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ESPN+ initially focused on overflow content, similar to that of ESPN3 (which is distributed to subscribers of participating internet and television subscribers). Some of ESPN3's content has since moved to ESPN+. It has since been incorporated more extensively into ESPN's later media rights deals. Its launch content included boxing (including Top Rank events and archive content through 2025, and includes 36 exclusive fight cards), college sports events (including Ivy League events, with the conference having reached a 10-year media rights deal with ESPN prior to the service's launch), coverage of Tennis Grand Slams, as well as international cricket (India national cricket team, Cricket Ireland, and New Zealand Cricket), soccer (including Major League Soccer, the United Soccer League, the U.S. Open Cup, 2019 Copa America, the English Football League (including Cup), Serie A, Eredivisie, A-League, FFA Cup, W-League, FA Cup, and UEFA Nations League) and College Rugby. In October 2018, ESPN+ obtained the rights for the Swedish Allsvenskan and the Danish Superliga as well, declaring their intent to broadcast one match per week for each league. In February 2021, ESPN+ obtained the rights for the Belgian Pro League, and are expected to broadcast 3 matches per week.
ESPN+ features out-of-market Major League Soccer matches at no additional charge for subscribers (replacing the previous MLS Live service), and the service held exclusive rights to all regionally televised Chicago Fire matches through 2020 (as the second MLS team, behind Los Angeles FC's deal with YouTube TV, to sell its regional rights to a streaming service). As of the 2021–22 season, ESPN+ carries out-of-market National Hockey League games under the NHL Power Play on ESPN+ banner (replacing the previous NHL.tv service). MLB.tv is also available for purchase within the ESPN+ platform, and offers daily games during their regular seasons.
PGA Tour Live (which was also run by BAMTech) was included for the 2018 PGA Tour season, but moved to NBC Sports Gold in 2019. ESPN+ will offer supplemental feeds during the PGA Championship beginning 2020, including during CBS broadcast windows. In 2022, PGA Tour Live returned to ESPN+ as part of a new long-term deal through 2030.
In March 2019, the American Athletic Conference announced a 12-year media rights deal with ESPN, under which ESPN+ will carry the majority of events not aired by ESPN's linear channels. In May 2019, it was announced that ESPN+ would carry 18 World TeamTennis matches. In September 2019, ESPN+ announced its acquisition of rights to Germany's Bundesliga soccer league beginning in 2020, under a six-year deal.
In the 2019–20 season, ESPN+ acquired the third-tier media rights for all but two Big 12 Conference teams; these telecasts are carried under the branding Big 12 Now. The deal excluded the Oklahoma Sooners–whose third-tier rights were held by the SoonerSports.tv streaming service and Bally Sports Oklahoma, and the Texas Longhorns–who have an existing agreement with ESPN and IMG College to run Longhorn Network.
During the 2020 Major League Baseball season's Wild Card Series round, ESPN+ aired Squeeze Play—which featured live look-ins and analysis of the seven series ESPN held rights to (in a similar manner to the ESPN Bases Loaded service it offered during the NCAA baseball tournament), as well as Statcast broadcasts of selected games.
On March 10, 2021, ESPN re-acquired rights to the National Hockey League under a new seven-year deal beginning in the 2021–22 season. Under this contract, ESPN+ holds exclusive rights to 75 games per-season, which will also be available on Hulu, simulcast rights to all games on ABC (including the NHL All-Star Game, and the Stanley Cup Finals in selected seasons), and streams all out-of-market games.
A week later, as part of ESPN's renewal of its rights to the NFL, ESPN+ gained simulcast rights to Monday Night Football broadcasts beginning in the 2021 NFL season. Beginning in 2022, ESPN+ will hold exclusive rights to one NFL International Series game per-season in a Sunday morning window.
In September 2021, Disney began to wind down the U.S. version of Hotstar, a streaming service targeting Indian Americans, and migrated its content exclusively to ESPN+ and Hulu. This, in particular, includes its rights to home matches of the India national cricket team and Indian Premier League, which had been sub-licensed to ESPN+ via its sister network Star Sports.
On April 8, 2022, ESPN announced a deal with the Savannah Bananas to live stream two games of their Banana Ball World Tour on April 8 and 9.
In May 2022, ESPN announced its acquisition of the third-tier media rights to Oklahoma Sooners athletics; the events will be carried on ESPN+ under the "SoonerVision on ESPN+" branding, and will include one exclusive football game per-season (which had previously been distributed by Bally/Fox Sports pay-per-view). The deal will be in effect through the 2024–25 athletics season, after which the Sooners will exit the Big 12 and move to the Southeastern Conference (SEC)—whose media rights are fully-owned by ESPN. Later that month, ESPN announced a rights agreement with the Northwoods League to stream select games of their 2022 season each day exclusively on ESPN+, along with the Northwoods League All-Star Game, the Major League Dreams Showcase, the League playoffs and Summer Collegiate World Series.
In May 2018, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) announced new five-year digital and linear television rights deals with ESPN, effective January 2019. 20 UFC on ESPN+ Fight Night cards per-year are streamed exclusively by the service, as well as preliminaries for 10 UFC on ESPN Fight Night cards per-year. ESPN+ will also hold rights to supplemental content such as Dana White's Contender Series, archive content and PPV encores, and offer sales of UFC Fight Pass within the platform. The first ESPN+ event, UFC Fight Night: Cejudo vs. Dillashaw, generated 525,000 new subscribers on the day of the event alone.
On March 18, 2019, it was announced that ESPN had reached a two-year extension of its contract with the UFC. Beginning with UFC 236, ESPN+ became the exclusive U.S. distributor of all UFC pay-per-view events for residential customers; they are no longer sold through television providers, and viewers must have an ESPN+ subscription in order to buy them.
United States
Mexico
Europe
Spain
England
Germany
Netherlands
Sweden
Belgium
ESPN+ also carries ESPN original programming and documentaries, such as the 30 for 30 franchise (with some premiering on ESPN+ prior to their premiere on ESPN), and exclusive original series and studio programs:
In January 2021, Joe Hand Promotions began offering a commercial subscription of ESPN+ for Business, a version of ESPN+ that offers limited live sports content via DirecTV to commercial establishments. In 2023, the commercial service was expanded to include college sports.
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