ESPN Unlimited Review: Best for Bundlers and ESPN Lovers

ESPN Unlimited is the main plan but there’s also ESPN Select, a tier that only provides ESPN Plus content. I’m focusing on Unlimited here, which unlocks the full suite of ESPN content. Between standalone subscriptions and bundles, I did feel overwhelmed by all the ways to sign up for the new service (though I didn’t dock it any points for that).

ESPN Unlimited costs $30 monthly or $300 a year on its own, and ESPN Select is $12 per month or $120 yearly (the same price as ESPN Plus). An Oct. 21 price increase will affect ESPN Select, raising it to $13 per month or $130 per year, and bundles that include ESPN Select. There’s also a stack of bundle options. You can get either ESPN Unlimited or Select with Disney Plus and Hulu. You can also choose  bundles of ESPN Unlimited and NFL Plus Premium, which includes NFL RedZone, and starting Oct. 2, ESPN Unlimited and the new Fox One service.

What are the ESPN bundles?

Bundling is big with the new ESPN streaming service. That route could appeal to you, as there’s probably more sports and entertainment you want to stream than just what’s available with ESPN Unlimited, and bundles could reduce the cost of having multiple services. Disney hopes to boost engagement and reduce churn (aka people cancelling and resubscribing) with bundle sign-ups, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

What live sports can I stream on ESPN Unlimited?

An ESPN Unlimited subscription encompasses a lot of sports — more than 47,000 live events a year, according to ESPN. There’s the NFL and WWE with recent major deals, and ESPN’s rights portfolio also includes the “NBA; NHL; MLB; WNBA; UFC; UFL; SEC; ACC; Big 12; College Football Playoff; 40 NCAA championships including the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship; LaLiga, Bundesliga, NWSL and FA Cup soccer; Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open tennis; The Masters, PGA Championship, PGA TOUR and TGL golf” and more, according to the sports entertainment company.

Still, it’s highly unlikely ESPN will be the only streaming service you’ll need to watch the games you want, and that’s important to keep in mind as you weigh getting the service. For example, right now, while you can stream every NFL Monday Night Football game on the platform, you’ll need additional services to catch Sunday games and games exclusive to Netflix, Prime Video and NFL Network. 

While the upgraded app and new features are part of what you’re getting, they aren’t the sole reason to subscribe to ESPN’s new package. ESPN probably won’t be the only service you need to watch all the sports you want, and that could be a determining factor in whether you should get it. There are services or combinations of services out there that might suit you better, such as the ESPN-including YouTube TV or the aforementioned duo of Peacock Premium and Fubo Sports for football. But ESPN Unlimited holds up as a reliable way to stream live games, and big fans of the wide variety of sports on ESPN, or one of the many bundle options, will want to check it out.

Source: CNET.