{"id":504878,"date":"2026-01-10T00:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T00:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/504878\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T00:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T00:02:10","slug":"espn-has-a-lot-of-checks-to-cash-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/504878\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN has a lot of checks to cash in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

This originally appeared in Friday\u2019s edition of The A Block, Awful Announcing\u2019s daily newsletter with the latest sports media news, commentary, and analysis. Sign up here<\/a> and be the first to know everything going on in the sports media world.<\/p>\n

Last month, Awful Announcing named \u201cThe Evolution of ESPN\u201d<\/a> as our top sports media story of 2025. It was a year of big, forward-looking moves for the Worldwide Leader. The company launched its direct-to-consumer app, bringing the ESPN family of networks outside of the pay TV bundle for the first time in its history. It struck a massive equity deal with the NFL, which will see ESPN own NFL Network and linear distribution for NFL RedZone if\/when the transaction is approved. It restructured its deal with MLB, ditching Sunday Night Baseball for a more local-focused offering that includes licensing MLB.tv<\/a>, the league\u2019s out-of-market subscription service. ESPN\u2019s parent, Disney, also inked crucial distribution deals, including an acrimonious one with YouTube TV that will see all ESPN content available directly within the Google-owned platform.<\/p>\n

All of these moves were made with an eye towards the future. But if 2025 was defined by ESPN drawing up its proverbial playbook, 2026 will be defined by whether the network can actually execute on those plays. Right now, ESPN has a lot of grand plans on paper. But so far, implementation of those plans has been incremental.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin with that all-important direct-to-consumer app. Now ,just over four months since its launch, the hasty nature in which ESPN rolled out its much-ballyhooed app is becoming quite clear. Prior to launch, ESPN was steadfast in its assertion that the app would be available to anyone with an ESPN subscription. Access ESPN through a cable or satellite company? Great, you can authenticate into the app. Access ESPN through a virtual provider like Fubo or YouTube TV? You get the app too. Want to purchase the app from ESPN directly? Even better.<\/p>\n

Quickly, it became apparent that this wouldn\u2019t be the case right off the bat. Yes, some cable and satellite providers had full access to the ESPN \u201cUnlimited\u201d tier right from launch. But quite a few don\u2019t. Comcast customers, despite the company reaching a new distribution agreement with Disney in October, still do not have access to ESPN Unlimited and its troves of exclusive live content. YouTube TV customers are in the same boat. That\u2019s two of the four largest pay TV services in the country right there. And as of early 2026, there\u2019s still no clear timeline for when these customers will get access to ESPN Unlimited as was promised by ESPN prior to the app\u2019s launch and, more importantly, negotiated into its new distribution deals with Comcast and YouTube TV.<\/p>\n

And if that\u2019s not frustrating enough, the reasoning behind the delays is quite frustrating in itself. Awful Announcing learned in October that the reason these major distributors don\u2019t have access to ESPN Unlimited yet is due to technological challenges. Essentially, the engineers working on ESPN\u2019s app are still trying to figure out how to onboard tens of millions of users into the platform.<\/p>\n

That\u2019d be a challenge for any engineering team, but it\u2019s fair to say ESPN should have been more prepared. After all, the company was openly discussing, prior to launch, the fact that everyone, no matter where they got ESPN, would have access to all of the app\u2019s bells and whistles.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it was partly a misallocation of resources. ESPN\u2019s app developers clearly spent time on features like ESPN Bet integration. Of course, the network ditched ESPN Bet mere months after the app launched, opting to partner with DraftKings instead. That\u2019s time ESPN\u2019s engineers could have spent focusing on the core product.<\/p>\n

So the first check ESPN has to cash in 2026 is getting every person currently paying for ESPN access to its app as promised. As it stands, tens of millions of ESPN subscribers are without content like WWE\u2019s Premium Live Events, and programming that was previously exclusive to ESPN+, including college sports, PGA Tour coverage, NHL games, and much more.<\/p>\n

The second check for the network to cash also has to do with the app. Earlier this week, we learned that ESPN\u2019s app would not be carrying<\/a> in-market broadcasts for the MLB teams under the league\u2019s media arm this season, as was intended. That group might grow from six clubs to as many as 16 this season, with the Washington Nationals seemingly set to become the seventh team after leaving MASN, and nine other MLB teams officially terminating deals with FanDuel Sports Network on Thursday. Instead, in-market fans looking to stream their local MLB team will need to utilize the league\u2019s own platform.<\/p>\n

The reasoning again boils down to infrastructure, it would seem. ESPN\u2019s app is simply not ready to handle local broadcasts for those teams on such short notice. 2027 now seems to be the likely launch for in-market MLB streams on the ESPN app.<\/p>\n

Sticking with the tech theme, yet another big-ticket item on ESPN\u2019s to-do list is to fully integrate its programming into YouTube TV. As part of its new distribution agreement, all ESPN content, including that exclusive to the ESPN Unlimited tier, will be available directly on the YouTube TV platform. This has yet to happen, and a timeline for this integration is still unknown. However, it\u2019s something that YouTube TV customers are eager to have for obvious reasons. Instead of needing to switch from the YouTube TV app to the ESPN app to watch content not available on one of ESPN\u2019s linear networks, viewers could access everything within one platform.<\/p>\n

Eventually, when ESPN does implement all of these initiatives, it\u2019ll be great. \u201cAll of ESPN. All in one place,\u201d as the app\u2019s slogan touts, makes a lot of sense. No matter how you pay for ESPN, you should get everything the network has to offer. So far, it hasn\u2019t been that simple.<\/p>\n

These things take time. But it\u2019s reasonable to say ESPN has over-promised and under-delivered regarding its app so far. 2026 will be an important year for ESPN to implement its vision. Once the network\u2019s plan is in place, it\u2019ll undeniably be more fan-friendly than the prior setup, which necessitated both a pay TV subscription and an additional ESPN+ subscription to access all that ESPN has to offer.<\/p>\n

But in the meantime, as we wait for ESPN to fulfill all of these promises, it\u2019s a wonder just how patient fans will be. And at some point, the onus is on ESPN to tell us when these features will become available. Hopefully it\u2019s sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This originally appeared in Friday\u2019s edition of The A Block, Awful Announcing\u2019s daily newsletter with the latest sports…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":504879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[226209,226210,226211,1232,62,67,132,68,100250],"class_list":{"0":"post-504878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-espn-app","9":"tag-espn-dtc","10":"tag-mlb-tv","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-youtube-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115867873697038995","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}