For the first time, Disney is releasing financial data for its ESPN operations in a corporate filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Alexandra Canal at Yahoo!Finance writes that ESPN “generated more than $16 billion in revenue and $2.9 billion in operating profit in Disney’s fiscal year
2022, which ended on Oct. 1, 2022. The bulk of that revenue and profit came from its domestic business at $14.6 billion and $2.81 billion, respectively.” The filing also shows how important cable television is to ESPN’s bottom line. Canal writes, “The bulk of the sports segment revenue came from affiliate fees at $10.8 billion followed by advertising at $4.4 billion and subscription fees for ESPN+ at $1.1 billion. ESPN typically has the highest carriage fees, or fees pay-TV providers pay to network owners to carry their channels, of all basic cable networks. According to an estimate from SNL Kagan, ESPN charges pay-TV operators $8 to $9 per subscriber.” Read the Yahoo!Finance piece here.
