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When ESPN launched in 1979, most within the broadcasting sector thought the concept of a 24-hour sports channel was outrageous. But within a decade it had changed how viewers watched sport on television, unlocked a lucrative new revenue stream for rights holders, and helped establish the economics and popularity of cable.
Fast forward more than four decades and ESPN changed the game again when it launched its full DTC streaming service last summer. The arrival of ‘ESPN Unlimited’ wasn’t the seismic shift it once promised to be, it was nonetheless a significant milestone in the history of sports media.
‘ESPN Unlimited’ unified the Disney-owned broadcaster’s linear and streaming output into a single platform, making key properties such as the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA) and college football available without cable for the first time.
The goal was simple. ESPN wanted to futureproof its business for the post-cable era by making its service indispensable to digital sports fans at a time when consumers have unparalleled choice but finite time and disposable income.
To achieve this, ESPN stressed its DTC service had to be more than just a digital feed of linear content. It needed a greater variety of content, technical innovation and, above all, the ability to personalise content for multiple devices and individual users.
Brian Marshall said personalisation was crucial to the development of ESPN’s DTC service (Image credit: SportsPro)
“Great products don’t try to force user behaviour,” Brian Marshall, ESPN’s vice president of sports product and strategy, said at SportsPro New York. “They meet users where they’re at and try to amplify things they already love.
“So, when we set out to build this product, it wasn’t just about distribution. It was about how we could reimagine the sports viewing experience, because sports fandom has changed so much over the years. Fans now expect the product to be interactive, they expect it to be multi-screen, they expect it to be deeply personal.
“Personalisation for us is not optional. It’s not a nice to have for us at the scale that we operate. It is something that is foundational for everything we do.
“There’s no two people who experience sports the same way. Fans have their favourite teams and players. [Some fans] are really interested in fantasy, others have a bet on a game, like to follow social or go deep into stats. The only way we can meet all those needs is through personalisation.”
ESPN wants to create millions of personalised shows for individual fans – rather than one show for millions of viewers (Image credit: Getty Images)
‘Reliability and performance is first and foremost’
Plenty of other broadcasters are attempting to transition from cable to streaming. And ESPN isn’t the only company trying to become a digital platform for sport. But Marshall was adamant no one else has the breadth of programming, the strength of brand, or as developed a digital ecosystem that ESPN does.
He said the ESPN app and website are already among the most popular sporting digital destinations in the world. The broadcaster’s fantasy platform has millions of players and it has distribution agreements with major pay-TV platforms. On top of this, the self-proclaimed ‘worldwide leader in sports’ has operated streaming services for several years and benefits from Disney’s proven streaming tech stack.
What this means is that ESPN has experience of managing and marketing DTC products, has years of data that allows it to understand customer behaviour and, crucially, knows what it takes to keep things running.
Without reliability, Marshall said, it can’t do anything else to drive value.
“Reliability and performance is always first and foremost,” he said. “We measure the time for first stream once somebody clicks; we look at error rates. [After that], we think about the additional features we can build.”
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Reliability is crucial when considering ESPN now offers as many as 270 live events each weekend – a far cry from the early days when it was scouring the world for content to fill a previously unheard of 24-hour sporting schedule.
To support the launch of ESPN Unlimited, ESPN has devoted significant financial resources to retain its most valuable events, including the NFL, NBA and College Football Playoff (CFP), while it has also struck expanded agreements with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and Major League Baseball (MLB) to increase the volume of content it can offer. Then there are new partnerships, such as with WWE, to attract entirely new audiences.
This is without factoring in the US$3 billion deal to integrate NFL Media, or the fact that ESPN is positioning itself as an aggregator of content by providing easy access to third-party services like MLB.TV.
“[The challenge of launching ESPN Unlimited] was to take digital products that fans already love and pair it alongside our best-in-class programming,” said Marshall.
Personalising millions of shows for individual fans
Nothing exemplifies this marriage of technology and content more than SportsCenter For You, a personalised edition of ESPN’s flagship news show. Rather than having to wait for a scheduled, one-size-fits-all bulletin, subscribers receive AI-generated roundups based on the events, teams and stories that mean the most to them, maxmising ESPN’s expanded content portfolio.
“One of the first things we tackled was how to think about this incredible IP in a digital-first lens,” explained Marshall. “What’s incredible about SportsCenter is that the team creates an amazing show that reaches millions of people every day.
“We’ve tried to take that idea and flip it on its head for digital. What if you instead created millions of shows, each personalised to the individual fan?”
Marshall cites SportsCenter For You as an example of additive content that doesn’t cannibalise existing viewership, noting that short-form video consumption has increased by 65 per cent since launch.
But what about sports fans outside the US? ESPN once produced an international version of SportsCenter for viewers on ESPN America and there are many fans around the world who would like the same roundup.
For now, the focus is on expanding the reach of the core ESPN app and using Disney+ as a means to distribute live sport globally. Indeed, European viewers can watch Uefa Women’s Champions League (UWCL) and NCAA events, while Disney+ also has sports content in Latin America, Australia and New Zealand.
But an expanded ESPN experience is something on Marshall’s radar.
“About 30 per cent of our monthly active users come from come from other regions,” he explained. “But we also understand, especially when we talk about personalisation, that there’s a lot that we need to do to that experience … there’s a lot we want to do, and it’s an area where we’re actively exploring.”
As platforms multiply, audiences fragment and media rights deals plateau, it’s time to understand what’s really going on in sports media. Join us at SportsPro London this April to learn more.