After an investor urged Disney to sell ESPN, the company’s Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy essentially nixed the idea during comments at a media conference.
“As a management team, we always look at our assets and look at, ‘Is our portfolio made up of the right group of assets? Are we leveraging things across the business so it’s more than just a standalone company barnacled onto a larger company?’” McCarthy said. “ESPN is a great business and it is fully integrated into how we think about delivering entertainment [and] compelling content to customers.
“We are always looking at, ‘Are there other alternatives, where we would be better off doing something different.’ And we have gone down that road very deliberately and rigorously with my finance team and strategy team…We look at ESPN as being part of our overall portfolio.”
Daniel Loeb of Third Point increased his stake in Disney in August and sent a letter to Disney CEO Bob Chapek saying “ESPN would have greater flexibility to pursue business initiatives that may be more difficult as a part of Disney, such as sports betting”. Loeb also said the company needed to institute cost cuts and accelerate a takeover of streaming platform Hulu.
In response, Chapek said “our sports fans that are under 30 absolutely require this type of utility”, in regards to sports betting. ESPN announced a litany of sports betting moves yesterday, with expanded roles for sports betting analysts and increased sports betting content.
