Apple Buying ESPN Is Inevitable

Wild Turkey

Wild Turkey

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Apple Buying ESPN Is Inevitable, Wall Street Insider Claims

Is Apple gearing up to buy ESPN? Wall Street insider Dan Ives believes a deal is inevitable. Does Disney want to sell the network?
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It’s not a secret Disney wouldn’t mind cutting ties with ESPN or seeing major changes unfold. It was reported earlier in the month that Disney CEO Bob Iger was looking at minority partners to join the network.

It hasn’t happened yet, but that’s generally a sign a major change is needed. If Disney could just sell ESPN for parts it probably would.

Let’s remember that the ESPN of today isn’t what the network was years ago. There was a time when ESPN was an unstoppable force.

Then, the network went crazy, embraced woke ideology and now, it’s pretty irrelevant, outside of live sporting events. It’s embarrassing how far it’s fallen.

Apple also has absurdly deep pockets. We’re talking about a company with a $2.73 trillion market cap. It has the money to do just about anything it wants.

If Apple wants to get into live sports, finding the cash to buy a network will be the easy part. The tech giant could come in, buy ESPN, trim the fat and attempt to get the network back to its old ways.
 
politics aside...

ESPN doesn't have the personalities it did back in the 80's.


the days of Chris Berman, Dan Patrick, Bob Lee, Stuart Scott :rip:, and even Keith Olbermann can't be replaced.

Roy Firestone is also missed greatly.
 
crazy part is that ESPN is the only thing that stays in the black compared to everything else in the disney umbrella..

ESPN/ESPN plus>>>>>Hulu/Disney plus/Starwars/Marvel/Films and Animation

If they want to sell it do it.. I can see them doing it in parts because they own so much valuable rights (SEC, ACC, NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, etc)..
 
If they go streaming only, that’ll pretty well be a wrap on my days of caring at all about college football beyond UGA.

I’m gonna be working 6 days a week for the foreseeable future anyways, so won’t get to watch any noon games this year regardless
 
Illustrious Potentate said:
If they go streaming only, that’ll pretty well be a wrap on my days of caring at all about college football beyond UGA.

I’m gonna be working 6 days a week for the foreseeable future anyways, so won’t get to watch any noon games this year regardless
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working 6 days a week? Who's college tuition are you paying for?
 
Thiefery said:
working 6 days a week? Who's college tuition are you paying for?
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They’re building a giant battery plant that one of our other locations is supplying the rock for, and we’re getting all their customers that aren’t hauling to the battery plant, and we’re already pretty busy as is. Have to run 6 days to have any hope of keeping up. Can’t run at night here because of county ordinances.

I’ve got a cushy supervisor job and I’m hourly, and I’ve never been one to turn down overtime
 
huskers1217 said:
politics aside...

ESPN doesn't have the personalities it did back in the 80's.


the days of Chris Berman, Dan Patrick, Bob Lee, Stuart Scott :rip:, and even Keith Olbermann can't be replaced.

Roy Firestone is also missed greatly.
Click to expand...
There is also more competition. At its origin, ESPN was a unique offering because it was 24/7 sports. There were no other options. Now you have other networks offering similar coverage and you can find a podcast for pretty much any interest you have.
 
Wild Turkey said:
www.outkick.com

Apple Buying ESPN Is Inevitable, Wall Street Insider Claims

Is Apple gearing up to buy ESPN? Wall Street insider Dan Ives believes a deal is inevitable. Does Disney want to sell the network?
www.outkick.com www.outkick.com

It’s not a secret Disney wouldn’t mind cutting ties with ESPN or seeing major changes unfold. It was reported earlier in the month that Disney CEO Bob Iger was looking at minority partners to join the network.

It hasn’t happened yet, but that’s generally a sign a major change is needed. If Disney could just sell ESPN for parts it probably would.

Let’s remember that the ESPN of today isn’t what the network was years ago. There was a time when ESPN was an unstoppable force.

Then, the network went crazy, embraced woke ideology and now, it’s pretty irrelevant, outside of live sporting events. It’s embarrassing how far it’s fallen.

Apple also has absurdly deep pockets. We’re talking about a company with a $2.73 trillion market cap. It has the money to do just about anything it wants.

If Apple wants to get into live sports, finding the cash to buy a network will be the easy part. The tech giant could come in, buy ESPN, trim the fat and attempt to get the network back to its old ways.
Click to expand...
While the woke aspect is a problem, that's not their main problem. ESPN was simply built on a model that no longer works. That's a way bigger problem than them being woke.
 
Across The Field said:
It'd be fine if they would cut out all the idiotic human interest pieces and also put Corso out to pasture already.
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This is why they are looking into an Apple partnership. Apple is gonna use its technology upload Corso's consciousness into an AI droid. The headgear segment will go on ad infinitum.
 
WhosYourDawggy said:
While the woke aspect is a problem, that's not their main problem. ESPN was simply built on a model that no longer works. That's a way bigger problem than them being woke.
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is that the cable premiums that they charged for their content?
 
wildturkey said:
This is why they are looking into an Apple partnership. Apple is gonna use its technology upload Corso's consciousness into an AI droid. The headgear segment will go on ad infinitum.
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can they bring back John Saunders while they are at it too.. I'm sure he's ready to jump right back onto the coattails of VT again
 
Thiefery said:
is that the cable premiums that they charged for their content?
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Yup. for people who don't know ... when you had basic cable, ESPN was by far the most expensive part of your package. If you were paying a couple hundred bucks, $10-$20 of that was going to ESPN. And you paid that even if you never watched the channel a single time. Well, by 2027, the 100 million household number will be down to about 30 million. That's a 70% reduction.

There will be an inflection point where ESPN will be better off offering all their product on a streaming channel (e.g,. Netflix, Prime, etc. ). They can't do that now because it will cannibalize what cable revenue they have left. Look at it this way ... I pay $80 for YTTV and the only thing I watch on it are ESPN and RedZone. When ESPN finally says I can get all ESPN games and channels on the ESPN+ streaming package for, say, $30 a month, I'm done with YTTV. I save $600 a year. Candidly, I don't care about the money and I'll likely keep it and get both. But a lot of people will drop YTTV and get just ESPN.
 
PeoplesChicken said:
There is also more competition. At its origin, ESPN was a unique offering because it was 24/7 sports. There were no other options. Now you have other networks offering similar coverage and you can find a podcast for pretty much any interest you have.
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And that’s the real issue. Why watch Sportcenter when you can just look up whatever you’re interested in and then hit up Pornhub?
 
Thiefery said:
is that the cable premiums that they charged for their content?
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Yeah. ESPN made a shit ton of cash because of cable/sat deals. As part of your cable/sat package, ESPN got like 10 dollars per sub. For comparison, other sports channels were like 1.50 at most. Other channels get like less than a dollar. Since nothing was ala carte, every person that had cable/sat was paying that whether you watched the channel or not. That's a fuckton of cash coming in.

This allowed ESPN to basically be an endless cash machine for Disney, which they used to fuel company growth everywhere else throughout Disney. Like you said, ESPN is still in the black and has been for quite some time. ESPN's success was driving Disney, not the other way around. But as more people are dropping cable/sat packages going to streaming, they're losing that cash flow. Some streaming options don't offer ESPN so people that don't want it, get those since its far cheaper. Streaming options that do have it aren't paying the same rates as the cable/sat heyday.

The doom and gloom around ESPN is overstated. It's still profitable and there's value there to the asset. What's happening is it can't be the endless cash machine it once was where you could put basically no thought into its management and still print money, which has been its reality for 2 decades. Now because the media landscape has changed, they are going to have to put thought into it. They're still gonna get subs from streaming* and whatever their DTC service is. They're looking for other investments (like the Penn deal) to make up some of the cash as well as is the talks of Apple, Verizon, and others potentially buying stakes in the brand. You just need to actually manage it now. It can't be treated as the endless cash machine and they can't just splurge constantly on rights, media personalities, offices or anything else without considering risk.

*if you've been following the streaming world, you'll notice it appears to be trending towards streaming "bundles" which look suspiciously like cable/sat packages. It's trending towards what we already had, only difference is the method of delivery (thru the internet instead of cable/sat boxes). So while the money won't be peak like it was, they're still gonna be making good cash. So I think their losses on subs is overstated. They won't be making 10 bucks per sub, but its not gonna be pennies either like some outlets seem to be pushing.
 
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