It looks like ESPN might be coming to Disney+ sooner than we thought. Women’s college basketball star Caitlin Clark is set to make her WNBA debut later this month and the game is reportedly going to stream live on Disney+, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
- Clark’s WNBA debut with the Indiana Fever will take place on Tuesday, May 14.
- The Indiana Fever’s contest against the Connecticut Sun will actually be one of two games to stream on Disney+ that day. The game between the Phoenix Mercury and Las Vegas Aces will also appear on the streamer.
- Both games will also be available on ESPN+ and ESPN2.
- As we learned earlier today, Disney+ will add a new ESPN tile by the end of this calendar year.
- While the tile will likely not be appearing next week, the fact that two WNBA games will be coming to the streamer shows that Disney is moving quickly on this front.
- These games will be the first non-animated live sports events to be streamed on Disney+.
- It’s also of not that the first live sports event will be the WNBA, especially with the rise in interest and popularity Clark is bringing to the league after her record-breaking final season in college.
- The National Championship game between Clark’s Iowa and South Carolina was the most watched basketball game (men’s or women’s, college or pro) since 2019, earning 18.7 million viewers.
- The game was also the most watched sporting event since 2019, excluding football and the olympics.
- The viewership for the game was up 89% from 2023 and 285% from 2022.
More on the ESPN tile:
- With this new tile, subscribers in the U.S. will have access to “select live games and studio programming within the Disney+ app.”
- This news was revealed on Tuesday’s Q2 earnings call by Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger.
- It was previously announced that the standalone ESPN streaming service will be part of the Disney+ bundle, which will include all ESPN channels.