Losing subscribers
ESPN lost eight million cable and satellite subscribers last year (2021). The company finished 2021 with roughly 75 million total subscribers.
This represented a 10% reduction in ESPN’s overall subscriber base with an average loss of nearly 22,000 people a day. The total decline is now over 100 million subscribers from just over a decade ago.
First, let’s start with ESPN’s basic business — ESPN charges every ESPN subscriber around $10 a month in 2022 for a cable and satellite subscription across all ESPN cable properties, with the lion’s share of that cost coming from ESPN itself.
That $10 a month, multiplied by 12, means each and every single one of you reading this right now who has an ESPN subscription is paying the company roughly $120 a year. ESPN also gets money for ESPN2, ESPNU, and the SEC Network, but these are comparatively smaller ventures with much less revenue being produced than ESPN. (According to the most recent SNL Kagan estimates there are roughly 75 million ESPN2 subscribers, 54.9 million ESPNU subscribers, and 51.2 million SEC Network subscribers.)
Content lacking
ESPN has struggled for many years to find new, compelling content to draw in new viewers while keeping its existing viewers engaged. These efforts have yielded mixed results. Their 30 for 30…
