ESPN posts
FeedPosted Oct 17th 2010 2:40PM by Sheldon Liber (RSS feed)
Filed under: Bad News, Management, Rants and Raves, Competitive Strategy, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Entrepreneurs, Chasing Value™
If the reigning NBA Most Valuable Player, LeBron James, was a stock, would you find it was of any value as an investment? From my perspective, it would not be, unless Mr. James were to make some key moves off the court to mirror his talent on the court. The first thing I would tell him is to SHUT UP!
He needs to recognize that it is only natural for people in Cleveland to feel betrayed after years of support and adulation ended in a sputter, with nothing to fill the void. It is only natural for them to feel even worse after the self-serving arrogant way they were informed during a totally over-the-top television special.
Continue reading Sunday Funnies: Would You Invest in LeBron James?
Posted Apr 22nd 2010 5:00PM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Columns, Business of Sports

Tonight is the night that NFL fans the world over treat as Christmas: the NFL Draft. Year after year, hopeful NFL fans tune in to the draft to see which player their chosen team will draft. When the pick is made, network talking heads, sports radio hosts, bloggers, and casual sports fans will issue their opinions on the team's new pick, with some teams declared winners and some declared losers.
One thing is certain: the two big winners will be the NFL Network and ESPN. These two networks are the sole television broadcast outlets for the Draft (aside from NFL.com, where you will be able to watch the NFL Network's coverage), and there are some major changes to the broadcast this year.
Continue reading JockStocks: The Big Winner in Tonight's NFL Draft? ESPN and the NFL Network
Posted Feb 10th 2010 1:00PM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Walt Disney (DIS)
I found an interesting article stating that ABC affiliates are rather upset that they are losing sports to ESPN. To set up the situation, ESPN is allowed to choose sports from ABC to air because ESPN took control of ABC sports back in 2006. Recently, it was announced that ESPN will take eight NASCAR races off ABC to run on ESPN, the Rose Bowl starting in 2011, and the British Open (golf tournament) starting this year.
The loss of the NASCAR races will have a significant impact in the southern U.S., as the sport's popularity will pull viewers away from the local ABC affiliate to ESPN. This move will cost the ABC affiliates significant ad revenue as some Lifetime-style movie or infomercials will take the place of the departed races.
Continue reading JockStocks: ESPN Stealing Programming from Local Affiliates?
Posted Jan 8th 2010 3:45PM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Columns, Business of Sports
While official ratings numbers from Thursday's national championship game between the Texas Longhorn and Alabama Crimson Tide football teams have yet to be released, I have a bad feeling that they will not be as good as ESPN hopes. Raise your hand if you tuned out after the Crimson Tide rolled to a 24-6 first-half lead and Texas was struggling with a freshman back-up quarterback at the helm. I would have my hand up right now, but it is awfully tough to type with one hand.
While the game promised to be good at the start, and actually had a relatively decent ending (from what I hear, unless you think this was the highlight of the night), I have a feeling that we will find out that the ratings for this game were lower than past couple of years. I know that I checked in on the game first thing this morning, only to find out that the finish was a bit closer than I expected, but I went to bed last night not worried that I was missing the last half of the BCS (or is it BS?) championship game.
Continue reading JockStocks: The Real Loser in the BCS National Championship Game May Be the Networks
Posted Nov 19th 2009 3:10PM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Columns, Business of Sports
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.
Continue reading JockStocks: Tailgating policies won't affect 'real' fans
Posted Aug 30th 2009 6:10PM by Tom Taulli (RSS feed)
Filed under: Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Starbucks (SBUX), Walt Disney (DIS), Small Business
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).
Continue reading Entrepreneur's Journal: Learn from the mega success of ESPN
Posted Aug 21st 2009 2:50PM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Rants and Raves, Columns, Business of Sports

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.
Continue reading JockStocks: How to fix ESPN
Posted Mar 31st 2009 12:10AM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Internet, Google (GOOG), General Electric (GE), Walt Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA), News Corp'B' (NWS), Media World
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.
Continue reading YouTube traps the Mouse -- who benefits the most?
Posted Feb 2nd 2009 8:50AM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Forecasts, General Electric (GE), Time Warner (TWX), Walt Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA), CBS Corp 'B' (CBS), News Corp'B' (NWS)
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.
Continue reading Earnings preview: Will Disney deliver the magic?
Posted Dec 10th 2008 3:03PM by Zac Bissonnette (RSS feed)
Filed under: Business of Sports
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.
Posted Aug 2nd 2008 3:40PM by Trey Thoelcke (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, General Motors (GM), Motorola (MOT), Walt Disney (DIS), Sony Corp ADR (SNE), CBS Corp 'B' (CBS), , Kellogg Co (K), Verizon Communications (VZ), Office Depot (ODP), , Electronic Arts (ERTS)
Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:
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.
Posted Jul 30th 2008 5:27PM by Jonathan Berr (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Products and Services, Walt Disney (DIS)
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.
Posted May 28th 2008 5:44PM by Jonathan Berr (RSS feed)
Filed under: Marketing and Advertising, Walt Disney (DIS), News Corp'B' (NWS), Business of Sports

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.
Continue reading Lessons for investors in the woes of the New York Yankees and Mets
Next Page >