Disney’s disclosure last week that ESPN generated $17.3 billion in revenue last year — 21% of the entertainment giant’s $82.7 billion total — showed that the sport network remains a crown jewel for the company. But ESPN’s standalone financials highlight the urgency for Disney to make an aggressive direct-to-consumer pivot for the legacy network, analysts told TheWrap.
ESPN has lost 19% of its pay-TV subscribers since 2018, and sports rights remain its biggest expense at about $9 billion in 2023, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Geetha Ranganathan said in a Friday note to clients that this cost was up more than 20% from about $7.3