ESPN is digging into its past in a bid to spotlight its future.
The Disney-backed sports giant will, starting Thursday evening during ABC’s broadcast of the first game in the NBA Finals, give fans both a taste of its earliest days as well as a hint of what’s to come. An ESPN promo will feature footage of some of the first minutes shown on the cable network when it debuted in 1979. By the vignette’s end, however, ESPN will be highlighting its ability to interact with sports fans via mobile devices, and it will tout its ubiquity with game die-hards using a new catchphrase: “Sports Forever.”
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All this comes as ESPN readies the kickoff of a new $29.99 per month streaming service that aims to give subscribers access to everything it offers on a single platform. The new service — dubbed simply ESPN, like its flagship linear network — will surface ahead of the NFL’s next play cycle, and Disney aims to convince customers to bundle it with other broadband offerings like Disney+ and Hulu.
In the months leading up to launch, the company “wanted to make sure that ESPN was top of mind,” says Jo Fox, the sports outlet’s senior vice president of marketing, during an interview. “We are showing the passion that lifelong fans have, but also how ESPN has played a role in connecting fans through technology. The big point is that our mission is to serve sports fans anywhere, anytime and we are not resting now.”
The new service is seen as critical to the fortunes of both ESPN and its owners Disney and Hearst, who are grappling with an exodus of subscribers from traditional cable to on-demand streaming. ESPN and ESPN2, which are each projected to have 61.4 million subscribers at the end of 2025, are likely to see those figures drop to 57.9 million and 57.8 million respectively by the end of 2026, according to data from Kagan, a research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Nostalgia might seem like an odd way to invoke the future, but ESPN executives believe the network’s long history gives it credibility that others lack. “When you say, ‘Sports Forever,’ words are words, right?” says Sinan Dagli, executive creative director of BSSP, the agency that helped ESPN create the promo. “We have proof.”
Some Disney rivals are also focusing on streaming sports fans this fall. Fox Corp. aims to launch a new stand-alone streamer, Fox One, that will make content from across its linear portfolio available to consumers who don’t subscribe to a cable or satellite service. The offer will include NFL and MLB games from Fox Sports.
ESPN is aiming beyond its immediate fan base, says Fox. The goal is to get a broad group of some 60 million consumers who don’t subscribe to traditional TV packages to consider the new ESPN streaming venue, she says.
The spot features original footage of “SportsCenter” anchor Lee Leonard opening the first broadcast of that long-running program. “If you’re a fan… what you’ll see in the next minutes, hours, and days to follow may convince you you’ve gone to sports heaven,” he says. Viewers are quickly shown highlights from ESPN over the decades, ranging from classic game moments to sportscaster Stuart Scott uttering the catchphrase “Booyah!” to announcer Mike Breen yelling “Bang!” ESPN personalities including Adam Schefter, Pat McAfee, Malika Andrews, and Dick Vitale make cameos.
At the spot’s close, viewers see a fan getting an alert from ESPN’s mobile app — and it sounds like the famous “Da-da-da. Da-da-da” audio cue that is so much a part of “SportsCenter.”
ESPN plans to run the vignette across many Disney media outlets, with an emphasis on digital venues as well as outdoor venues..
“Sports Forever” may not last that long — who can say? — but there is definitely a desire to keep it in use. “We don’t see this as a sort of one and done sort of spot,” says Fox. “We like it because it’s fun, but it’s obviously hugely relatable. It’s also got a lot of different ways you can activate it. So we’re certainly thinking about how we do that, continuing on.”
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