Disney’s upfront to showcase sports, ESPN brand

Disney’s star-studded upfront presentation returns next Tuesday from the North Javits Center in N.Y., and sports and ESPN promise to play a major role.

Just Tuesday CEO Bob Iger announced that ESPN would be coming to Disney+ by the end of the year, which ad sales chief Rita Ferro described as an “intentional opportunity” for the overall company.

Ahead of the upfront, Ferro told SBJ that the company’s presentation is set to showcase opportunities for brands across linear, streaming, digital and more, with a heavy emphasis on sports and the ESPN brand.

“When we think of ESPN, it’s obviously all the extraordinary libraries that we have, but it’s also how we think about streaming, linear, social, fantasy, sports gaming, and so much more around that. We’ve anchored in talent that tells us stories around the stories that are happening,” said Ferro.

Those stories include women’s sports, the NCAA, NBA, NHL, MLB, NFL and far more, and Ferro said the company is emphasizing multiyear deals for the sports side of Disney’s business.

“Multiyear deals are an indication on the health of that marketplace, and on the sports side, we’ve never had a more robust business when it comes to multiyear partnerships,” said Ferro. “Those are people who want to come in and are committing multiple years of dollars to make sure that they have the positions in the games and/or leagues and/or conferences, etc. that they want to be part of.”

Last month, the company hosted a day-long sports summit for clients, with attendance from all college commissioners across its major partnerships and announced the renewal and extension of the Omaha production deal.

“That was a double-click special with clients who spend across all of our major sports properties to make sure that they had all the detail around really specific things in sports, but we will have a broad representation of our sports portfolio on stage next week on Tuesday,” said Ferro.

The marketplace is stronger than it was a year ago, with Disney seeing a “tremendous amount” of momentum coming into the upfront, with streaming playing a pivotal part.

“You have to scale in streaming in order to be able to be really competitive and understand how you go to market across a market that’s evolving,” said Ferro. “It still has a linear component but definitely advertisers are looking for movement of dollars into a streaming environment.”

ESPN Flagship, the company’s upcoming direct-to-consumer property, arrives next year, and is expected to play a large role in the upfront.

And as for “Spulu,” the forthcoming joint venture between ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, Ferro quickly emphasized that the property is planned to be a virtual MVPD.

“I don’t know why there’s constantly some confusion around the joint venture,” said Ferro. “The joint venture is really like a digital MVPD. It’s one more distribution point where all of our existing ESPN products, along with those at Fox and those at Warner Brothers, will be distributed to those consumers who have been either cord-nevers, cord cutters, and they really want a sports specific offering at the right price point.”

Expect the upfront to wrap with the highly anticipated roast from Jimmy Kimmel, live and in-person for the first time in three years following last year’s writer’s strike and a bout of COVID the year prior.

“Every client tells me it’s the favorite part of upfront week. [They’re] like, you guys spent all day building yourself up and he comes in and he tears you down,” said Ferro. “He’s already well into writing his monologue, his roast is more like it. I always get nervous when I’m in that roast, but he’s super excited and we’re thrilled to have him back.”