The Disney Sling TV lawsuit is a contract fight Disney filed against Dish Network on August 26, 2025, claiming that Sling TV’s new day, weekend, and week-long streaming passes violated the two companies’ programming license agreement, which Disney reads as authorizing only monthly subscriptions. A federal judge in the Southern District of New York refused to block the passes in November 2025, and Dish responded by filing antitrust counterclaims accusing Disney of monopolizing the sports streaming market. The case, ESPN Enterprises, Inc. et al v. DISH Network, L.L.C., Case No. 1:25-cv-07169, remains active before U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian.
What Disney Is Suing Over
Disney’s complaint centers on a single question: does its carriage deal with Dish let Sling TV sell access to ESPN and other Disney networks in chunks shorter than a month?
Disney says no. According to the complaint, its licensing agreement authorizes distribution of Disney-owned networks only through monthly subscription plans, and Sling made the short-term passes available “without our knowledge or consent.” A Disney spokesperson said the company had “asked the court to require Dish to comply with our deal when it distributes our programming.” Disney also asked the court to seal the case, keeping the specific contract language out of public view.
Sling called the suit “meritless” and said it would “vigorously defend” the packages, maintaining it had briefed its programming partners before launch and that the passes were consistent with existing agreements.
The Sling TV Passes at the Center of the Case
Sling rolled out the passes on August 12, 2025, two weeks before Disney sued. They give viewers access to the 34 channels in Sling Orange, including ESPN, ESPN2, Disney Channel, TNT, TBS, and CNN, without a monthly commitment. The standard Sling Orange plan runs $45.99 per month.
At launch there were three options:
- Day Pass: $4.99 for 24 hours
- Weekend Pass: $9.99 (replaced by a 3-Day Pass in December 2025)
- Week Pass: $14.99 for seven days
The passes don’t auto-renew and include 50 hours of cloud DVR storage. Subscribers can add “Sling Extras” channel packs for $1 to $3 depending on pass length. Sling pitched the model to sports fans who want to buy in for a single game or weekend and walk away.
Why the Judge Refused to Block the Passes
Disney moved for a preliminary injunction that would have forced Sling to pull Disney channels from the passes while the case played out. After an October 22, 2025 hearing, Judge Subramanian denied the request on November 17, 2025.
The ruling turned on the contract’s definition of “Network Subscribers,” which covers anyone authorized to receive “any level of video programming service.” The judge found no minimum subscription length in the agreement and no language showing the parties intended to limit distribution to traditional monthly subscribers. A subscription in modern technology, he wrote, means access granted for a specific period, whether a month or a day. He compared the passes to a non-recurring trial subscription that expires at the end of its term, calling that “reasonably” a subscription. He also noted that Disney and Dish are “sophisticated companies” that could have negotiated an explicit duration restriction if they had wanted one.
On the second question a preliminary injunction requires, irreparable harm, the judge ruled Disney had not shown the passes threatened ESPN’s streaming business in any “quantifiable way.” Any lost ad revenue or weakened negotiating leverage could be measured and remedied with money at trial, which is not the kind of injury emergency relief is meant to prevent.
Sling seized the moment. Two days after the ruling, on November 19, 2025, the company dropped the Day Pass to $1 through November 30, a window that covered Thanksgiving week and a heavy stretch of the college football and NFL seasons. Seth Van Sickel, Sling’s senior vice president, framed the promotion as a response to “traditional ‘big media’ companies” that “intentionally stifle innovation,” calling the $1 pass “our way of saying thank you to the customers we fight for every day.” Sling TV added 159,000 subscribers in the third quarter of 2025, an 11% sequential increase that brought its total to nearly 2 million. Parent company EchoStar credited the flexible passes and the start of the NFL and NBA seasons.
Dish’s Antitrust Counterclaims
On January 2, 2026, Dish escalated the case by filing federal antitrust and breach-of-contract counterclaims against Disney and ESPN.
The antitrust claims accuse Disney of violating the Sherman Act by conditioning access to “must-have” ESPN networks on the forced purchase of less popular channels, a practice known as tying. Dish alleged the bundling requirement forces Sling customers to pay “hundreds of millions of dollars extra each year” for content they do not want. The filing notes Disney controls roughly 28% of all U.S. spending on sports broadcast rights.
Dish also accused Disney of trying to monopolize the “skinny sports bundle” market through three moves:
- ESPN Unlimited, a direct-to-consumer service launched August 21, 2025, at $29.99 per month, offering ESPN’s full linear networks and roughly 47,000 live events per year.
- The ESPN-Fox One bundle, launched October 2, 2025, at $39.99 per month, combining ESPN Unlimited with Fox Corporation’s Fox One service.
- Disney’s acquisition of Fubo, closed October 29, 2025, merging Hulu’s live TV business with FuboTV to create the sixth-largest pay-TV company in the U.S., with nearly 6 million subscribers and Disney holding roughly 70% of the combined entity. Fubo dropped its own antitrust suit against Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery as part of the deal.
On the contract side, Dish alleged Disney breached “most favored nation” clauses by giving competitors more favorable distribution terms and refusing to extend them to Sling. It pointed to YouTube TV’s non-renewing 20-minute free preview as an example of a short-term access model Disney had allowed elsewhere. Dish also said it had “no contractual obligation to consult” Disney before launching the passes, while acknowledging that “a limited number of promotional materials” had inaccurately used the phrase “with no subscription.”
Dish is asking the court for unspecified damages, a declaration that Disney’s conduct violated antitrust law, and an injunction forcing Disney to unwind both the Fubo acquisition and the ESPN-Fox One bundle. Disney called the counterclaims a “tactic to distract from their own misconduct” and said they have “no merit.”
Where the Case Stands
As of mid-2026, ESPN Enterprises v. DISH Network remains active before Judge Subramanian, with the most recent docket activity a filing on June 2, 2026. No trial date has been set publicly. With the injunction denied and the antitrust counterclaims now in play, the case has grown from a contract dispute into a broader fight over how sports programming is packaged and priced in streaming.
Sling continues to sell its day, three-day, and seven-day passes. The passes have also drawn a separate lawsuit from Warner Bros. Discovery, filed in September 2025, opening a second legal front over the same product.