Earlier this week, a CNBC report claimed a potential merger between Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery was off the table after both companies saw their stock prices hit 52-week lows. Former ESPN President John Skipper believes that while the talks may have ended, potential mergers between top companies are still a definite possibility.
While speaking on the Sporting Class podcast, Skipper shared his feeling that companies will continue to explore mergers in the near future.
“There still has to be consolidation,” Skipper said, bluntly. “It’s a game of musical chairs and they’re not going to be enough chairs for all the companies that exist right now to make significant profits.”
Despite talks between Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery taking place, John Skipper shared his belief that there was like a different landing spot for some of the most sought-after assets.
“I actually would regard it more likely that NBC/Comcast takes some of the assets from CBS/Showtime,” posited Skipper. “In any sort of pecking order, they’re pretty far down in the pecking order. And they’re further down than you’d want to be.
“You don’t want to be the ninth — I don’t know if their ninth, I don’t know if they’re sixth or fifth or fourth or ninth, but they are not first, second, third, fourth or fifth — in terms of the size of company.”
