ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro Speaks with CNBC’s Alex Sherman at the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit in New York City Today, Thursday, July 16
WHEN: Today, Thursday, July 16, 2026
WHERE: CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit
Following is the unofficial transcript of an interview with ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro that took place today, Thursday, July 16, during the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit at Fanatics Fest in New York City.
Mandatory credit: CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit
ALEX SHERMAN: All right, Jimmy, set the stage here. You know, my dad used to say I got good news. I got bad news. Which do you want to start with? So to set the stage, I’ll ask you, I’ll start with the good news or the bad news.
JIMMY PITARO: Good.
SHERMAN: I’ll start with the good news. All right. The good news is that more people seem to be watching sports than ever before. You go from sport to sport to sport. The ratings are phenomenal. And now ESPN for about a year or so has this direct to consumer product that even if you don’t subscribe to cable, you can still access ESPN. The bad news is that cord cutting continues. The price of those sports rights continues to go up and up and up. And the linear advertising world is still soft and declining as that linear cord cutting continues. So that is my preamble to ask you the first question. The name of this conference is “Game Plan.” What is the ESPN game plan to make sure that you’ve got operating income, which fell five percent last quarter, continues to rise quarter after quarter as we move forward?
PITARO: Well, I’ll start with ratings. So we just announced this morning that ratings for the first half of 2026 were the best since 2012. So that’s in a world of cord cutting where fewer households are watching television. Our ratings are up significantly. So we take a lot of pride in that. But just more to your point on cord cutting, from the day we went direct to consumer, which was last August, we’ve been consistently clear that we are running parallel paths here. And what I mean by that is ESPN needs to be everywhere. Right. And so we continue to prioritize pay television. We continue to add value to pay television. If you’re a pay TV subscriber, whether it’s traditional DirecTV, Comcast, Charter, or through a digital MVPD like YouTube TV or Hulu Live, you can enter your credentials in the ESPN app and get access to everything ESPN DTC. Right. So that’s our way of adding value to pay TV, because we love pay TV. It’s been a very good business for us. And we believe that that sports fans still very much value pay television. At the same time, we do need to be everywhere. And we understand that not everyone wants pay television. And so we have gone direct to consumer and made that available as an option. But we are somewhat agnostic in terms of how you subscribe to ESPN. If you want to buy us through a cable bundle, we’re great with that. And if you want — if you don’t want the bundle and you want us as a part of a retail DTC over the top service, we’re good with that. Now, just one last thing on the OI comment. There’s choppiness, right? You know, you mentioned sports rights. There’s choppiness quarter to quarter. I will say that if you look at when we first started publicly reporting operating income at ESPN, which we hadn’t done, as you know, historically, 2022, you look at what we reported then and what we reported for our fiscal year in 2025 operating income was up. So in a world where the majority of our revenue comes from pay television and we’re seeing pay television decline, as we have over the years, we’ve been able to grow operating income when you look back to when we first.
SHERMAN: All right, all right. A handful of follow-ups here. So, one, is the rate of subscribers that are subscribing to the D2C product, is that rate above the rate of cord cutting?
PITARO: Yes, so I can’t, you know this, we don’t report our numbers publicly. So, we — I can’t comment on that. For us, again, the important point is we’re going to judge ourselves holistically on the total number of households that are subscribing to ESPN. That means paid television, it means ESPN standalone direct-to-consumer, it also means ESPN as a part of a bundle, a D2C bundle. It also means subscribing to ESPN as, you know, a part of the Disney Trio bundle. So, there’s a bundle that ESPN is a part of with NFL Plus Premium, there’s a bundle that we’re a part of with Fox One. Our priority from a bundle perspective is actually the Disney Trio bundle, which is, you pay one price, you get Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN.
SHERMAN: So, two thoughts on that. One, the pricing of ESPN D2C right now, $29.99 a month, $35.99 for the with ads version in that Disney bundle. Are you satisfied with those prices? Do you think we may have a price increase?
PITARO: As I sit here right now, I am satisfied, so that everyone’s clear. When we launched last August, the standalone was $29.99 and the Disney Trio bundle was $29.99. So, it was kind of an IQ test. And so, look, we have a new CEO, as you know, and he speaks a lot about One Disney. That is a priority of his and operating principle, if you will. And when I think about One Disney, the first thing that comes to mind is this Trio bundle, right? You get pretty much all that the Walt Disney Company has at one, what I think is a discounted price.
SHERMAN: You talked about how you had a couple other bundles already in existence. Do you want to increase that? Are you looking for other bundling opportunities with other media companies?
PITARO: Yes. So, good question. Our mission is to serve the sports fan anytime, anywhere. And that means we want to be everywhere. We know that the sports fan today wants options. And so, again, that includes ESPN standalone, but it also includes ESPN as a bundle. So, we have several options today, but of course, we’re always having conversations with potential partners about making ESPN available as a part of a bundle. I will say, Alex, just to back up a bit. As a part of our strategy, we really want to continue to be the front door for sports fans. So, at ESPN, we pride ourselves on being the place of record for sports fans. When something happens in the sports industry, we believe that people turn to ESPN to find out if it’s real, to get the in-depth coverage. And so, as a part of that, we are very focused on taking friction out of the sports fan experience. Going back full circle to the cable, the pay TV bundle, there’s almost no friction. It’s all right there. It’s one app or one service and one username and password. And so, in terms of the ESPN app, we’re doing everything we can to take out the friction. So, what I’m getting at is, as a part of a bundle or a partnership with a third party, we are very much focused on including the content or ingesting it within the ESPN app.
SHERMAN: And the partner reception to that so far has been?
PITARO: It’s been great. So, this August, we will include CW Sports. You know that we just did this massive deal with the NFL that we also announced last August. So, the NFL network, which we now own, will be ingested into the ESPN app. So, you don’t have to leave the ESPN app and go to another product.
SHERMAN: All right. I want to do a lightning round here, because I have a question on, I think, five different of the major sports, and I want to ask you about all of them. Let’s start with NFL. It’s the elephant in the room. If we are sitting here a year from now at this conference, will you have signed a new media rights deal with the NFL?
PITARO: I don’t want to dodge your question here. I can’t comment on specific conversations that we’re having with the league. I will tell you that I believe if the commissioner were sitting here right now, he would say the relationship is in a great place.
SHERMAN: Well, they own 10 percent of you now.
PITARO: That’s true. They do. For everyone’s benefit, if you don’t know, when we acquired the NFL network, we acquired linear rights to NFL Red Zone. We acquired the Red Zone brand. As a part of those transactions, they now own 10 percent of ESPN. But the point that I’m making is the relationship is in a great place. We spend a ton of time together, speak to them every week. We are super focused on identifying ways to not just grow ESPN but grow the game of football in partnership with them. Right now, Alex, my focus is on the upcoming season, honestly. And so we, I think, have the best Monday Night Football schedule we’ve ever had, and that will lead into ESPN’s first Super Bowl in February.
SHERMAN: Yep, which is a big event for ESPN. Let me try a different way of approaching the question, though, which is, you’re going to have to pay a lot more money for the NFL at some point. Does that mean that in order to afford that, ESPN, moving forward, will have a slimmer portfolio of sports rights?
PITARO: Look, everything we do is with discipline. Every right that we — we have a very sophisticated strategy team, a very sophisticated rights acquisitions team. We have a sophisticated model that we run every time we acquire rights, and we’re not going to do a deal that is bad for business. It’s just not — you know we’ve walked away from many partnerships, long-term, decades-long partnerships with leagues and conferences, and oftentimes it’s been painful, but if we don’t think it’s going to be productive for our business, we’re not going to do it. And look to your point, we do look at our sports rights portfolio, which, by the way, is the best we’ve ever had. In our 47-year history, we’ve never had better rights, live games. I think it’s the best portfolio that the sports industry has ever seen. But we look at it holistically. So yes, to answer your question, there is some give and take there.
SHERMAN: One right that you did not have this year was World Cup rights, which are on Fox.
PITARO: Yes.
SHERMAN: On a scale of 1 to 10, how jealous of Fox have you been?
PITARO: Well, look, they’ve done a fantastic job. I think everyone in this room would agree, from a live game production perspective, from a studio perspective, they’ve done an outstanding job. I don’t know, honestly, how they could have done better with the product. I will tell you that we have the rights in areas, specifically LATAM. So if you look at Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, we have the rights in pockets in specific countries and we love that. You know, we had the World Cup for two decades and it was a big part of ESPN’s identity and DNA. The rights are coming up in 2030. I’m going to get ahead of probably what I think is going to be your next question.
SHERMAN: You know that’s going to be the follow-up.
PITARO: Of course we’re interested. This has been a juggernaut. We’re not at all surprised by it. If you look at the time zones, the fact that these games are, you know, where they’re taking place around this country. The U.S. did a fantastic job and, you know, I’ve been watching it religiously. And yes, I mean, we’re hyper-competitive at ESPN. I don’t think we’d be where we are right now if we weren’t competitive, but I will tell you I’ve been very impressed with the way Fox has covered all this.
SHERMAN: All right, let’s go to the NBA. You have been public numerous times about expressing your desire to be a part of the local media solution—
PITARO: Yes.
SHERMAN: For the NBA. There was just a report that came out this week that the NBA, I guess, has been in talks with YouTube potentially being about mainstream service. Can you give us an update on that situation? Are you competing with YouTube for that product?
PITARO: Look, I read about it when you read about it. I had no idea that YouTube was speaking with the league about it. We are super interested in it. Local to me, like for out of market, we’re doing great. We have the Major League Baseball.TV package out of market. We have the same with the NHL. We want to — and by the way, as part of our MLB deal that we did last year, we have certain in-market rights.
SHERMAN: Local rights, right. So that’s the model potentially.
PITARO: Exactly. So it’s called club.TV. And so next season, we’re going to start to lean in there. But we definitely want to replicate that model. And we’ve made our intentions very clear with every league, including the NBA, that we want to be part of the solution here. We want to have — there’s an RSN, a local RSN problem that the entire industry is grappling with right now. And we think with our reach, I mentioned our ratings before, but it’s not just linear ratings. If you look at our digital reach, where like our ESPN app for the last month, I believe, if you look at our unique users for the month, we were equal to the next 12 sports apps combined. That’s the ESPN app. So from my perspective, that’s nothing but valuable to the league. So as they’re looking to solve this problem, they should be looking, of course, economically, but they should be looking for reach, which we can provide. And we’ll be very creative with the league. Again, back to my point, full circle, on taking friction out of the process for sports fans. We believe ESPN is the front door. We’re Switzerland. We’re the place of record. If I were a league or a team, I would want to maximize the value, the reach that ESPN provides. And the last thing I’ll say on this is, it does not have to be exclusive. We have never once said that we require exclusivity for local in-market rights. We’re perfectly comfortable with doing something non-exclusive.
SHERMAN: You mentioned Major League Baseball. Let’s move there. I know you’re a huge Yankees fan. You’re not as tied to Major League Baseball in terms of live rights as you were in the past, but are you starting to think about contingency plans? You still are. You still have the out-of-market package and the local rights and a few midweek games, no longer Sunday night baseball, but are you starting to think about contingency plans for next year already if we miss games for the season?
PITARO: Look, I’m optimistic here. There are very smart people on both sides of this. By the way, full disclosure, my sister is the general counsel at Major League Baseball, but there are incredibly smart people on both sides of this negotiation. The league, the sport, as you know, has such incredible momentum. If you look at ABS, if you look at the pitch clock and the bigger bases and the changes that they made on the shift, the gameplay time, it’s really fascinating the improvements that they’ve made in a very short amount of time. I think people on both sides recognize the momentum that the sport and the league has, and I think that they’re going to — I don’t know, but I think that cooler heads will prevail, and they’re going to get this done. To your point, I’m a crazy baseball fan. My mood is dependent on how the Yankees do. And so, as a fan, and I speak for many, we really hope that they get this done. To your question, are we doing contingency planning? Look, going back to my point on our rights portfolio, we have so much breadth that we’ll be fine, no matter what, regardless. We will be fine here, and we have plenty of content that we can fill.
SHERMAN: One more sport, WNBA. Seems like this is a major time of tension for that league in the way that the league is trying to figure out how to embrace Caitlin Clark versus should she be the face of the league? Is it not time for that yet? There’s clearly some backlash from the players’ standpoint.
PITARO: Yes.
SHERMAN: Is this good for the league, what’s happening right now?
PITARO: Well, it’s a major time of tension, to use your words, but it’s also an incredible time of growth. You know this as well as I do. Everything with women’s sports is up and to the right, and the WNBA is no exception there. We take a ton of pride. We’ve been with the NBA. This is their 30-year anniversary. We’ve been with them every step of the way on this journey. Look, I do think that what’s happening with Caitlin Clark right now is an issue, of course. I don’t know this, but I’m assuming that Kathy is addressing it. She’s working hard, focusing on the issues. Our job at ESPN is, going back to my point on being the place of record, we need to cover this and cover it. We have a partnership with the NBA and the WNBA. We have been partnered with them for decades in terms of producing the games in our studio and getting the rights around our studio programming, but we also have journalists that work for us. And so, our job is to show up every day and making sure that the fan is educated and up-to-date on what’s happening with the league.
SHERMAN: Last question. You mentioned it real briefly, but you do have a new boss now.
PITARO: I do.
SHERMAN: Josh D’Amaro is the new CEO of Disney. What have you talked to him about what he’s looking for out of you? Does he have a new mandate for you that maybe didn’t exist with Bob?
PITARO: Look, Bob hired me. I work for Bob. I’ve been at Disney for 16 years, and I’ve been at Bob’s table that entire time. There’s a lot of similarities between Bob and Josh. They’re both very curious. They’re both huge sports fans, which is very good for me, very good for ESPN. What I’ll tell you about Josh is he’s very thoughtful. He’s very calm. He’s curious. He’s asking all the right questions. He’s a fast learner. Like I said, he’s passionate about what we’re doing, and he does see ESPN as a critical component of the Disney strategy, and really, Alex, a differentiator. If you look at our competitors, especially in the direct-to-consumer space, one of the differentiators at Disney is ESPN. And our brand, which is at an all-time high, if you look at our research and our rights portfolio, our studio coverage, et cetera, so that’s exciting for me. It’s exciting for everyone at ESPN that we have a new CEO that is very passionate about what we’re doing every day at ESPN.
SHERMAN: It’s exciting for business journalists that we get to grade you along the way now that the ESPN finances are broken out every quarter—
PITARO: Yes.
SHERMAN So we can see how you’re doing from a revenue and an operating income standpoint. Thank you, Jimmy. Appreciate the time.
PITARO: Thank you, everybody.
