Jimmy Pitaro Built ESPN’s Streaming Future. But How Many Fans Are Paying for It?
ESPN is getting closer to being the place NFL fans can start without first checking four other apps. Unlimited now puts Monday Night Football and NFL Network under one roof. It still can’t give you the whole season: CBS and FOX own most Sunday afternoons, NBC has Sunday Night Football, and Amazon carries Thursday nights.
ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro spent years deciding when the sports network could afford this. At the Fast Company Innovation Festival last week, Pitaro called the timing of its direct-to-consumer launch “one of the most challenging” decisions of his life. ESPN wanted a direct relationship with viewers without blowing up the pay-TV business that still delivers millions of households.
NFL Network is inside the ESPN app, and customers of participating pay-TV providers can activate Unlimited without buying a separate ESPN subscription.
Pitaro does not pretend that ESPN can buy every sports right. What he wants instead is for the app to be the “starting point” for sports fans.
The numbers Disney gives, and the ones it doesn’t
Unlimited launched in August 2025 at $29.99 per month or $299.99 per year. It now costs $31.99 per month or $319.99 per year. Subscribers who signed up before Aug. 20 kept the old rate until their first billing date after Sept. 17.
When CNBC asked Pitaro about ESPN pricing in July, he recalled that the standalone Unlimited service and a Disney+, Hulu and ESPN bundle had both launched at $29.99. “It was kind of an IQ test,” he said.
Disney still doesn’t disclose a subscriber count for Unlimited. Kevin Ota, ESPN’s senior director of communications, tells Observer that about 80 percent of Unlimited Subscribers access the service through Disney+, Hulu and ESPN Unlimited bundle.
Don’t blame Pitaro for keeping consumers in the dark. Bob Iger, then Disney’s chief executive, and Hugh Johnston, its finance chief, had already decided in 2025 to stop reporting ESPN+ subscriber numbers, arguing that those quarterly metrics were becoming less useful as its direct-to-consumer strategy changed. Unlimited launched after that decision.
For the three months ending June 27, Disney’s Sports segment generated $4.5 billion in revenue, up 4 percent from a year earlier. Operating income fell 17 percent to $858 million as programming and production costs rose, including contractual rate increases and new sports-rights costs. The segment covers the ESPN networks, the streaming service, NFL media assets and the international channels. It does not break out Unlimited on its own.
Pitaro offered one fresh football number at Fast Company: ESPN’s fantasy business has crossed 16 million users, up 2 million from the prior year and a record for the fifth consecutive year. That number measures the reach of ESPN’s football business, not the number paying for Unlimited.
One of the clearest public launch-period subscriber estimates comes from Antenna, which tracks streaming subscriptions using transaction data. It counted roughly 2.1 million U.S. ESPN sign-ups between Aug. 21 and Sept. 30, 2025, with 57 percent choosing Unlimited. Antenna’s estimate excludes existing Disney customers who changed plans and viewers who activated ESPN through a pay-TV provider. It also measures sign-ups, not current subscribers.
The NFL deal changes what fans get
Pitaro’s NFL package grew considerably when the deal with Roger Goodell’s league closed on Jan. 31: ESPN took NFL Network, NFL Fantasy and the pay-TV distribution rights to NFL RedZone, and the league took a 10 percent noncontrolling stake in ESPN valued at roughly $3 billion.
NFL Network moved into the ESPN app for Unlimited subscribers on July 30, bringing seven exclusive regular-season games, 19 preseason games subject to restrictions, and more than 1,500 hours of live studio programming per year. ESPN already carries Monday Night Football and will air its first Super Bowl in February 2027.
ESPN declined to provide Observer with viewing or engagement metrics for NFL Network inside the app.
NFL RedZone remains part of NFL+ Premium, sold as part of the Unlimited bundle, but is watched in the NFL app.
The ESPN app now puts scores, highlights, fantasy, betting information, commerce and multiview around the games, and NFL Network adds year-round studio programming. Pitaro has a favorite word for what he wants to remove: “friction.”
“It’s all about taking friction out of the experience for a sports fan,” he said at Fast Company. Later, he put the limitation more plainly: “We know that we can’t have everything. But us being the starting point is incredibly important.”
Pay TV and Disney+ are part of the plan
Viewers who get ESPN through participating pay-TV providers can activate Unlimited in the ESPN app without buying another subscription. At Fast Company, Pitaro called that a “very conscious decision to add value to paid television.” ESPN currently lists providers including YouTube TV, DirecTV, Fubo, Spectrum, Verizon FiOS, Cox and Xfinity among those offering access.
ESPN is also putting some of its programming in front of Disney+ subscribers who do not pay for Unlimited. Pitaro told the Fast Company audience that recent Saturday lineups gave those viewers access to College GameDay and two ESPN/ABC college football games. ESPN subscribers can access ESPN programming through Disney+.
The biggest showcase comes Feb. 14, when ESPN airs a Super Bowl for the first time in its 47-year history. Pitaro said ESPN began its “year of the Super Bowl” as soon as the last one ended with a Seattle Seahawks triumph. Chris Berman at Levi’s Stadium will pass the mic to Scott Van Pelt at SoFi Stadium, where Super Bowl LXI will be played.
ESPN is also discussing alternate broadcasts beyond Peyton and Eli Manning. Pitaro pointed to Disney’s previous Toy Story, The Simpsons and Big City Greens sports broadcasts and said the company is considering which Disney intellectual property could be used for the Super Bowl, subject to NFL approval.
