Rich Greenfield
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"ESPN+ needs to maintain over 7 million subscribers just to break-even compared to today’s estimated 100,00 subscribers"
@ESPN $DIS

Wow! Hee, hee...

That total needed is about 50% more than the total subscribers for the OTT platforms.
(Sling, PS Vue, Direct Tv Now, Hulu, YouTube Tv)

Quite the mountain to climb especially for just a sports channel.

(08-09-2018 03:06 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Wow! Hee, hee...

That total needed is about 50% more than the total subscribers for the OTT platforms.
(Sling, PS Vue, Direct Tv Now, Hulu, YouTube Tv)

Quite the mountain to climb especially for just a sports channel.

By comparison, the WWE network has 1.6 million subscribers and they are including monthly PPV's that used to cost $50-60 a month as part of their programming. Much different that the ESPN3 material that has been packaged as part of ESPN+.

(08-09-2018 03:06 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Wow! Hee, hee...

That total needed is about 50% more than the total subscribers for the OTT platforms.
(Sling, PS Vue, Direct Tv Now, Hulu, YouTube Tv)

Quite the mountain to climb especially for just a sports channel.

Which is why that's a ridiculous tweet. That guy is trying to set an impossible benchmark and then he'll criticize Disney for not meeting it. That's like saying that "Disneyflix" will be a failure if it doesn't have as many subscribers in its first year as Netflix has in its twenty-first year - and guess what, if you look at his Twitter feed, he has a tweet saying exactly that.

Guess they'll soon raise their monthly rate from $4.99 to $49.99 if they can't get enough subscribers.

In some ways it is surprising that there are only 100k that are subscribers to ESPN+, in other ways it isn't as I think there isn't enough people really interested in ESPN anymore.

(08-09-2018 03:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:06 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Wow! Hee, hee...

That total needed is about 50% more than the total subscribers for the OTT platforms.
(Sling, PS Vue, Direct Tv Now, Hulu, YouTube Tv)

Quite the mountain to climb especially for just a sports channel.

Which is why that's a ridiculous tweet. That guy is trying to set an impossible benchmark and then he'll criticize Disney for not meeting it. That's like saying that "Disneyflix" will be a failure if it doesn't have as many subscribers in its first year as Netflix has in its twenty-first year - and guess what, if you look at his Twitter feed, he has a tweet saying exactly that.

And it's not yet time for College Football. They'll be plenty of seasonal subscriptions for football fans and then it will dip again.

(08-09-2018 03:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:06 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Wow! Hee, hee...

That total needed is about 50% more than the total subscribers for the OTT platforms.
(Sling, PS Vue, Direct Tv Now, Hulu, YouTube Tv)

Quite the mountain to climb especially for just a sports channel.

Which is why that's a ridiculous tweet. That guy is trying to set an impossible benchmark and then he'll criticize Disney for not meeting it. That's like saying that "Disneyflix" will be a failure if it doesn't have as many subscribers in its first year as Netflix has in its twenty-first year - and guess what, if you look at his Twitter feed, he has a tweet saying exactly that.

Rich Greenfield
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@RichBTIG
9h9 hours ago
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"We would be highly surprised if any legacy distributor planned to offer ESPN+ or Disneyflix without a reduction in the annual fees paid for Disney’s cable networks. Hard to have your cake and eat it too, even in Disney World"
$DIS

Is this the tweet you are referring?

(08-09-2018 03:40 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:06 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Wow! Hee, hee...

That total needed is about 50% more than the total subscribers for the OTT platforms.
(Sling, PS Vue, Direct Tv Now, Hulu, YouTube Tv)

Quite the mountain to climb especially for just a sports channel.

Which is why that's a ridiculous tweet. That guy is trying to set an impossible benchmark and then he'll criticize Disney for not meeting it. That's like saying that "Disneyflix" will be a failure if it doesn't have as many subscribers in its first year as Netflix has in its twenty-first year - and guess what, if you look at his Twitter feed, he has a tweet saying exactly that.

And it's not yet time for College Football. They'll be plenty of seasonal subscriptions for football fans and then it will dip again.

They should be signing up in droves now as the season starts in a couple of weeks!

(08-09-2018 03:45 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:06 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Wow! Hee, hee...

That total needed is about 50% more than the total subscribers for the OTT platforms.
(Sling, PS Vue, Direct Tv Now, Hulu, YouTube Tv)

Quite the mountain to climb especially for just a sports channel.

Which is why that's a ridiculous tweet. That guy is trying to set an impossible benchmark and then he'll criticize Disney for not meeting it. That's like saying that "Disneyflix" will be a failure if it doesn't have as many subscribers in its first year as Netflix has in its twenty-first year - and guess what, if you look at his Twitter feed, he has a tweet saying exactly that.

Rich Greenfield
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Verified account

@RichBTIG
9h9 hours ago
More
"We would be highly surprised if any legacy distributor planned to offer ESPN+ or Disneyflix without a reduction in the annual fees paid for Disney’s cable networks. Hard to have your cake and eat it too, even in Disney World"
$DIS

Is this the tweet you are referring?

This one: https://twitter.com/RichBTIG/status/1027010125830205440

(08-09-2018 03:53 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:45 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:06 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Wow! Hee, hee...

That total needed is about 50% more than the total subscribers for the OTT platforms.
(Sling, PS Vue, Direct Tv Now, Hulu, YouTube Tv)

Quite the mountain to climb especially for just a sports channel.

Which is why that's a ridiculous tweet. That guy is trying to set an impossible benchmark and then he'll criticize Disney for not meeting it. That's like saying that "Disneyflix" will be a failure if it doesn't have as many subscribers in its first year as Netflix has in its twenty-first year - and guess what, if you look at his Twitter feed, he has a tweet saying exactly that.

Rich Greenfield
‏
Verified account

@RichBTIG
9h9 hours ago
More
"We would be highly surprised if any legacy distributor planned to offer ESPN+ or Disneyflix without a reduction in the annual fees paid for Disney’s cable networks. Hard to have your cake and eat it too, even in Disney World"
$DIS

Is this the tweet you are referring?

This one: https://twitter.com/RichBTIG/status/1027010125830205440

Yes, there should be some comparison to Disneyflix vs Netflix because this is a different age than 21 years ago. Many millions more people are familiar with streaming compared to when Netflix started and with Disney pulling its content from Netflix, it will be a real test as to who follows Disneyflix from Netflix.
Those 65 million US Netflix subscribers will know about Disneyflix and if they cannot get those a portion of those subscribers, it will be a failure. As for me, I won't be subscribing to Disneyflix.

But Disneyflix will do much better than ESPN+ because of the content....but it won't be at Netflix's base.

(08-09-2018 03:40 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:06 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Wow! Hee, hee...

That total needed is about 50% more than the total subscribers for the OTT platforms.
(Sling, PS Vue, Direct Tv Now, Hulu, YouTube Tv)

Quite the mountain to climb especially for just a sports channel.

Which is why that's a ridiculous tweet. That guy is trying to set an impossible benchmark and then he'll criticize Disney for not meeting it. That's like saying that "Disneyflix" will be a failure if it doesn't have as many subscribers in its first year as Netflix has in its twenty-first year - and guess what, if you look at his Twitter feed, he has a tweet saying exactly that.

And it's not yet time for College Football. They'll be plenty of seasonal subscriptions for football fans and then it will dip again.

His criticism is misplaced. He's like the "analysts" who used to criticize Amazon for losing money every year... I'll bet those guys are now either in hiding or denying that they ever said anything like that.

ESPN+ isn't supposed to be a profit center. It's supposed to be a test run for when/if ESPN shifts all of its programming to an OTT, Netflix-like service, so that by the time that happens, they'll have worked out the glitches and the transition will be easy.

There are plenty of things you could legitimately criticize Disney for, including waiting so long to get into the "Netflix market". Why is Disney waiting until late 2019 to launch "Disneyflix"? They should have done that a few years ago or early this year at the latest. The fact that it took Netflix 20 years to reach 100 million subscribers doesn't mean that Disney should have 100 million in year one; it means that Disney's year one should have been well before 2019.

i will never pay for ESPN plus...if there is a game on there that i need to see. I will go to Reddit and stream it for free.

(08-09-2018 03:02 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Rich Greenfield
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"ESPN+ needs to maintain over 7 million subscribers just to break-even compared to today’s estimated 100,00 subscribers"
@ESPN $DIS

Why the G5 can't have nice things.

(08-09-2018 03:57 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:53 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:45 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-09-2018 03:06 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Wow! Hee, hee...

That total needed is about 50% more than the total subscribers for the OTT platforms.
(Sling, PS Vue, Direct Tv Now, Hulu, YouTube Tv)

Quite the mountain to climb especially for just a sports channel.

Which is why that's a ridiculous tweet. That guy is trying to set an impossible benchmark and then he'll criticize Disney for not meeting it. That's like saying that "Disneyflix" will be a failure if it doesn't have as many subscribers in its first year as Netflix has in its twenty-first year - and guess what, if you look at his Twitter feed, he has a tweet saying exactly that.

Rich Greenfield
‏
Verified account

@RichBTIG
9h9 hours ago
More
"We would be highly surprised if any legacy distributor planned to offer ESPN+ or Disneyflix without a reduction in the annual fees paid for Disney’s cable networks. Hard to have your cake and eat it too, even in Disney World"
$DIS

Is this the tweet you are referring?

This one: https://twitter.com/RichBTIG/status/1027010125830205440

Yes, there should be some comparison to Disneyflix vs Netflix because this is a different age than 21 years ago. Many millions more people are familiar with streaming compared to when Netflix started and with Disney pulling its content from Netflix, it will be a real test as to who follows Disneyflix from Netflix.
Those 65 million US Netflix subscribers will know about Disneyflix and if they cannot get those a portion of those subscribers, it will be a failure. As for me, I won't be subscribing to Disneyflix.

The question is whether Netflix can sustain its subscriber numbers if they don't have much more than Netflix original content. If Disneyflix, or HBO Now, or any other service, has content that people want to watch more than Netflix, then Netflix probably can't sustain its current level.

Sports is different because people will either watch live or not watch, and because us fans have been spoiled rotten by being able to watch everything for free for so long. When they take away the "watch for free" option, and the only options are "pay to watch" or "don't watch", there's a big risk that very large numbers of viewers, even some diehards, will choose "don't watch". Just using myself as an example: I would probably pay if paying was the only way to watch the NBA, because basketball is my favorite sport to watch. But if the only way to watch NFL games was by paying, I wouldn't watch any of them.

I don't believe that number at all.
Take 100% of the $45 million that ESPN is paying MLS (and it isn't all online, there is a game a week on ESPN or ESPN2 plus USMNT games on ESPN) take the estimated $8 million to Sun Belt (which got increased linear coverage and allocate all that to ESPN+ and then double that to guess at $106 million for all rights fees and you would need 1.7 million subscribers to cover the rights fees.

Except the reality is unless ESPN is using ESPN+ to offload rights fees from other ESPN properties or allocating all the BAM Tech acquisition to ESPN+ the real rights fees being allocated to ESPN+ are probably closer to $1 million a month and they probably need around a half million subscribers to cover all true costs at this point.

(08-09-2018 04:53 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I don't believe that number at all.
Take 100% of the $45 million that ESPN is paying MLS (and it isn't all online, there is a game a week on ESPN or ESPN2 plus USMNT games on ESPN) take the estimated $8 million to Sun Belt (which got increased linear coverage and allocate all that to ESPN+ and then double that to guess at $106 million for all rights fees and you would need 1.7 million subscribers to cover the rights fees.

Except the reality is unless ESPN is using ESPN+ to offload rights fees from other ESPN properties or allocating all the BAM Tech acquisition to ESPN+ the real rights fees being allocated to ESPN+ are probably closer to $1 million a month and they probably need around a half million subscribers to cover all true costs at this point.

Honestly---the vast majority of ESPN-Plus content was already owned and represented current fixed costs. Yeah, they added a little content that actually cost them money---but it seems to me they have largely figured out a way to create a new revenue stream using stuff they largely already had that wasnt really bringing in any money. For instance---the MAC content---they already had that. Since no CUSA AD's are crowing about the deal, I think we can safely assume ESPN isnt paying much (if anything at all) for the leftover CUSA content they acquired. The Sunbelt content cost them a little more than before---but the price on that 7 year old deal was going to cost them more anyway. They will make more off this existing content on ESPN-Plus than they did on ESPN-3.

It may very well be if you allocated every cost in any way connected to ESPN-Plus into the ESPN+ expense bucket (all rights for anything that might ever appear on it plus the cost of BAM-tech (and other rights and technology connected with getting the ESPN+ up and running)---then yeah--it might require 7 million subscribers to break even. My guess is the idea for the time being is to just offset some costs that were going to be there anyway while testing for the best way to set up a future ESPN OTT platform.

Personally, I know of two people who want to sign up but haven't because ESPN+ is not currently available for Xbox One.

Also, Bob Iger has mentioned that there might be a discounted bundle of Hulu/ESPN+/DisFlix soon after DisFlix goes live.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/08/disney...g-service/

I'm happy with ESPN+ right now just with the 30 for 30 series. It's going to be nice when the games start.

(08-09-2018 04:05 PM)Huskypride Wrote:  i will never pay for ESPN plus...if there is a game on there that i need to see. I will go to Reddit and stream it for free.

Cool. Next time I need to fill up a gallon jug of water, I’ll stop by your house and use your hose

Here's one view of ESPN+

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/espns-new...12431.html