that experience, he said, are content producers, broadcasters, filmmakers and virtual reality pioneers. And each year, he said, nearly $17 billion in business is generated through connections made at this convention. “Nearly 1,100 exhibitors spanning 12 football fields will display their latest innovations on our show floor.”

Karen Chupka, NAB executive vice president and managing director, global connections and events, showed off a new NAB Show logo that represents the evolution of the event to meet the needs of its diverse community.

Syndicated radio personality Delilah was honored with the American Broadcasting Foundation’s Insight Award.

Heidi Raphael, chief communications officer at Beasley Media Group, and Jack Goodman, co-chair at the Law Offices of Jack N. Goodman, presented the award.

COPYRIGHT NAB 2025.

HOUSTON—ESPN and Fox Sports are geared up with some new production technologies to cover the second season of the UFL, which kicks off Friday March 28, with the aim of bringing viewers closer than ever to the action and giving them deeper insights into games.

“Access is important. It’s what defines this league alongside, the technology and the play,” said Brad Cheney, vice president of field operations and engineering at Fox Sports.

Both Fox Sports and ESPN are deploying new or improved technologies to take advantage of that access. The broadcasters, which are splitting the league’s schedule, will deploy a chest-cam on a defensive player to give viewers a better sense of what it feels like to be on the field in the midst of action. One, the other or both will also use ref-cam footage from the back judge, sensor chips in balls and embedded in players’ gear, AI audio interrogation, telestrator-enabled sideline Apple iPads and drone footage from behind defenders.

All of it aims to give viewers a better understanding of what they’re watching, whether it’s the speed and strength of players, the strategy and tactics that unfold or the performance of individual players.

Chest-Cam and Ref-Cam
The new MINDFLY chest-cam mounted in the center of custom vest donned by a defensive player debuted in a different configuration on officials last season.

“We found great success with it on officials, and this year we worked with the league… and MINDFLY to develop a player vest that they feel comfortable with,” said Bryan Jaroch, ESPN vice president of sports production.

The new chest-cam, which will be used during one game apiece by Fox Sports and ESPN each weekend, is an enhanced version of the MINDFLY camera systems deployed in the past with new image stabilization technology to steady the footage captured, he said.

Before giving a nod to the chest-cam, the league put the system through impact testing in the lab to ensure it could withstand the punishment dished out on the field. “They’ve [the league] has done a lot of offline test to make sure it is safe, and they feel 100% comfortable with it,” said Jaroch.

For instance, the system is equipped with “a shatterproof piece of glass” in front of the camera that’s designed to crack like a spider web if the stress from a hit is too great, rather than shatter and fall onto the field, he said.

The breathable vest unit adds so little weight and heat from the camera battery that players will “almost forget that they’re wearing it,” said Jaroch.

From a coverage perspective, chest-cam brings a whole new sense of what it means to be in the game to viewers, said Cheney.

“We’re putting it on defenders so you can see what’s coming at you,” he said. “You can see the speed of what’s happening. We’ve been working on making viewers aware of just how fast this game is. Just how fast [having] an arm in one spot versus another in half a second is [to] the receiver catching a ball or the safety knocking it out of his hands.”

Similarly, the ref-cam, deployed each game by Fox Sports, will deliver a unique perspective and better understanding of what’s happening on the field, said Cheney.

“Being on the back judge, looking straight across the line and being able to see the play develop and move gives us that understanding of what the quarterback is facing, what the running backs are trying to run through—all of those pieces of the puzzle,” he said.

Audio and AI
The access the league has given Fox Sports and ESPN includes audio in a big way. The chest-cam, for instance, is equipped with a microphone that will pick up the checks at the line. Other player mics, coach mics, sideline parabolic mics, sideline camera mics and others contribute to an audioscape that aims to make fans feel more engaged.

Fox Sports will deploy artificial intelligence to understand better how to manage all of those audio sources. While AI will assist the broadcaster in producing better mixes, Fox Sports has even bigger plans for the technology, said Cheney.

Throughout the season it will rely on AI and machine learning to perform speech-to-text transcription of incoming audio to create data models other AI algorithms will analyze to identify and extract mini-storylines developing in real-time that can be fed to announcers to help them with game analysis and to producers to help tell the overall story of the game, he said.

Without AI and machine learning, these storylines would likely go undetected. “There’s just so much stuff that you couldn’t put enough people on it,” he said.

“Think about a head coach telling the offensive coordinator this is what we should be doing in the next set of downs,” said Cheney. “The offensive coordinator talks to his staff. You're hearing that. There are those conversations, and then it goes from the offensive coordinator to the quarterback to call the play. If we can start to track that and gain an understanding of what's going on, a quick storyline emerges.”

Those revealed storylines will also assist Fox Sports later on in the week to reveal “amazing” storylines post-game, he added.

A Better Sense From Sensors
Sensor chips are being deployed to enable the broadcasters to give viewers a deeper insight into what’s happening on the field. The broadcasters are working with Sportable to track the velocity and spin rate of the ball as it’s passed, the speed of a player running down the sidelines and other data, said Jaroch.

“This is in development, so we may not have it ready for this weekend,” he said. “But as we progress throughout the year [we plan] just using that player data… that the teams… keep to themselves. This is stuff that we're going to try to use on the air in real time.”

Cheney is confident that the technology will be deployed at some point in the season. “We’ve got some interesting examples that we’ve seen work in the scrimmages this year,” he said. “We’re really bullish on the fact that the tracking is there.”

Sportable will embed tracking sensor chips in the balls and “hopefully players” as well, said Jaroch.

“They're going to start, hopefully, on quarterbacks, and then, hopefully, expand to the point where they have almost every skilled player with a chip on their body, whether it's on their shoulder pads or on their body,” he said.

Coupled with the data from the optical positioning system in place, the sensing data from the chips will enable the broadcasters to paint a detailed picture of game action with relevant stats, he said.

Sideline iPads
ESPN is taking its use of Apple iPads on the sidelines in the hands of players and coaches to a new level this season, said Jaroch. Working with DVSport Software and the league, ESPN will air one sideline iPad with a built-in telestrator function.

“As a player comes off the field, we’ll be able to hand them an iPad that we have access to,” said Jaroch. “So, instead of shooting over their shoulder and sometimes dealing with sun glare on the iPad, we can literally get the output of what that player or coach is looking at, and with the built-in telestrator see as they’re drawing on it…and take that exact output to air.”

Unlike during the league’s inaugural season when ESPN had a reporter on one sideline and a field analyst who once played on the other, this season it will assign field analysts to both sidelines to take better advantage of the iPad.

“Whether it’s the iPad with the output to air or not, having a field analyst on each sideline is a huge benefit. They can just… really dive into the X’s and O’s with a player or a coach at any point in the game. I wish we had that in college football and the NFL, to be able to use that access and advance the story through technology,” he said.

Drones Use
Once again, Fox Sports will rely on a drone flying over the field behind defenders for a unique aerial perspective on the action. Taking advantage of the experience gained during last season, the drone operators are better equipped this season to react to what’s happening on the field.

“Quite honestly, the pilots have become so good at understanding and reading the play that they're in the right spots at the right time,” said Cheney. “They’re right in the mix. They’ve come to understand extremely well where to be in the situation. [They have an] awareness of what they’re around. ‘Oh, it’s a pass play. OK now I need to come up and get some air because they’re going to throw.”

Disney, the parent company of ESPN, is more restrictive on drone use, so the sports network will not be using the airborne platform for its coverage of the UFL—at least for now. “We have a lot of protocols in place where we can’t fly over people or even animals,” said Jaroch.

However, ESPN is working with Disney’s internal drone group and its legal team to address the restrictions and possibly open a path to using the aerial platforms in the future. “We’re not there yet in terms of flying in the stadiums like Fox, but we’re hoping to get there. I’m hoping that maybe by the championship game we can get to that point.”

Regardless of how those discussions turn out, one thing is clear: the UFL has placed a high priority on engaging fans more deeply with its product by allowing its broadcast partners to take advantage of the opportunities they have to deploy technology in unique and interesting ways.

“The great thing about this league is what Dwayne Johnson and Danny Garcia [two of the league’s owners] talk about,” said Jaroch.

“The UFL is a league of opportunity for players and for coaches. We've seen Reggie Barlow [former DC Defenders and now Tennessee State football coach] move on to college football. But it's also a league of opportunity for us as a TV partner to test new things and bring them to college football, NFL or even coverage of other sports.”

(Editor’s note: The UFL season begins tonight at 8 p.m. EDT with Fox Sports coverage of the St. Louis Battlehawks vs. Houston Roughnecks from TDECU Stadium in Houston. This weekend’s lineup continues Saturday, March 29 at 4 p.m. EDT with the San Antoinio Brahmas vs. Arlington Renegades from Choctaw Stadium in Arlington, Texas. ESPN will produce two games: the Michigan Panthers vs. Memphis Showboats, Sunday, March 30 at noon EDT from Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium in Memphis and the Birmingham Stallions vs. DC Defenders at 3 p.m. EDT from Audi Field in Washington, D.C.)

Women’s college basketball continued to produce hefty audiences in the first and second rounds of the NCAA Women’s Tournament, with ESPN platforms reporting that the first and second rounds were the second highest. This year's audience levels were only behind the record breaking 2024 season.

Through two rounds, the 2025 Women’s Division I Basketball Tournament is averaging 602,000 viewers, the second-highest audience through this point since 2009. About 1 billion total minutes viewed through the first two rounds, marking the second most-consumed early rounds on record

ESPN reported that all platforms averaged 367,000 viewers, up 43% from 2023, making it the second most-watched first round since 2013 trailing only behind last year’s historic season.

ABC scored its second-best first round on record – averaging over one million viewers.

ESPN saw its second-best first round since 2008 – averaging 469,000 viewers.

The second round averaged 982,000 viewers, up 60% from 2023 and lagging only behind 2024. ESPN averaged its third best second round on record with 991,000 viewers. ESPN2 averaged 755,000 viewers across two games, its best second round since 2010.

South Dakota State/UConn, Indiana/South Carolina and Mississippi State/USC all rank within the Top-10 for most-watched second round games on record. The Alabama/Maryland game on ESPN2 peaked with 1.6 million viewers in the second overtime.

ESPN is reporting that for the third year in a row the ESPN Men’s Tournament Challenge, the most popular college basketball bracket game for the NCAA men’s basketball championship, has set a new all-time record with 24.4 million completed brackets before the start of the tournament on March 20. That was up 10% compared to last year’s record of 22.6 million.

At the peak period of entries shortly before the start of the first game on Thursday March 20, ESPN Tournament Challenge registered more than 709 brackets per second. Overall, more than 1.1 billion picks were made.

The most popular pick to win the men’s championship is Duke with 25% of all brackets picking the Blue Devils. Florida is the second most-picked to win the final with 21%. More fans chose Duke, Florida, Auburn, and Houston to reach the Final Four than any other combination of teams, ESPN reported.

ESPN Tournament Challenge allows fans to track in real-time the number of perfect brackets remaining in both men’s and women’s Tournament Challenge games with the Perfect Bracket Tracker. The tool also provides insight on the games that have had, and could potentially have, the most impact on perfect brackets.

The ESPN Women’s Tournament Challenge continued to accept brackets until just prior to tip-off of the first game on March 21 in the Round of 64 between No. 6 Michigan and the No. 11 play-in winner Iowa State in the Birmingham 3 Regional at 11:30 a.m. ET on ESPN2. ESPN is the exclusive home to the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship.

ESPN announced Thursday night that it will no longer broadcast Major League Baseball games starting in 2026 after the network failed to agree to terms for a new seven year deal.

With a March 1st deadline looming, ESPN decided to opt out of the final three years of their seven-year contract, which was signed in 2021 and valued at $550 million per season.

"We are grateful for our longstanding relationship with Major League Baseball and proud of how ESPN's coverage super-serves fans," the network said in a statement. "In making this decision, we applied the same discipline and fiscal responsibility that has built ESPN's industry-leading live events portfolio as we continue to grow our audience across linear, digital and social platforms.

"As we have been throughout the process, we remain open to exploring new ways to serve MLB fans across our platforms beyond 2025."

ESPN has been carrying MLB games for 35 years with its most recent contract carrying 30 regular season games along with some wild-card games in the post-season. In its earlier contract that ran eight years from 2014-2021, ESPN carried up to 90 regular season games.

But the sports TV scene has changed radically since 1990 with the rise —and eventual fall—of regional sports networks along with the major sports leagues themselves creating their own networks (the MLB network, which launched in 2007, carries select games).

In recent years, streaming services like Apple TV, which inked a deal in 2022 to launch “Friday Night Baseball,” have increasingly encroached on ESPN’s turf. Since 2017, MLB games have been broadcast intermittently on Facebook (2017–2019), Peacock (2021–2023), Twitter (2017–2018), YouTube (2019–2022). In 2024, Roku inked an exclusive multi-year deal to carry Sunday MLB games for free on The Roku Channel.

Fox broadcasts 52 regular season MLB games and is also the exclusive network for the MLB All-Star Game and the World Series. TBS broadcasts 13 regular season games as well as exclusive coverage of the National League Division Series and the National League Championship Series during the postseason. MLB receives an average of $729 million from Fox and $470 million from Turner Sports per year under deals that expire after the 2028 season.

Major League Baseball also commands the highest individual player salaries in the U.S., with its star standout—L.A. Dodgers Shohei Ohtani recently signing a 10-year $700 million contract, the highest in U.S. sports history.

ESPN said it “is still open to pursuing a deal with a reduced rights fee after seeing deals struck with Apple and Roku. Apple pays $85 million per season for a Friday night package it has aired since 2022, while Roku's deal for Sunday afternoon games is worth $10 million per year.”

The stumbling block is over rights fees, which the MLB says don't reflect the impact of the sports' popularity or how the league thinks the network's coverage has deteriorated.

"Unfortunately in recent years, we have seen ESPN scale back their baseball coverage and investment in a way that is not consistent with the sport's appeal or performance on their platform. Given that MLB provides strong viewership, valuable demographics, and the exclusive right to cover unique events like the Home Run Derby, ESPN's demand to reduce rights fees is simply unacceptable. As a result, we have mutually agreed to terminate our agreement."

It added that there is "significant interest from both traditional media companies and streaming services who would like to obtain rights to MLB games. We will be exploring those opportunities for a new agreement which would start in the 2026 season following the conclusion of ESPN's agreement at the end of this year," the league said.

ESPN and Major League Rugby (MLR) have announced a multiyear media rights agreement that will bring MLR games to ESPN platforms. Under the new deal, live coverage begins on Saturday, Feb. 15 as the 2025 season kicks off with five matches (6 p.m. ET, ESPN+).

Under the agreement, all regular season and playoff games will stream live on ESPN+, with a select number of matches presented on ESPN2. Additionally, fans can stream replays of each match, highlights and rugby content on The Rugby Network, following a 72-hour delay. As part of the agreement, Major League Rugby will be available across Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Major League Rugby has built a strong foundation as the premier professional rugby league in North America, and we’re thrilled to be part of its next phase of growth,” said Tim Bunnell, ESPN senior vice president of programming and acquisitions. “As MLR continues to establish itself on the North American sports landscape, we look forward to bringing the league’s dynamic competition to an even wider audience.”

“During our 2024 campaign we grew our viewership by more than 25 percent year over year. We are hyperfocused on increasing our audience and introducing rugby to more American sports fans every year. This relationship with ESPN will give us an opportunity to supercharge that growth,” said Nic Benson, Major League Rugby commissioner. “Given the depth of talent across the league, I’m confident we’re headed toward our most exciting season yet. This strategic agreement will enable more of our fans to tune-in for some best-in-class rugby action.”

The 2025 MLR Championship officially begins over President’s Day weekend, featuring 18 weeks of regular season action, followed by two weeks of playoffs, all leading to the MLR Championship on June 28, where the league’s best will battle for the coveted MLR Shield. This season, 11 teams from across the country will compete for the title, including Anthem RC, Chicago Hounds, Houston SaberCats, Miami Sharks, New England Free Jacks, NOLA Gold, Old Glory DC, Rugby LA, San Diego Legion, Seattle Seawolves, and Utah Warriors.

The league’s new media rights agreement substantially increases the league’s visibility and enhances its reach. This move follows a 2024 season marked by growth in media coverage, ticket sales and social media engagement, including the 2024 MLR Championship, which featured a record crowd of more than 12,000 as the New England Free Jacks captured their second straight title with a victory over the Seattle Seawolves, the league reported.

ESPN is reporting that its NFL playoffs and College Football Playoff games in January boosted audiences to levels not seen at the network in years.

ESPN averaged 1.6 million viewers throughout the entire month of January, the cable network’s best average minute audience for any month dating back to January 2015 (120 months). Compared to January 2024, the average-minute audience represents a 38% increase.

Combining all of ESPN’s cable programming with ESPN-branded sports programming on ABC, more minutes were watched by fans than any month since January 2017 (96 months). In total, 81.4 billion minutes of sports content were watched on ESPN and ABC.

ESPN, across all its Nielsen-rated networks, also accounted for 42% of all sports viewership for the month, with its nearest competitor coming in at 20%. ESPN, the single network, accounted for 29% of sports viewership on its own, besting its nearest competitor by 9%.

During the month, ESPN also reported that its 2025 AFC divisional playoff game delivered a record-breaking audience across its platforms, as Houston Texans-Kansas City Chiefs (Saturday, Jan. 18, 4:30 p.m. ET) became its most-watched NFL game of all-time. The 33.8 million viewers surpassed each NFL on ESPN game, playoffs and regular season, since 1987 (38 seasons), the network’s first year airing NFL games. Texans-Chiefs aired on ESPN, ABC, ESPN+, ESPN Deportes, and NFL+.

Nielsen defined the January viewing period as Dec. 30, 2024, to Jan. 26, ESPN said. All historical comparisons used Nielsen’s defined January month.

CHARLOTTE, N.C., and BRISTOL, Conn.—The Atlantic Coast Conference and ESPN have announced that the sports programmer has exercised its option to extend its TV rights deal for the college conference’s games through the 2035-36 academic year.

The ESPN and ACC relationship has spanned more than 35 years and includes ACC Network, which was launched in August 2019. ACC Network is one of only three national and fully distributed conference networks.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Separately, ESPN.com reported that “the conference is working on additional ‘value adds,’ which could include creating more marquee matchups in football and men's basketball to maximize content on the networks that would help pave the way toward the new revenue distribution model and a settlement with Clemson and Florida State [in their ongoing litigation with the ACC]. Multiple athletic directors told ESPN this could also involve using the ACC's relationship with Notre Dame to strategically create more games against the conference's top-tier teams. Earlier this month, Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua said he was open to playing more games against Clemson in the future. Notre Dame currently plays five to six regular-season football games against the ACC annually and is a member of the ACC in all other sports.”

Notre Dame has a national television deal with NBC Sports for its home games but road games against ACC teams are televised under the ESPN-ACC contract.

“We appreciate the ongoing partnership with ESPN and their enduring commitment that further solidifies the ACC as a premier league in all facets,” said ACC commissioner Jim Phillips. “The extension showcases the importance of our long-standing relationship, and I want to personally thank the entire ESPN team for their leadership and dedication to our collective future. In addition, I want to thank our ACC Board of Directors who have been involved throughout this entire process. The resolve from both parties to further enhance the partnership through innovation and creativity to continue to drive additional value remains our top priority.”

“We are pleased to extend our media rights agreement with the ACC through 2036, continuing our longstanding relationship,” said Jimmy Pitaro, chairman, ESPN. “We remain committed to serving the ACC, its member schools, student athletes and fans via comprehensive live game coverage, storytelling and broad exposure across our unprecedented array of networks and platforms, including ACC Network. The ACC is a pillar of ESPN’s leading commitment to college sports and we are thrilled to continue the partnership over the next decade.”

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla.—The PGA Tour, Penn Entertainment and ESPN are launching a live betting stream on ESPN+ starting with the WM Phoenix Open.

The ESPN Bet on PGA Tour Live branded stream will provide key data, insights and live betting analysis during coverage of six events across the 2025 PGA Tour season.

ESPN and Penn Entertainment inked a wide-ranging sports-betting agreement in 2023 . As part of that deal, Penn rebranded its sports book as ESPN Bet in states where sports betting is legal and it is licensed, and agreed to pay ESPN $1.5 billion in cash over the 10-year period. ESPN Bet is currently available in 20 U.S. markets.

ESPN Bet on PGA Tour Live, which is set to debut at the WM Phoenix Open on ESPN+ starting Thursday, Feb. 6, is part of a new multiyear agreement between the PGA Tour and Penn Entertainment. That deal designates ESPN Bet as an official betting operator of the PGA Tour.

“Pairing the PGA Tour’s in-depth ShotLink powered by CDW data with the power of the ESPN and ESPN Bet brands is certain to make for a compelling sports-watching experience for fans and bettors of our sport,” Scott Warfield, PGA Tour vice president, gaming, said. “A competition feed with a focus on odds and wagers has been a goal of the PGA Tour since our agreement with ESPN+ first began in 2022, and we are proud to make that vision a reality today with the support of our new partner, Penn Entertainment.”

Added Jason Birney, vice president of operations at Penn Interactive: "We’re pleased to partner with the PGA Tour and grow the ESPN Bet brand through innovative betting-themed broadcasts powered by our sportsbook. ESPN Bet on PGA Tour Live deepens our already robust media and betting integrations with ESPN and creates unique opportunities to engage golf fans in an entertaining way, with compelling up-to-the-minute data and insights.”

The new feed will stream on ESPN+ during the six events, providing live golf coverage in the two hours leading up to the linear broadcast window, with an early look at key storylines from a betting perspective. Throughout the coverage, host Jonathan Coachman, on-course reporter Michael Collins and analysts including Matt Every and Graham DeLaet will present content and discussion on hole-by-hole live betting and tournament markets, the companies said.

Following its premiere at the WM Phoenix Open (Feb. 6-9) and coverage of the famed 16th hole, ESPN Bet on PGA Tour Live will return for the tour’s flagship event, The Players Championship (March 13-16). From there, fans will see ESPN Bet telecasts from three signature events: Truist Championship (May 8-11); the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday (May 29-June 1); and Travelers Championship (June 19-22). The final ESPN Bet on PGA Tour Live program will broadcast from TPC Southwind at Memphis, Tennessee, site of the FedEx St. Jude Championship (Aug. 7-10), the opening event of the FedExCup Playoffs.

“ESPN Bet on PGA Tour Live is an example of the kind of engaging, innovative programming that only the PGA Tour, ESPN Bet and ESPN can deliver,” Tim Bunnell, senior vice president, ESPN Programming and International, said. “Bringing these unique partnerships together is an important strategy in ESPN’s commitment to covering and expanding the audience for world-class golf across PGA Tour Live on ESPN+, TGL, the Masters, PGA Championship, LPGA and more.”

SAN DIEGO—The trend towards creating animated alternative live presentations of professional sports continues with news that ESPN will air the first-ever real-time, animated alternate presentation of an NBA game this year on Christmas.

For the event, Sony’s Beyond Sports is collaborating with ESPN, Disney, and the NBA for “Dunk the Halls,” a special Christmas Day alternate presentation of the San Antonio Spurs-New York Knicks game at noon ET, Wednesday, Dec. 25.

The animated production will use data processing and real-time visualization technology from Beyond Sports, as well as optical tracking technology from Hawk-Eye Innovations, to insert iconic Disney characters into the game action using 3D animation, while the two teams play in real time.

Dunk the Halls will be presented on ESPN2, ESPN+, and on Disney+. ESPN will air the live game.

Dunk the Halls is the third major sports telecast in 2024 to use Sony’s Beyond Sports’ real-time visualization engine, including the “NHL Big City Greens Classic 2” on Mar. 9 and the NFL ”The Simpsons Funday Football” on Dec. 9. The technology was also used for the three-time Sports Emmy Award-winning Toy Story Funday Football, featuring the Atlanta Falcons vs. Jacksonville Jaguars game in London in October 2023.

“Real-time visualization and virtual alternate productions have clearly emerged from being a novelty into an established tentpole of broadcast and streaming programming,” Sander J. Schouten, managing director and co-founder at Beyond Sports, said. “Every time, we’re ready to deliver an innovative, immersive, and interactive altcast that puts viewers right in the heart of the action. This isn’t just the future of sports consumption—it’s the trend reshaping the industry today. With our latest telecast, fans can expect all of that, plus an added touch of Christmas magic.”

ESPN reported that fans watching Dunk the Halls will see animated versions of every play from the real-life Spurs vs. Knicks game at Madison Square Garden in New York, with iconic Disney characters including Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, Chip and Dale will be inserted into the telecast.

Fans can also expect to see them participate in a halftime slam dunk contest; delivering pregame and halftime speeches to the players; and decorating a large Christmas tree during the game. Elves will operate cameras, with Santa Claus operating ESPN’s “SkyCam” during the game.

The Christmas Day production will combine Beyond Sports’ data processing and real-time visualization technology Sony’s optical tracking from Sony’s Hawk-Eye Innovations, allowing each Spurs and Knicks player to appear as a motion-enabled, animated player.

Beyond Sports developed a unique data processing engine to optimize basketball optical tracking data from Sony's Hawk-Eye Innovations. By validating and enriching the data with advanced enhancement technology, they create more precise and lifelike animations. This process ensures the animations achieve a heightened level of realism and fluidity, making the content not only more visually compelling, but also more engaging and immersive for viewers.

“Adapting our data enhancement system to these new sports formats was essential,” Nicolaas Westerhof, chief technology officer and co-founder at Beyond Sports, said. “For example, the original ankle and toe data points can result in unnatural movements. By adding details like foot roll dynamics, we ensure smoother, more realistic visuals, significantly improving the viewer’s experience.”

In addition to planned visual elements and creative features like gingerbread referees, Beyond Sports’ virtual commentator technology will insert the ESPN announcers calling the game into the animated production. The virtual commentator technology uses a virtual reality headset to capture the real commentators’ upper body movements and facial expressions and create 3D animations. The technology brings the commentators closer to the action, enabling them to engage with the gameplay and audience like never before.

BRISTOL, Conn.—Now that the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff lineup is set, ESPN Fantasy is launching the College Football Playoff Bracket Challenge Presented by AT&T, which allows fan to compete with each other by filling out bracket winners for the expanded playoff.

Fans can complete and enter up to two brackets each until shortly before the first-ever CFP first-round game—No. 10 Indiana at No. 7 Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.—on Friday, Dec. 20, at 8 p.m. ET, on ABC and ESPN.

ESPN said a $25,000 grand prize will be awarded to the fan who accumulates the most total points throughout the playoff. The runner-up prize is $15,000 and third place will be awarded $10,000.

The College Football Playoff Bracket Challenge is built on the same technology that powers ESPN’s Tournament Challenge, the network’s popular NCAA basketball tournament bracket game.

In addition to the first ever CFP Bracket Challenge, ESPN also announced that it is bringing back Capital One Bowl Mania. ESPN’s classic bowl-season pick ’em game allows fans to select the winner of every FBS bowl game, plus the FCS Celebration Bowl.

Capital One Bowl Mania includes three contest modes: Standard, the original pick ’em game that awards 10 points for every correct pick; Spread, which requires fans to make their picks against the point spread for each game; and Confidence, where fans rank their picks and earn more points according to their level of confidence in each selection, ESPN reported.

Fans with the most points in any of the three contest modes can win $20,000 in prizes, and any fan who finishes with a perfect entry—picking all 47 bowl games correctly—can win up to $1 million.

Like all ESPN Fantasy games, the College Football Playoff Bracket Challenge Presented by AT&T and Capital One Bowl Mania are free to play on ESPN.com, the ESPN App, and the ESPN Fantasy App.

NEW YORK—The Justice Department and 17 state attorneys general have filed filed briefs in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opposing an appeal by the backers of Venu Sports that would lift an injunction against the launch of the sports streaming service.

In August, U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Garnett in Manhattan issued a preliminary injunction in Fubo’s antitrust lawsuit against Venu, a sports-centric multichannel video programming distributor backed by The Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery that blocked it from launching.

Venu’s owners, who had hoped to launch near the start of the NFL season, appealed the decision, which would block operations until the case goes to trial in October of 2025.

The DOJ’s brief against the appeal and in support of the preliminary injunctions called the arguments by the owners of Venu to lift the appeal “a red herring” and “likely misplaced.”

“First, they [Venu] argue the district court improperly ‘grounded its analysis in bundling practices’ predating Venu rather than focusing on the competitive effects of the transaction itself,“ the Justice Department argued. “Second, they contend that “provid[ing] consumers an additional option at a lower price is unambiguously a pro-consumer outcome that cannot violate the Clayton Act. Both critiques are wrong.’ ” (The Clayton Act is a 1914 law passed to curb antitrust practices.)

“This court should hold that Fubo established a likelihood of success on the merits” in its claims against Venu, the DoJ concluded.

In a note to investors, Lightshed Partners analyst Richard Greenfield wrote that the filings reduced the odds that the injunction against the service would be lifted quickly.

“While it is unclear how new DoJ leadership in 2025 will view Venu, the odds of the injunction being lifted ahead of the District Court trial appear to be falling,” he noted. “It will also be interesting to see if this leads to greater questions around bundling practices more generally.”

The attorneys general brief was filed by state AGs in New York, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia.

Their brief defended the injunction by arguing that “defendants’ joint venture violates § 7 of the Clayton Act” as it “substantially lessens competition in the relevant market.”