ESPN’s woes are largely self-inflicted:
Bloomberg’s Joe Nocera notes:
“Only a tiny
handful of cable channels get more than $2 a month per cable subscriber; ESPN
charges over $7 a month per subscriber. When you throw in the rest of the ESPN
channels, that number approaches $10.
At
the same time, the content providers -- the professional sports leagues and
college conferences -- were every bit as ruthless in their dealings with ESPN.
The $1.9 billion a year ESPN pays the NFL (for one game a week, and usually a
lousy one at that) is twice what any other network pays to air pro football. It
signed a 12-year, $7.3 billion contract for the rights to the college football
playoffs. The NBA costs it $1.4 billion a year. Its new TV deal with the Big
Ten will cost