Almost two years ago a Disney executive who oversees ESPN talked about the possibility of a standalone ESPN service similar to HBO NOW, and it looks as though Disney is getting closer to releasing their own standalone live TV streaming service.

“Our investment in BAMTech gives us the technology infrastructure we need to quickly scale and monetize our streaming capabilities at ESPN and across our company,” said Robert A. Iger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company said last year. “We look forward to working closely with BAMTech as we explore new ways to deliver the unmatched content of The Walt Disney Company across a variety of platforms.”

Now we know it will be coming out in 2017.

Today at Disney’s quarterly earnings call the CEO of Disney Robert Iger said “We will be launching a direct-to-consumer sports service sometime in calendar 2017.” (Disney is the parent company behind ESPN.)

We do not have many deatails on the new service but here is what we learned last year.

Disney said their purchase of BAMTech will also allow ESPN to launch and distribute a new ESPN-branded multi-sport subscription streaming service in the future. The direct-to-consumer service will feature content provided by both BAMTech and ESPN, and include live regional, national and international sporting events.

Current content on ESPN’s linear networks will not appear on the new subscription streaming service.

For now we will have to wait and see what this service looks like. Yet if you want ESPN you can find it on services like Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, and DIRECTV NOW.

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