Just over a year since NBCSN went off the air, there’s a belief that NBCUniversal owner Comcast could potentially be in the market to take over ownership of ESPN.
In a piece for IndieWire, Tony Maglio and Brian Welk write that among the options Disney CEO Bob Iger could consider in the future of ESPN is a swap with Comcast in exchange for that company’s remaining ownership stake in Hulu.
The IndieWire piece reported that the idea of a trade originated at a media executive conference last year. There has been speculation about what the future of The Worldwide Leader holds with Disney.
Hulu initially launched as a partnership between Disney, FOX and Comcast. Disney now controls 66% of Hulu after completing its acquisition of FOX’s entertainment assets in 2019.
But Iger in a recent earnings call said ESPN means a great deal to the company.
“ESPN is a differentiator for this company,” Iger said. “It’s the best sports brand in television. It’s one of the best sports brands in sports. It continues to create real value for us, It is going through some, obviously, challenging times because of what’s happened in linear programming.”
Iger added that there are no decisions or conversations taking place about finding a way to sell off or spin off ESPN from Disney.
“The brand of ESPN is very healthy, and the programming of ESPN is very healthy. We just have to figure out how to monetize it in a disrupting world,” he said. “That’s it, But we’re not engaged in any conversations right now or considering a spinoff of ESPN. That had been done, by the way, in my absence, and I’m told the company concluded after exploring it very carefully that it wasn’t something the company wanted to do.”
