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It’s good to be true financial partners. On the heels of ESPN selling a 10% stake to the NFL, the network announced a “multi-year extension” of its long-running draft coverage.
ESPN has extended its draft rights through the company’s 50th anniversary in 2030, say sources. Front Office Sports reported in April that the four letters were close to an extension with the league.
Starting with the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, Disney+ and Hulu will also stream individual draft presentations from ESPN, ABC, and ESPN Deportes. All offerings will also be available on ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer platform, which launches Aug. 21 for $29.99 a month. ESPN is also planning a new daily draft show for ESPN2, which will launch the day after the Super Bowl and air through that year’s event.
Only a year after its founding in 1979, ESPN transformed the formerly sleepy NFL Draft into a television property. Legend has it that when the start-up network asked Pete Rozelle about broadcasting GMs sitting around talking on phones from a New York hotel ballroom, even the publicity-savvy commissioner asked, “Why?”
The annual NFL Draft is now a three-day traveling carnival—part sporting event, part reality TV, part fashion event. ESPN’s coverage over the decades—from Chris Berman, Mel Kiper Jr., and the late Chris Mortensen to Mike Greenberg, Louis Riddick, Pat McAfee, and Kirk Herbstreit—has helped turn it into the league’s marquee offseason event. While rival Fox Sports got its foot in the door via a simulcast with NFL Network in 2018, ESPN’s parent Disney counterattacked with a college-centric version on ABC hosted by Herbstreit starting in 2019 that’s been a big addition to the coverage.
But ESPN’s contract to simulcast draft coverage across the four letters and ABC expired after the 2024 season. The brass in Bristol and Burbank faced the almost unbearable prospect of waving goodbye to the property after 46 years.
Even though the league’s own NFL Network added its own draft coverage in 2006, ESPN has been and continues to be the clear favorite among viewers. Looking forward, YouTube could still be in play for international draft rights. But Netflix declined to bid on rights, said sources. So in the U.S. market at least, draft coverage will belong to ESPN, ABC, and NFL Network.
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