ESPN, the popular sports channel, is 80% owned by Disney and constitutes 23% of the Trefis price estimate for Disney’s stock. ESPN makes money primarily by charging fees to cable and satellite operators (e.g. Comcast, Time Warner, DirecTV) for each subscriber that receives ESPN programming.
We estimate that ~100 million US households currently receive ESPN through their cable or satellite TV providers and that ESPN charges $3.10 per month for each subscriber. ESPN’s fees are the highest of any channel and are 3x the next highest fee which is charged by TNT.
Within Disney’s content on our platform, you can see how sensitive Disney’s stock price is to changes in ESPN Fee per Subscriber. You can also plot the fees charged by other Disney owned channels such as ABC Family, A&E and Lifetime.
