ESPN’s downfall continues, and a dwindling number of subscribers has resulted in over $1 billion in lost revenue.
Clay Travis wrote the following Friday on Outkick The Coverage:
Yesterday Disney announced in its yearly 10K filing that ESPN lost another two million subscribers in fiscal year 2018.
ESPN now has 86 million subscribers, down from over 100 million subscribers in 2011.
Now the positive for ESPN is that the rate of subscriber decline seems to have slowed this year, but the negative is that since 2011 ESPN has now lost 15 million cable and satellite subscribers. Those 15 million lost subscribers equate to $1.44 billion a year in lost yearly revenue that ESPN will never be able to book. (This is based on an $8 a month subscriber cost for ESPN multiplied by 12 months in the year.) Again, this isn’t just a one time yearly revenue loss, this is a loss in yearly revenue forever.
You just hate to see it. You just hate to see a network that once had so much pride before selling out to liberal politics now have people cutting and running. Just hate it!
Is anybody really surprised people are not tuning in as much? ESPN, once upon a time, was dedicated to sports. It was an outstanding network for all your athletic needs. Every guy I knew came home from school or work and instantly threw on ESPN to catch the latest highlights. (RELATED: Here’s How Much ESPN Will Pay Jemele Hill To Go Away. It’s A Mind-Boggling Amount)
Then, for reasons unclear to me, the worldwide leader in sports decided injecting politics into their banter was a smart idea. They employed a woman who called President Trump a white supremacist, they constantly covered the kneeling in the NFL, and it seemed like the network was pushing to the Left as fast as possible.
It made no sense at all.
Never mind what they lost from their past peak; no doubt they had projections of annual increases each year; not only are they far behind what they were in 2011 but if they hadn’t shot themselves in the… foot with their far left politics, they would probably expect to have 150-170 million subscribers today. How much revenue lost is that? $2 billion? $2.5 billion?
A shame? It’s a shame people think America-hate is a selling point. However, once they go that route, it’s GOOD that they crater. That is exactly what SHOULD happen.