You know, it figures that this would be the year that I give up my Bengals season tickets. I suffered through three years of horrid football and decided that I was not going to renew my tickets for financial reasons or as a protest against the team's (mis)management in the past 19 years.

That said, one reason that did not attribute to my giving up the tickets was the NFL's new tailgating rules. In an article Darren Rovell put on Twitter this morning (featured in USAToday), a New York Jets fan says that the tailgating rules (that limit tailgating to 3.5 hours before kickoff) may be the "final nail" that forces him to give up his season tickets. The new tailgating rules are supposed to help "crack down on drunken and disruptive fans" by limiting the time fans can tailgate.

Since its start in 1979, ESPN has grown at a rapid clip -- turning into the most powerful brand in sports media. With close to 100 million subscribers, the company has a variety of channels (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPNU, ESPN Classic, and so on), a magazine, stores, a radio channel, restaurants, books, and websites. If considered a standalone company -- it is now 80% owned by Disney (NYSE: DIS) -- it would probably have a valuation above $20 billion.

Despite all the success, the ESPN story has had little coverage, unlike many of the other great companies of the past generation such as Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).

So, how would I fix ESPN? There is a reason I am talking about this topic today. My idea was sparked by an interview conducted by Darren Rovell with ESPN The Magazine's general manager Gary Hoenig. The interview focused on a new promotion that offers the magazine and ESPN.com's pay site (Insider) for a year for $1. The offer is for current subscribers only, requires you to sign up for auto pay on credit card, and is one heck of a deal. This is actually a good move, because the customers should realize how nice both of these subscriptions are (I have had the magazine, and it is decent) and pony up the money for subscriptions when the time comes. I have never used the Insider, but it boasts extra knowledge for subscribers, and the subscription wall has cost me some valuable fantasy football knowledge in the past.

This afternoon,the Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) is going to be reporting its fiscal third quarter earnings.

Analysts are expecting to see the company hit hard by the current recession, with all segments of the company's business have felt the impact.

It's all over the news. Media conglomerate Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube have entered into a deal for the former to supply content to the latter. Not for free, of course. There will be an ad-revenue-sharing model in place. The transaction calls for short-form content at first. This will be derived from ABC and ESPN properties. I assume that, if the short-form stuff works, then long-form stuff will follow pretty soon.

According to Julia Boorstin at CNBC, Disney will have full authority over the ad sales. That's good for shareholders of Disney. But YouTube wins a lot here, too. Google paid quite a bit of money to acquire the platform, and so far, monetization of the user-generated model has not been going smoothly.

YouTube needs to sign deals like these to legitimize its presence. It doesn't want to be known simply as the Cyberland of Copyright Infringement, a wicked, evil digital kingdom where content is stolen, used, and abused. That's how Viacom (NYSE: VIA) sees the site. It has engaged litigation against the company.

Disney (NYSE: DIS) will be reporting earnings for the fiscal first quarter Tuesday after the market close. There shouldn't be any growth in the bottom line. Of course, no one should be surprised by that. After all, this is Disney we're talking about, a company which provides goods and services that can easily be cut out of any consumer budget. Remember, conservation of cash is becoming quite the fad.

According to this source, Disney may earn $0.52 per share.That would represent a contraction of $0.11, or 17%. The big question is whether or not Disney will miss. If it does, investors won't be happy, because it'll be the second miss in a row. Wall Street was previously accustomed to seeing the Mouse religiously beat the analysts at their holy game. But Q4 changed the story.

The Kansas City Star reports that the Arena Football League will cancel its 2009 season. Pete Likens, the director of communications for the Kansas City Brigade, told the newspaper that the players union agreed to the move last night and the owners will hold a final vote later today: "It's pretty much a done deal to suspend the 2009 season and work toward a single entity-league. We plan to start up again in 2010."

In 2006, the league sold a stake to ESPN and hoped that the increased television time would put it on solid financial footing, but clearly that didn't happen. The AFL had reportedly been working on a deal to sell a 40% stake to a private equity firm back in October in exchange for $100 million, but that didn't happen. The league has been without a commissioner since July.

The league has apparently decided that its survival will depend on a transition to a single-entity ownership structure, where a small group of investors own the league as a whole. Currently, the league is operated similar to the way the NFL is, with individual franchisees owning each team.

Bored NFL fans will now have to find something more productive to do with their summers.

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Akamai Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) beat estimates but shares fell to a new 52-week low.
• Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) posted better-than-expected Q2 results and listed its guidance.
• CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) issued a lackluster Q2 earnings report and will buy back shares.
• Concur Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: CNQR) Q3 revenues spiked, and it announced a big deal.
• Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: EK) swung to a Q2 profit due to a tax refund, but revenue growth was minimal.
• Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) narrowed its loss in Q1 as revenue more than doubled.
• First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) easily beat analysts' expectations and raised its guidance.
• General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) posted a bigger-than-expected Q2 loss on massive charges.
• Kellogg Co. (NYSE: K) posted solid Q2 results on price increases, and raised its guidance.
• Lazard Ltd. (NYSE: LAZ) reported healthy Q2 results on merger and restructuring deals.
• Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MER) warned of a $5.7 billion write-down in the third quarter.
• Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) posted breakeven earnings while revenue fell but beat estimates.
• Office Depot Inc. (NYSE: ODP) reported a Q2 loss due to slower sales, sending shares lower.
• Siemens (NYSE: SI) said that Q3 earnings fell from a one-time gain last year.
• Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) Q1 profits tumbled on lower handset and flat-panel TV sales.
• Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) forecast a loss in this quarter due to weakness in the financial sector.
• Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) had better-than-expected Q2 results on growth in wireless.
• Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) reported strong Q3 results that easily beat Wall Street expectations.
• Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) posted better-than-expected Q2 profit on theme park and ESPN strength.

For more highlights from this week, see: Exxon, Starbucks, Viacom, Comcast, Sirius, Kraft and others

Upcoming quarterly reports include Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE: ADM), Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), Jack-in-the-Box (NYSE: JBX), Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI), Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), and Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI).

Visit AOL Money & Finance for more earnings coverage.

Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) continues to defy skeptics, posting second-quarter profit that beat Wall Street expectations thanks to fee increases at ESPN and a robust business at the theme parks.

Net income at the second-largest media company rose 9% to $1.28 billion, or 66 cents a share, from $1.18 billion, or 57 cents, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, profit was 62 cents, two cents better than Wall Street forecasts, according to Bloomberg News. Sales rose 2.1% to $9.24 billion. The stock, though, is down in after-hours trading for reasons that are not clear.

Among the highlights:

• Media Networks revenue for the quarter increased 8% to $4.1 billion and segment operating income increased 9% to $1.5 billion helped by growth at ESPN and the Disney Chanel.
  
• Parks and Resorts revenue increased 5% to $3.0 billion and segment operating income increased 3% to $641 million amid higher ticket prices and guest spending at Walt Disney World.
• Studio entertainment and consumer products showed declines amid lower box office receipts and the disappointing performance of "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian."

Disney has so many ways of making money that if one business falters, the others take up the slack. That's why it remains the best managed of any media company and the one stock in the sector that remains a buy.

Baseball is not always a perfect metaphor for life, but it is a good one for investing.

Good teams know how to find value where others may not see it. Spending gobs of money on expensive players does not always pan out and successful companies do the little things well. There is no better illustration of this than the current sad state of the New York Mets and New York Yankees.

Despite investing more money than the GDP of some small, developing countries on high-priced talent, the New York Mets and New York Yankees are being outperformed by teams from the vast baseball wasteland known as Florida. The pain being felt by New York sports fans pales in comparison to the anguish in the executive offices of Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS)'s ESPN and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS)'s Fox Sports, which spent big bucks tor the rights to broadcast baseball games. I bet ESPN and Fox ad sales representatives would break out in a cold sweat at the thought of an all-Florida World Series.

What's ironic is that the people in Florida don't seem to like baseball. More than 80,000 people showed up to watch the football games of powerhouses University of Florida and Florida State in 2006. Last year, the American League Rays attracted an average of 17,148 fans to their games and the NL Marlins drew 16,919, according to the Baseball Almanac. That's roughly a third of the 52,739 who went to see the Yankees or the 47,579 who went to watch the Mets.

The house that Mouse built roared like the MGM lion.

Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) today reported better-than-expected fiscal first quarter results, helped by gains from its cable TV networks and theme parks. Shares, down almost 15% over the past year, rose in after-hours trading.

Net income was $1.25 billion, or 63 cents a share, compared with $1.7 billion, or 79 cents, a year earlier, beating the 52-cent consensus forecast of Wall Street analysts. Sales rose 9.1% to $10.45 billion, surpassing Wall Street forecasts of $10.1 billion.

Particularly noteworthy was the performance of the company's Parks and Resorts business. Revenue surged 11% to $2.8 billion while operating income jumped 25% to $505 million. Walt Disney World in Florida reported increased guest spending, attendance and hotel occupancy. Overseas visitors lured by the cheap dollar probably accounted for at least some of this performance.

Rising affiliate fees and advertising sales pushed up sales at Disney's Media Networks business by 10% to $4.17 billion and operating income by 28% to $908 million. Consumer products, the smallest business, saw revenue rise 29% to $870 million and operating income by 38% to $322 million. The only laggard was Studio Entertainment which had flat revenue and saw operating income drop by 15% to $514 million because of a decline in DVD sales. These sorts of declines in the entertainment business are not unusual because of the literal hit or miss nature of the business.

Though Disney is far from recession-proof, it probably will weather any economic downturn better than its peers.

Shares of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS), along with the other media conglomerates, have been pummeled this year amid concerns about slowing advertising sales and the Hollywood writers' strike. Though the declines are understandable for other companies, such as Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), they are overblown in the case of the house built by Mickey.

For one thing, the weak dollar makes Disney's resorts, particularly Florida's Walt Disney World, attractive for visitors from overseas. About 2.7 million of the 45.1 million in visitors to the Orlando area -- where Disney World is based -- come from overseas. About 53% of them came from Western Europe and 26% came from Canada, according to the Orlando Convention and Visitors Bureau. It would stand to reason that some of the drop off in domestic visitors could be made up from people from outside the U.S.

The Weather Channel, held by family-owned Landmark Communications of Virginia, is being auctioned off along with the rest of Landmark, and could fetch $5 billion. A number of public companies may have an interest. According to The New York Times, firms looking at the property include Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and General Electric (NYSE: GE).

The Weather Channel is attractive for two reasons. The first is that there are very few large, independent cable networks. Most, including CNN, CNBC, ESPN, and MTV, are already owned by media giants. The chance to pick up another large advertising-supported 24-hour product should be very attractive.

The second tremendous selling point is that weather.com, the online arm of the company, is one of the most-visited sites in the U.S. In November, comScore ranked it as the 16th most-visited website, with 34.1 million unique visitors. That puts it ahead of ESPN.com, CBS.com, and the Viacom (NYSE: VIA) digital properties.

The Weather Channel is a rare prize. The bidding should be spirited.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

With the newspaper industry in decline and big layoffs at a lot of big newspapers, this is a tough time to be a journalist. But someone forgot to tell that to the elite sportswriters who, according to The New York Times, are receiving offers of double or triple what they earned at newspapers to write for Yahoo! Sports (NASDAQ: YHOO) and ESPN. Even Sports Illustrated lost star columnist Rick Reilly to ESPN -- for a reported $3 million per year.

The Times quotes sports agent Leigh Steinberg: "It's the exact same model as what happened to athletes. We're seeing free agency for sports journalists."

In spite of all the complaining and gnashing of teeth about the decline of journalism, I would argue that the internet is the best thing that has happened to the industry in a long time. The rise of aggregators and syndication has probably created a decline in the number of reporter jobs available -- but less duplication of efforts is good.

This post is part of our Money Face-Offs feature. Let us know who you think comes out ahead in this head-to-head match-up, and check out our other Money Face-Off posts.

Celebrities -- they're more than superior human beings, they're money-making machines. If these celebrities were stocks, which would be the shrewd buy?

Tiger Woods, unarguably the world's greatest golfer, or David Beckham, the world's best-know soccer player -- in which would you invest?

The industry that is Tiger has shown consistent growth in earnings, with PGA winnings in his first 13 years as a pro exceeding $70 million. His presence in a golf tournament boosts television ratings by 50% or more. He almost single-handedly established Nike in the golf equipment world. He holds the #5 place in Forbes' Celebrity 100 and was #2 in press clippings in 2005. Nike (NYSE: NKE), Buick (NYSE: GM), American Express (NYSE: AXP), Accenture, Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Tag Heuer are among the companies that shovel buckets of cash his way in return for his endorsement.

David Beckham is no slouch in the cash category, either. The Times estimates the soccer star brings in a cool $40+ million for endorsements, including Adidas, ESPN, and Motorola (NYSE: MOT). Even in soccer-lite America, he has 51.9% recognition, more than twice that of NBA MVP Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs.