Disney Makes Bet on Baseball Streaming – Wall Street Journal

One year after its shares began a 12% slide driven by concerns over ESPN’s growth trajectory, Walt Disney Co. has come up with an answer for Wall Street: The media giant said Tuesday it will spend $1 billion to acquire a 33% stake in BAMTech, the streaming media unit created by Major League Baseball.

As part of the deal, ESPN will later this year launch a new digital service, separate from the traditional cable bundle, that will include games the sports network doesn’t air on its linear channels, Disney Chief Executive…