Walt Disney Co.’s DIS, +0.28% ESPN and the National Hockey League said they struck a seven-year deal that will bring the Stanley Cup Finals to Disney’s ABC broadcast network and make hundreds of local-TV games available on the ESPN+ streaming service.
ESPN is paying roughly $2.8 billion for the pay-TV and streaming rights over the course of the deal, according to people familiar with the matter. An ESPN spokeswoman declined to comment on financial terms. “We believe that the deal reflects the quality and volume of content we acquired,” she said.
The pact, which starts at the beginning of the 2021-22 season, puts dozens of national regular-season games exclusively on ESPN’s traditional TV networks and the ABC broadcast network and gives ESPN+ and Hulu the exclusive rights to stream 75 national regular-season games, the companies said.
The talks between the NHL and ESPN were previously reported by The Wall Street Journal and others Tuesday.
The companies said the deal gives ESPN the rights to stream 1,000 local-TV games on ESPN+ for people living in different media markets. That offering that was previously available on NHL.TV streaming service will be shut down, a person familiar with the matter said.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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