Subscribers to ESPN’s streaming service are about to face a 43 percent rise in monthly fees as owner Disney continues to see its stock prices tumble.
ESPN+ is currently priced at $6.99 a month. But starting in August, that price will jump to $9.99 a month, according to Sports Business Journal.
Outkick’s Dan Zaksheske wrote, “In May, Disney reported that ESPN+ had just over 22 million subscribers. But it’s unclear how many of those subscribers belong to the Disney bundle (Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+).”
Clay Travis noted that the price hike comes at the same time as Disney’s stock continues to sink. On Thursday, Disney’s stock fell to $90.38 a share, an eight-year low.
Disney does not have an easy relationship with ESPN. Last year insiders were reporting that the entertainment giant was desperately looking for some way to dump ESPN from its stable of properties.
One of the reasons Disney was annoyed with ESPN is because they charge cable companies $10 per customer for ESPN, but when they had those customers dump cable and then purchase ESPN+ for $6.99, they ended up losing three dollars per customer in the deal. So this may be one of the reasons Disney is raising to price.
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