For everyone planning on subscribing to ESPN+ to watch college football and other content, ESPN announced yesterday that ESPN Insider and ESPN+ will be merging next week, August 28th.

Meaning, if you currently subscribe to ESPN Insider, ESPN+ will be added at no additional cost to you. The current annual cost of ESPN Insider (until they merge next week) is $39.99 while ESPN+ is $49.99. If you subscribe to Insider in the next 5 days, you can essentially save $10 off of an annual subscription to ESPN+ while getting all the benefits- mostly written articles- of ESPN Insider as well.

Both platforms are currently $4.99/mo each and will still be $4.99/mo once merged.

http://awfulannouncing.com/espn/espn-ins...-espn.html

Quick way to bolster the numbers and get the adoption rate up.

Pretty good indication that the subscription adoption rate has likley been disappointing so far. Frankly, that’s not surprising to me. I think you’ll see those subscriber numbers catch a nice bump during football season. The question is will they stick around after football season is over?

(08-22-2018 10:40 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Pretty good indication that the subscription adoption rate has likley been disappointing so far. Frankly, that’s not surprising to me. I think you’ll see those subscriber numbers catch a nice bump during football season. The question is will they stick around after football season is over?

As someone who pays a full cable bill and gets all the ESPN channels save for deportes, my main fear has been ESPN transferring content from those cable channels and/or Watch/ESPN3 that I got for 'free' via my cable bill to ESPN +.

In particular, one of the great things about having the ESPN cable family the past few years has been not only getting plenty of college football games aired all day long on those channels, but also being able to see plenty of others via WATCH as well with basically zero decline in HD quality. I have feared that many games that used to be on WATCH will be transfered to +.

If ESPN + subscripts are lagging, I fear that will become more of a reality.

Still need to work on getting it on Xbox One and PS4. Even though it's just $30, one shouldn't have to run out and buy a Roku in addition to one's game system.

(08-22-2018 10:40 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Pretty good indication that the subscription adoption rate has likley been disappointing so far. Frankly, that’s not surprising to me. I think you’ll see those subscriber numbers catch a nice bump during football season. The question is will they stick around after football season is over?

It should be there already as football starts this Saturday and next week.
If they haven’t subscribed now they probably won’t.

(08-22-2018 11:44 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(08-22-2018 10:40 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Pretty good indication that the subscription adoption rate has likley been disappointing so far. Frankly, that’s not surprising to me. I think you’ll see those subscriber numbers catch a nice bump during football season. The question is will they stick around after football season is over?

It should be there already as football starts this Saturday and next week.
If they haven’t subscribed now they probably won’t.

I suspect many wont subscribe until the actual day a game they want to watch is scheduled on ESPN+. Keep in mind--we monitor this stuff closely on this board. I suspect a large number of Sunbelt/CUSA/MAC team fans have no idea " ESPN+" exists or that they will not be able to see most of their conference games on ESPN-3 this year.

(08-22-2018 12:10 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-22-2018 11:44 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(08-22-2018 10:40 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Pretty good indication that the subscription adoption rate has likley been disappointing so far. Frankly, that’s not surprising to me. I think you’ll see those subscriber numbers catch a nice bump during football season. The question is will they stick around after football season is over?

It should be there already as football starts this Saturday and next week.
If they haven’t subscribed now they probably won’t.

I suspect many wont subscribe until the actual day a game they want to watch is scheduled on ESPN+. Keep in mind--we monitor this stuff closely on this board. I suspect a large number of Sunbelt/CUSA/MAC team fans have no idea " ESPN+" exists or that they will not be able to see most of their conference games on ESPN-3 this year.

I was thinking the same thing. I think most casual fans won't subscribe until they click on the game link and "Please Subscribe to ESPN+ to view this content" pops up on their screen.

(08-22-2018 12:13 PM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(08-22-2018 12:10 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-22-2018 11:44 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(08-22-2018 10:40 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Pretty good indication that the subscription adoption rate has likley been disappointing so far. Frankly, that’s not surprising to me. I think you’ll see those subscriber numbers catch a nice bump during football season. The question is will they stick around after football season is over?

It should be there already as football starts this Saturday and next week.
If they haven’t subscribed now they probably won’t.

I suspect many wont subscribe until the actual day a game they want to watch is scheduled on ESPN+. Keep in mind--we monitor this stuff closely on this board. I suspect a large number of Sunbelt/CUSA/MAC team fans have no idea " ESPN+" exists or that they will not be able to see most of their conference games on ESPN-3 this year.

I was thinking the same thing. I think most casual fans won't subscribe until they click on the game link and "Please Subscribe to ESPN+ to view this content" pops up on their screen.

That's what I'm wait on!

And then you have all the fans of the 12-15 Hoops-only conferences on ESPN+ who’ll have no idea it exists until opening night.

I’m one of those who are waiting. The first time I need it to watch a South Alabama game will be when I get it.

If you sign up for an annual $40 ESPN Insider subscription by the end of the month, not only will you get ESPN plus access for football season, you will get ESPN the magazine and be grandfathered in at the $40 price

I’m cheap and weak but y’all convinced me. I went ahead and took the savings of $10 and signed up with Insider for the entire year. I originally wanted to do month by month and just go through basketball season (and in other years when baseball is added I’d go through baseball season as well).

(08-25-2018 11:48 AM)SkullyMaroo Wrote:  I’m cheap and weak but y’all convinced me. I went ahead and took the savings of $10 and signed up with Insider for the entire year. I originally wanted to do month by month and just go through basketball season (and in other years when baseball is added I’d go through baseball season as well).

All Sun Belt football, basketball, and baseball will be on ESPN+ this year so you made a wise decisions

If its billed every 30 days from the time you sign up, its only $15-20 to have ESPN Plus for most or all of the football season. Unless the AAC signs some sort of deal this fall pushing a bunch of content to ESPN+, I'll probably drop it after November.

(08-22-2018 10:40 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Pretty good indication that the subscription adoption rate has likley been disappointing so far. Frankly, that’s not surprising to me. I think you’ll see those subscriber numbers catch a nice bump during football season. The question is will they stick around after football season is over?

There is a great over estimation as to how many people are serious about sports to take it to the point of subscribing to a streaming site.

The A5 is going to figure this out and do whatever it takes to sustain the linear TV model if it means placing its content in CBSSN, FS2 ect. to force consumers to pay for it.

(08-25-2018 03:41 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  If its billed every 30 days from the time you sign up, its only $15-20 to have ESPN Plus for most or all of the football season. Unless the AAC signs some sort of deal this fall pushing a bunch of content to ESPN+, I'll probably drop it after November.

I think the industry is starting to settle on some price points.

-Sports are working out to being about a $30 dollar add on to a cable or IPTV package.

-IPTV packages with live TV + sports are settling into the $40-$45 dollar price point. Without live TV + sports its in the package its a $12 dollar on-demand type service. Limited live TV a $20 dollar service.

Its set up where the subscriber can pay $30 dollars extra a month for the college football season to subscribe and then conveniently drop it once the football season is done.

These IPTV's have integrated with premium channel add on's but they've done nothing in the way of offering ESPN+ as an add on. Consumers aren't interested in picking up a bunch of stand alone subscriptions. They want to be able to subscribe/unsubscribe from one platform.

Thus its going to be easy for most consumers to just forget about ESPN+ then to adopt when they have to pay $30 already for the major sports channels.

(08-25-2018 10:51 AM)solohawks Wrote:  If you sign up for an annual $40 ESPN Insider subscription by the end of the month, not only will you get ESPN plus access for football season, you will get ESPN the magazine and be grandfathered in at the $40 price

Has this been verified? (aka has anyone tried this with success?)

Just a little hesitant, and then be stuck with $100 total, when it is all said and done.

(08-25-2018 05:15 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(08-25-2018 03:41 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  If its billed every 30 days from the time you sign up, its only $15-20 to have ESPN Plus for most or all of the football season. Unless the AAC signs some sort of deal this fall pushing a bunch of content to ESPN+, I'll probably drop it after November.

I think the industry is starting to settle on some price points.

-Sports are working out to being about a $30 dollar add on to a cable or IPTV package.

-IPTV packages with live TV + sports are settling into the $40-$45 dollar price point. Without live TV + sports its in the package its a $12 dollar on-demand type service. Limited live TV a $20 dollar service.

Its set up where the subscriber can pay $30 dollars extra a month for the college football season to subscribe and then conveniently drop it once the football season is done.

These IPTV's have integrated with premium channel add on's but they've done nothing in the way of offering ESPN+ as an add on. Consumers aren't interested in picking up a bunch of stand alone subscriptions. They want to be able to subscribe/unsubscribe from one platform.

Thus its going to be easy for most consumers to just forget about ESPN+ then to adopt when they have to pay $30 already for the major sports channels.

I think both linear and streaming will thrive. The big change is the big giant all inclusive cable bundle as we currently know it is going to be a much much smaller part of the subscriber TV universe. Al a Carte-and-skinny-bundles is where we are eventually headed---like it or not.

I purchased Insider but do not have Plus access yet. Per ESPN they don’t know when the date will be when the Insider members get Plus access. Looking at South Alabama’s schedule I’d need to have it by September 29 when we play Appalachian State.
Game 1: Home - good here
Game 2: @Oklahoma State - good here
Game 3: Home - good here
Game 4: @Memphis - good here
Game 5: @App State - I need Plus!