There's a considerable degree of schadenfreude in the fact that Disney/ESPN has basically priced themselves out of the market.
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By competing in a sports contract arms race that has driven up the price of televised athletics with a consumer-be-damned attitude, ESPN is now an albatross around Disney's neck. Consumers put off by the high cost of cable are cutting the cord and Disney is now left holding the bag with these high price contracts. It's also odd for a few reasons.
Disney is known to market research the shit out of stuff. Yet their ESPN division just kept driving up the price of cable with the attitude that the consumer would continue paying whatever they demanded. Bluntly, they didn't see this coming. They thought they had consumers and cable companies by the balls. "Sure, only 1 in 10 of your consumers want to see ESPN, but if you want to give him ESPN, you have to pay this much, and it's going to be subsidized by the other 9 in 10." How is that a logical business model?
Furthermore, ESPN seems to have locked themselves into these contracts without any kind of "out". If viewership dropped or whatever, ESPN would still pay.
It's a terrible spiral. These high contracts have hurt consumers, subsidized underperforming teams, funded bad athletes (in terms of ability and character) and led teams to extort municipalities for expensive stadiums (that frankly they can pay for themselves).
It's all a house of cards that's about to collapse.
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