Nick Statt of The Verge reported this afternoon that the ESPN Plus streaming service will launch this spring. That was the word from Disney CEO Bob Iger, speaking during his company’s earnings call.
The most important detail was the price: $4.99/month. For that money, subscribers will have access to Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, Major League Soccer, a whole lot of college sports, and other events. They’ll access them through a redesigned ESPN app.
But this isn’t as huge as it looks at first glance. Statt wrote that “ESPN Plus will not contain access to SportsCenter or to live ESPN channels, as Iger says Disney will not make ESPN Plus available unless you’re a ‘traditional or non-traditional’ subscriber of standard ESPN.” So cord-cutters won’t get to fill the sports hole in their schedule without finding another way to subscribe to the channel itself.