Disney Reveals ESPN Profitability, Revisiting ESPN’s Valuation, NBA Looking For Streaming Partners
Hello everyone.
Tech earnings season has begun. The game plan is to begin going over the most interesting reports related to Apple next week. For today, we will go into the sports world as Disney broke out ESPN’s financials for the first time. This will then bring us to reporting that pegs the NBA as wanting to partner with tech companies for its upcoming media-rights auction. Let’s jump in.
Disney Reveals ESPN Profitability
“Profits from Disney’s sports segment, home to ESPN, declined 20% in the first nine months of its fiscal year, according to a new filing Wednesday that offers a clearer look at the toll cord-cutting is taking on the business.
Operating income for the newly reported sports segment fell to $1.48 billion in the nine months ended July 1, while revenue declined 1.3% to $13.2 billion. The unit includes ESPN and related channels, Disney’s ESPN+ streaming service and Star-branded sports channels in India.
Profits from ESPN-branded TV networks, ESPN programming on the ABC network and ESPN+ fell 7.8% to $2.06 billion in those nine months. The company shared more-detailed financial results for the business as it seeks a potential strategic partner to help shape the future of ESPN’s content and distribution.”
One reason Disney is making this financial disclosure change is to separate struggling businesses, such as linear networks, from what Disney views as its growth engines. It’s along the same general idea of Alphabet separating Other Bets losses from Google proper. The change in disclosure will also streamline Disney’s talks with potential suitors and partners regarding asset sales and divestures.
Within the new Disney Sports segment, the company includes various sports-related businesses and segments into one.
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