Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Iger is more bullish than ever on ESPN's direct-to-consumer transition.
"ESPN is a very popular, high-in-demand product in the United States," the executive said on the company's quarterly earnings call on Wednesday. "We feel leaning into it is the smart thing to do because of its unique quality and how popular it is and how profitable it has been."
"We have an opportunity, as we bring it in the direct-to-consumer direction, to strengthen our hand," he continued. "We do that by partnering with either tech companies that can provide us with marketing, technology support, and customer acquisition help or sports leagues that can provide us with more content. It's that simple. We're actually quite bullish about it."
Earlier on Wednesday, a new report from Front Office Sports alleged that talks are heating up between Disney and the NFL and NBA about taking an equity stake in ESPN.
In a new interview with CNBC, Iger would not comment on partner speculation, but he did confirm ESPN will transition to streaming "no later than 2025."
Wednesday's earnings marked the first time Disney broke out ESPN's quarterly financials under its new reporting structure.
ESPN generated operating income of $953 million in the quarter, up 15% compared to the prior year and largely driven by its domestic business.
The company credited higher domestic ESPN operating results to a few key factors. First, Disney saw a decrease in programming and production costs. Additionally, price increases and subscriber gains boosted ESPN+ subscription revenue. There was also an uptick in advertising revenue, while affiliate revenue decreased amid its dispute with Charter back in September.
"Frankly, if we were to just sit back and leave ESPN alone as part of the linear bundle, we know ultimately, where that would bring us," Iger said.
"It certainly wouldn't bring us in a growth direction because [of] the continued decrease in multichannel subscribers, so this is a way to really buck that trend, continue to allow it to be part of the multichannel bundle, but also make it available on an a la carte basis."
Analysts and media watchers have cautioned that the full transition to streaming will be a difficult journey, particularly when it comes to consumers footing the bill for an additional service rather than watching sports as part of the cable bundle.
But the company's former streaming chief believes sports fans will be willing to pay — even if the price tag is higher than what most platforms currently cost.
"People have always paid a lot for sports," Kevin Mayer, who now runs Blackstone-backed entertainment startup Candle Media, said at the Yahoo Finance Invest Conference on Tuesday. "They didn't always know it because back in the day when 95% of this country had paid TV bundles, probably 40% to 50% of the cost of that bundle was sports programming. ... [But] now they can do so explicitly."
Mayer, who is currently serving as a strategic adviser to Iger, said his former boss is "definitely most focused on making sure that ESPN, a company that he really believes in strongly, is well positioned for the future."
Disney hasn't disclosed any details regarding pricing for the ESPN service, although analysts have estimated it would need to cost a minimum of around $30 a month in order to break even.
Mayer, however, insisted that $30 a month is an "entirely reasonable price to get the full suite of sports that ESPN would offer."
Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.
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