Disney on Wednesday (Aug. 6) reported a 2% increase in revenue for fiscal Q3 2025, as gains from its parks division offset continued declines in its linear TV business. However, the growth of its direct-to-consumer streaming business — with operating income of $346 million in comparison with a $19 million loss in the year-ago period — was upstaged by several announcements which are prone to change not only Disney’s future but that of the entire streaming landscape.
Along with its earnings report, Disney announced that ESPN will launch its direct-to-consumer streaming service on Aug. 21. The offering from “the Worldwide Leader in Sports” might be buoyed by ESPN’s acquisition of the NFL Network, which might be integrated into the DTC service, while NFL’s RedZone will join Disney’s linear channels. In addition, the ESPN DTC service will stream all of WWE’s Premium Live Events, including WrestleMania.
The ESPN-centered deals, together with an announcement that Hulu might be fully integrated into Disney+ in 2026, display how Disney is evolving to shore up losses from linear TV amid the continued growth of cord-cutting.
“We’re at a degree, given the way we’re operating our businesses, where we don’t really have a look at being in the linear business and the streaming business. We’re in the television business,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said on an earnings call.
The moves to integrate Hulu into Disney+ and offer a standalone ESPN offering that gives personalized content, fantasy sports and betting in a single place represents a one-two punch in the streaming wars as the company looks to extend engagement, efficiency and ad revenue.
“By unifying control over inventory and identity, Disney is signaling that the future of ad-supported streaming lies in scale, signal and ease — streamlining what’s long been a chaotic ecosystem,” said Julie Clark, vice chairman of media and entertainment at TransUnion, in emailed comments.
“Marketers want dependable environments with measurable, repeatable outcomes, and with sports commanding some of the most engaged, lean-in audiences in the business, this consolidation allows for richer insights, smarter targeting and seamless consumer journeys across platforms,” Clark added.
A television business
As expected, linear network results were a weak spot in the earnings report. Revenue fell 15% to $2.27 billion and operating income declined 28% to $697 million, dragged down by a previous Star India transaction but additionally attributable to a decrease in average viewership and lower ad rates. Despite the declines, linear TV remains to be a large part of the business.
“Linear will not be chump change. It’s a fairly large percentage down, but their upfront remains to be a large show room fully filled with TV buyers and cross-device buyers,” said Kenneth Suh, chief strategy officer at ad-tech platform Nexxen. “But they definitely understand where they need to take a position on the streaming side.”
Fully integrating Hulu into Disney+ is predicted to assist grow subscribers and promoting opportunities as an improved consumer experience lowers churn. There are also more opportunities for efficiencies with regard to tech stack and ad sales.
“We already sell the promoting together, but this may give our sales organization a likelihood to package them much more effectively than they’ve before. I imagine down the road, it could give us some price elasticity as well that we haven’t had before,” Iger said on the earnings call.
The streamlined offering could help Disney construct on its upfront performance. Independent agencies saw double-digit volume growth across sports and streaming, and categories including financial services, CPG, pharmaceuticals and beverages proceed to perform well across Disney’s promoting offerings.
Sports entertainment
ESPN’s deals with the NFL around the NFL Network and rights to the NFL Draft are a significant play as media corporations and types look for revenue opportunities in live sports. Disney expects the revenue from the deal to extend operating income for ESPN and boost the latest DTC offering.
“That doesn’t even consider a potentially lowered churn rate for the ESPN app once we go to market and once the NFL games are all included, and clearly, there’s promoting value as well,” Iger said.
The deal also gives the NFL a ten% stake in ESPN — the first time the league has taken a strategic position on a significant rights holders and a move that may likely affect other rights holders, including legacy broadcasters and pure-play streamers like Amazon’s Prime Video and Netflix, which have moved so as to add NFL games to their slates. It stays to be seen how the latest arrangement affects the distribution and price of NFL broadcasts.
“All these rights are so vital to drive advertisers’ spend,” Suh said. “We’ve got the largest sports cable network tying up a cope with the largest sports franchise in the U.S., driving the most viewership, the most attention and subsequently the biggest opportunities for ad dollars.”
The NFL could learn a lesson about derive the most value from broadcast rights from the WWE. With its latest deal, the sports entertainment company will eventually have programming on ESPN, Netflix, Peacock and traditional broadcast channel. ESPN’s WWE pact is a five-year deal that begins in 2026 and is price $1.6 billion, in accordance with a Wall Street Journal report — a significant increase from a previous $900 million cope with Peacock. For ESPN, the WWE deal furthers their bona fides as the leader in sports (and entertainment).
“They do have a branding advantage in market and to marketers, but they should ensure that the offering stands as much as that brand leadership position,” Suh said.
Disney’s latest developments construct on its recently accomplished 2025-26 upfront, which saw increased sales in sports and streaming. Streaming now represents greater than 40% of its total upfront volume, while sports promoting volume across linear and addressable is almost $4 billion, with possible growth to come back.
“Advertisers proceed to ask us for live sports opportunities. We’re in that pre-sale window now, heading into the fall sports season, and we’re seeing lots of requests coming in,” Suh said. “That momentum will not be just froth from Upfronts — we’re seeing it in real time from our buyers, as well.”
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