20 Jan Greedy Disney/ESPN Are Killing the Australian Open with ESPN Unlimited Cash Grab

I’m a tennis addict and, therefore, I’m an easy target for the Tennis Channel and ESPN, which drain my pocketbook every year. I wasn’t thrilled to have to pay $10 per month for ESPN+, but I paid for it because it allowed me to watch most matches at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open each year. But now, with the start of a new year, Disney has found a new way to soak tennis fans. Starting this year, you need an ESPN Unlimited subscription in order to watch matches on any of the show courts.

A standalone subscription to ESPN Unlimited is $29.99. I have ESPN+ through my Verizon account, so I called them to upgrade. They said they don’t offer ESPN Unlimited, so I canceled my ESPN+ subscription and planned to buy ESPN Unlimited directly from Disney. But Disney would only offer me a bundle for $35.99 that also includes Hulu and Disney+, which I do not need. I called ESPN (800-727-1800), and they said that because my ESPN+ account is still active until the end of the billing cycle, I cannot purchase ESPN Unlimited à la carte; I can only buy the $35.99 bundle. Oy. The greed of this company is incredible.

It’s a shame that tennis officials don’t recognize the harm they are doing to the sport by making their product so expensive and difficult to access. When you increase the price of accessing your product from $10 per month to $36 a month, you price people out and piss them off. Die-hard fans like me might still pay up, but casual fans will say no thanks. I’m already paying for a high tier of cable TV service with YouTube TV, but the network coverage of the tournament stinks. Last night, matches started at 7 p.m. EST, but the network’s coverage didn’t start until 11 p.m., and they rarely show the matches I want to watch. The only solution is for tennis fans to say “no mas” and stop paying.