ESPN has faced many challenges in recent years as cable’s decline eats away at its subscriber base, but they remain hopeful that they’ll take advantage of the changing trends.
ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro, who has talked bluntly about those subscriber losses, said Thursday that the network remains on track to launch its new direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming service, ESPN Flagship, next fall.
Speaking at the ESPN Edge Innovation Conference in New York City, Pitaro said he’s never been more excited about a new product at the network.
“We are going to do so with significant product enhancements, and so we have a team of world-class engineers and product people that are working on this every single day, and I’m meeting with them almost every single day,” Pitaro said (via Barrett Sports Media). “This is one of my passion areas is ‘product,’ and I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited than anything I’ve been attached to or worked on, primarily because I’m a sports fan, and everything I’m seeing from the team is resonating with me as a sports fan.”
Pitaro has said ESPN Flagship will be more than just ESPN streaming but will be an interactive and more personalized experience. He said last month in a talk at Columbia University that “It’s not just about flipping the switch [and making the network available direct-to-consumer].”
Pitaro reiterated Thursday that the venture will feature new innovations, such as personalized highlights for fans and AI avatars.
“What I said was that there are ways for us as an enterprise to really benefit from AI, and don’t get me wrong, AI is disruptive,” Pitaro said, “but … I see it as disruptive in a good way, kind of pushing the sports fan experience forward. I do not see this as displacing jobs.”
There is plenty of activity behind the scenes in preparation for the ESPN Flagship launch, including partnerships with Accenture, Microsoft, and Meta in developing the innovations on the new platform. But content will still drive Flagship, and ESPN definitely has sports content to fill the service, including its ever-expanding ESPN+ catalog.
“We are well set up now for Flagship,” Pitaro said. “If you look at what you really need for Flagship to be successful, you need the content — we’re good. You need the product — we’re good. And we need the enhancements to the product. Again, ESPN+ is the foundation.”
