Everything you need to know about Disney, ESPN, and Bob Iger’s return as CEO

ESPN is testing an AI-generated avatar with the Saturday college football show SEC Nation. Dubbed FACTS, it’s going to be “...promoting education and fun around sports analytics” with information drawn from ESPN Analytics, which includes data like the Football Power Index (FPI), player and team statistics, and game schedules. We haven’t seen the avatar in action, but it sounds like a bot-ified version of stats encyclopedia Howie Schwab, who was ESPN’s first statistician and eventually the star of a mid-2000s game show, Stump the Schwab.

ESPN has already brought generative AI to its website with AI-written game recaps. FACTS is still in development, and there’s no word on when it could make its first appearance on the network.

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Disney made money off its streaming business for the second time in a row. During Q4 2024, profit from Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus soared to $321 million, up from $47 million last quarter.

During an earnings call on Thursday, Disney CEO Bob Iger said around 60 percent of all new subscribers are choosing Disney Plus’ ad-supported plan. Meanwhile, 37 percent of total subscribers in the US are currently subscribed to the option, which has become a major revenue driver for streaming services.

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There’s a new streaming bundle coming to town. Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery are teaming up to offer Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max in a bundle that will become available in the US this summer.

The new bundle will include both ad-supported and ad-free options, but there’s still no word on how much it will cost. Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery say they will share “additional details” about the bundle in the “coming months.” Once available, you’ll be able to purchase the bundle from Disney Plus, Hulu, or Max’s website.

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Disney Plus and Hulu posted a profit for the first time today. In Disney’s earnings report released on Tuesday, the company revealed that both streaming services made $47 million combined this past quarter — a huge turnaround from the $587 million loss reported at the same time last year.

But Disney’s streaming business wasn’t entirely profitable. ESPN Plus still lost $65 million, dragging its combined streaming earnings $18 million in the red. Despite this, the narrowing losses mark a huge milestone for Disney as it continues to invest more in streaming. The entertainment company says it expects its streaming business to become profitable in the fourth quarter of this year.

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The revamped Disney Plus app could soon feature always-on channels dedicated to Star Wars and Marvel shows, according to a report from The Information. The channels, which are reportedly similar to those on free ad-supported streaming services like Pluto or Tubi, could take away the choice when it comes to picking out what to watch next.

In addition to Star Wars and Marvel series, Disney’s lineup of channels could feature stations that continuously stream Disney’s classic animated films or movies from Pixar, The Information reports. Even though viewers would need a Disney Plus subscription to tune in to the channels, they will likely still contain ads — just like traditional television.

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Disney Plus already has rules in place to prevent subscribers from sharing their passwords — but now we have an idea when it will start making users pay to share them. In an interview on CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company plans on “launching our first real foray into password sharing” in June.

Iger says the rollout will start in “just a few countries in a few markets” before expanding to all subscribers in September. Disney’s anti-password sharing rules initially went into effect for new subscribers on January 25th and were rolled out to existing members on March 14th. Netflix became the first streaming service to crack down on password sharing in 2023, as it began charging users an extra $7.99 per month to add an extra viewer outside their household.

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Disney has been hinting at some big changes in the Disney Plus branding. In recent days, lots of users checked their TV, tablet, or phone to find the streaming app had a new logo — the iconic Disney blue replaced by a glowing green background. The new logo has been controversial: some people see it as a needless simplification of a familiar design; some people appreciate that it doesn’t look like every other streaming service; some people find themselves wondering if the color really changed or if they’ve just been looking at their TV wrong all this time.

Well, it did change. Permanently. That new green color is called “Aurora,” both in tribute to the aurora borealis and the protagonist of Sleeping Beauty. (I don’t remember much of this green color in that movie, but whatever.) It’s meant to be a mix of Disney blue and Hulu green — here’s a really fun deep dive into the exact alchemy of said mix — as Hulu becomes a part Disney Plus.

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As of today, Hulu is part of Disney Plus. Hulu still exists — it still even has its own app — but it’s also being bundled into Disney’s primary streaming service alongside all the company’s other content. Even the Disney Plus logo changed to integrate that iconic green Hulu hue.

From a product perspective, the Hulu integration is roughly what you’d imagine. Hulu is now a tile inside the app, next to Marvel and Pixar and National Geographic and the rest. The price hasn’t changed; it’s still US-only, and the app’s not going away. Hulu shows and movies will also show up in search results and recommendations; if you’re subscribed to Hulu, you’ll get everything seamlessly, and if you’re not, the app will try to convince you to sign up. Disney has been beta-testing this for months, and it works fine — it can be somewhat confusing to figure out what’s “a Hulu thing,” whereas “a Pixar thing” is much easier to define, but there’s nothing shockingly new or confusing here. It’s just Hulu inside of Disney Plus.

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How Marvel plans to introduce the Fantastic Four to the MCU is still unclear, but when Reed Richards shows up, he’s going to look a lot like Pedro Pascal.

Along with an announcement about its Thunderbolts movie being bumped to May 2nd, 2025, Marvel revealed today that it has finally found the stars who will portray the Fantastic Four. Though John Krasinski has already portrayed one incarnation of Reed Richards in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Pascal is set to portray the character in the Fantastic Four, where he’ll be joined by Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm / the Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm / the Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm / the Thing.

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Disney and Fortnite maker Epic Games are teaming up to build what’s being described as an “expansive and open games and entertainment universe.” As part of the announcement, Disney revealed that it is investing $1.5 billion in an equity stake in Epic.

Details on what this metaverse-like project will look like are sparse, but here’s how Disney explains it:

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Warner Bros. Discovery is preparing to launch a streaming service in partnership with ESPN / Disney and Fox Sports, as reported earlier by CNBC and Sports Business Journal. All three companies have agreed in principle to launch an as-yet-unnamed standalone app, of which they all share one-third ownership, this fall that streams a range of leagues and sports.

It is poised to have sports networks including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNews, ABC, FOX, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, and truTV. The new service will air games from the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Hockey League (NHL), along with NASCAR, PGA Tour Golf, Grand Slam Tennis, and more. Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max users will also get the option to bundle the new service.

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The writing’s been on the wall for months now, but Disney Plus is finally implementing measures to keep US subscribers from sharing their passwords with people who aren’t paying for the service.

Today, Disney Plus began sending out emails informing subscribers about new changes to its terms of service that will, among other things, make it harder for people to access the service using log-in credentials that aren’t actually theirs. The updated terms come a few months after Disney Plus implemented similar measures for its Canadian subscribers and just days after Hulu sent out similar notices to users about changes to its own TOS and its plans to stop password sharing in the coming weeks.

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Apple and Disney announced that the Vision Pro will have 3D content from Disney Plus at launch, while Disney Plus subscribers will get special animated screening environments to accompany them. Other apps announced with Vision Pro support include ESPN, MLB, PGA Tour, Max, Discovery Plus, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount Plus, Peacock, Pluto TV, Tubi, Fubo, Crunchyroll, Red Bull TV, IMAX, TikTok, and MUBI. A notable omission from the list is Netflix; however, executives have previously said that the existing app will work unmodified on Apple’s new headset.

The announcement lists some of the movies that will be in 3D, and naturally, Avatar: The Way of Water is among them. But Vision Pro owners will also get 3D versions of movies like Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Encanto.

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