When ESPN launches its streaming app Aug. 21, bundling is a big part of the strategy. Disney is planning to use the new sports content to help drive subscribers to sign up for its streaming bundle, which includes the new ESPN app, Disney+ and Hulu, in the hopes of bringing more frequent engagement to its streaming services and cutting down on churn.

Amid declining cable viewership, ESPN (priced alone at $29.99 monthly) is also being asked to appeal to fans by bundling with other sports services. Ahead of launch, ESPN had been experimenting with placing content within the Disney+ app, with the original shows SC+, a daily SportsCenter spinoff, and Vibe Check, a female-led studio program, to see whether there is crossover appeal for sports content with the core Disney+ audience, which skews younger and more female than the typical ESPN audience and has a larger user base than ESPN+. In doing so, execs found that subscribers were coming back to Disney+ more frequently, an important goal post for the streamer; that offered proof that there could be an appetite for a bundle that brought sports to fans of general entertainment and vice versa.

The goal is now to bring in those subscribers, as well as the new, incoming sports fans, to the streaming bundle, which will be priced at launch at what it costs for ESPN alone, a promotional $29.99. ESPN Unlimited will be available inside the Disney+ platform, as will Hulu, which the company has found increases engagement for that content as compared to when subscribers have to watch on a separate app.

Bundle subscribers are among the most engaged. They churn the least, they watch the most, and theyre the most satisfied subscribers we have, Alisa Bowen, president of Disney+, tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview on August 15.

The Disney+ audience (128 million subscribers) is viewed as additive to the main audience for the new ESPN app, which is namely sports fans who arent already subscribed to ESPN through cable, satellite or digital subs.

Were not looking to lure people from existing environments who are perfectly happy getting ESPN through cable, satellite or digital subscription, says Burke Magnus, ESPNs president of content.

The ESPN app will include all of ESPNs live sports and studio shows as well as fantasy sports products, betting information, docs and more. The company signed a deal to bring WWEs premium live events, including WrestleMania, SummerSlam and the Royal Rumble, to the service in the U.S. starting next year and has an expanded rights deal with the NFL, including the NFL Network, which will be integrated into the streaming app.

The preference is to keep subscribers within the Disney family. But subscribers who are looking for more sports content will also have the option this fall to bundle with the new Fox One Sports app ($39.99), and Magnus notes that kind of thing could just be the start.

I just think there will be more of those, he says, whether those are other media or sports media products from other media entities or whether those are other existing products that are specific to sports. A lot of leagues, for example, and teams, have their own streaming products that could be packaged and bundled with ESPN.

All of this comes after the collapse of Venu, the sports-focused streaming service founded by Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox that dissolved in January after legal threats from competitors.

Magnus adds, Either the time wasnt right or the circumstances werent right, but it certainly opened up the aperture for us, and I think others, to imagine a world where this kind of thing, whether its all of ESPN or co-bundling in the streaming environment would be possible.

This story appeared in the Aug. 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.Click here to subscribe.