ESPN+ subscribers have noticed a number of pre-roll ads running before videos in recent weeks, despite the fact that a major selling point of the app is that customers wouldn’t have to deal with constant annoying commercials.
Disney, which owns ESPN, started running pre-roll ads on October 1st, which also marks the start of the company’s 2020 fiscal year, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The pre-rolls were included to increase ad revenue, the person added.
A Disney representative denied that financial concerns motivated the additional advertisements, insisting to The Verge that it was strictly a business decision. Pre-roll ads started rolling out before short-form video clips at the beginning of October, the…