ESPN Has Lost Over 3 Million Subscribers, Potentially Worth $250M

According to the Wall Street Journal, ESPN has lost 3.2 million cable subscribers in just over a year. The Big Lead calculates that with a $6.61 fee per sub, that’s a potential loss of $250 million in revenue. That’s more than they pay annually for the ACC, and more than double what they pay for the Pac 12, Big 12, and Big Ten. That’s also a third of the cost of Major League Baseball, and less than one-eighth of what they pay for one year of Monday Night Football. With numbers like that, you can see why Disney is panicking.

Of course, the drop in subs probably has less to do with content than it does with cord cutters. With subscriptions coming from every person who buys a basic cable package, you’re doing business based on a huge amount of customers who might have no reason to watch your network. And according to a recent Variety report, only 37% of customers would keep ESPN on an a la carte basis, less than History, Comedy Central, and even the Weather Channel. Considering most of ESPN’s expensive rights deals are long-term contracts, it’ll probably be gloom and doom from Disney for quite a while.

Read more at The Big Lead.

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