Disney+ Expands Esports Livestream Deal With Korea Esports Association

Disney+ expanded its partnership with the Korea Esports Association (KeSPA) to livestream multiple major competitions globally this year, deepening the streamer's push into live sports rights across the Asia-Pacific.

The deal adds live coverage of the Esports Championships Asia Jinju 2026, the 2026 League of Legends (LoL) KeSPA CUP and the Korea national team send-off ceremony and evaluation matches ahead of the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan. It builds on last year's 2025 LoL KeSPA CUP livestream.

Seven Countries, Six Titles, Three Days

Coverage begins April 24-26 in Jinju, South Korea, where national teams from South Korea, China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Mongolia compete across Street Fighter 6, The King of Fighters XV, TEKKEN 8, eFootball, PUBG Mobile and Eternal Return. ESPN branding appears on-screen during the livestreams. Disney did not disclose financial terms.

The Jinju event is a preparatory stage for the Asian Games, where esports returns as a full medal sport for only the second time. The program expands from seven medal events at Hangzhou 2023 to 11 events across 13 titles at Aichi-Nagoya, running September 19 through October 4. Esports at Hangzhou drew an estimated 370 million viewers via digital platforms.

Disney+ has not announced rights to the Asian Games broadcast itself.

The On-Ramp vs The Highway

The rights Disney+ is acquiring sit at the margins of a much larger ecosystem. Korea's League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) league peaked at over 2 million concurrent viewers in 2025 and generated 161 million hours watched across the season, posting a 42% year-over-year jump in average minute audience. The 2025 KeSPA Cup peaked at roughly 110,000 viewers . Disney is buying qualifier events, national team ceremonies and federation tournaments, not the marquee league rights.

That gap is the strategy. KeSPA events are low-cost live inventory with ESPN broadcast treatment attached. The bet: a global streaming platform elevates what are currently niche federation events into something with broader reach and advertiser interest.

The APAC Pattern

This is not a one-off. Late last year Disney+ struck a multi-year deal to stream the NBA in the Philippines for the first time, one of its fastest-growing markets in the region. Both moves followed the 2025 launch of ESPN on Disney+ in Australia and New Zealand. The expanded KeSPA pact fits a broader strategic push to lock down select live sports rights across Asia-Pacific market by market: basketball in the Philippines, esports in Korea, cricket potentially next.

Netflix is running a parallel playbook . Its exclusive 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC) coverage in Japan reached 31.4 million viewers across 47 games, with the Japan vs. Australia match becoming the most-watched title in Netflix Japan history. The BTS comeback concert drew 18.4 million viewers globally the same month. Both streamers are investing in national-team tournament structures and live events across Asia rather than domestic league rights.

Disney+ is buying the connective tissue around premium Asian esports market. The 110,000-viewer KeSPA Cup orbits a 2-million-viewer LCK ecosystem and a 370-million-viewer Asian Games. The bet is that ESPN branding and global distribution turn federation periphery into a subscriber funnel.