tachyonbb
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2014
ESPN has gone from 100.7 million subscribers to 87 million and the numbers continue to drop. This fall they lost 7,000 subscribers a day during a time when they usually pick up due to football. They pay the NFL almost 2 billion a year and have 5 years still on their contract. With NFL ratings down double digits advertisers are sure to balk at paying premium rates. They pay the NBA 1.3 billion a year and have 8 years to go. They pay MLB 700 million a year and have 4 years to go. MLB will have difficulty negotiating a new deal as the bloom is off the rose on sports programming. It is estimated that they pay $470 million for the college football playoffs. Cord cutting, politics, over saturation, bad programming are all creating the perfect storm. They are still making money but will not be the cash cow for Disney moving forward. It is estimated that if current trends continue they will start losing money in 3-4 years.