ESPN is now live on Disney+. Here’s how you can remove it from your home screen if you’re not a sports fan

ESPN is now live on Disney’s streaming platform.

From today, there is an ESPN tile on the homepage of Disney+, which takes viewers to a hub for the sports brand’s stack of programming, which includes live events, replays and films in the 30 for 30 series.

Disney Australia said the addition of ESPN boosted the platform with 10,000 hours of live sports.

There are also two live channels, ESPN and ESPN2, as well as studio shows such as SportsCenter.

A selection of sports highlights is robustly promoted on the homepage with, at least on launch day, two carousels — “featured live and upcoming” and “featured replays” — placed prominently and up high.

The first week after launch will include basketball action with a game between the Boston Celtics and the Phoenix Suns and LeBron James on court for the Lakers.

The ESPN on Disney+ launch also coincides with the start of the Major League Baseball season and a game between the New York Yankees and the Milwaukee Brewers.

ESPN also has coverage of the NHL, NFL, UFC, American college football, American college basketball, X Games and World Series of Poker.

There is no extra subscription cost for ESPN and you also can’t opt out, per se.

Now, some viewers who subscribe to Disney+ for their kids or general entertainment may not appreciate sports titles cluttering up their homepage recommendations, but there’s a fix for that (hat tip to the Always Be Streaming newsletter).

You can change the profile settings under parental control and toggle off “Allow titles without ratings like live sports, news and more” and that will remove ESPN content from that profile.

But it will only apply to the individual profile so you can also create another one that does allow unrated live events if you don’t want to completely remove access to ESPN, or future live events that are not sports-related.

ESPN will continue to be available as a channel on Foxtel, Kayo and Fetch TV, but some of those licencing agreements will expire in a few months.

ESPN is American-centric but embedding the brand into Disney+ opens the door for the company to bid on local sports or Australian rights to international competitions.

Sports has become the new frontier in streaming with every major streaming platform hosting competitions.

Netflix has WWE and boxing, and is rumoured to be pursuing the American rights to Formula 1. Apple has MLB’s Friday nights and sells an add-on package for the American Major League Soccer. Paramount+ has the A-League and the AFC Champions.

Prime Video has made a push particularly into cricket, holding the rights for ICC World Cups, T20 and the Champions Trophy, as well as access to some American NBA games. Stan’s add-on sports package is focused on tennis including the Grand Slams, Indycar, UEFA and most rugby union competitions.

Sports rights in Australia are also protected by the federal government’s anti-siphoning list which dictates that competitions of national significant (eg. AFL Grand Final, Rugby World Cup finals, FIFA World Cup games involving the Australian team and the Australian F1 Grand Prix), must be made available first to free-to-air networks.