Everyone's waking up to fact The Atlantic points out
"ESPN’s cable channels collect more than $5 a month from each of the nearly 100 million American households that subscribe to pay-TV, more than any other channel by far. That comes to about $6.5 billion in revenue, without even considering advertising. With an estimated value between $40 billion and $60 billion, ESPN is at least 20 times bigger than the New York Times Company, or five times bigger than News Corp. As a single asset, ESPN could be worth as much as all the other parts of its majority owner, the Walt Disney Company, combined."
The New York Times on how ESPN has reshaped college football
"Far beyond televising games, ESPN has become the chief impresario of college football. By infusing the sport with billions of dollars it pays for television rights — more than $10 billion on college football in the last five years alone — ESPN has become both puppet-master and kingmaker, arranging games, setting schedules and bestowing the gift of nationwide exposure on its chosen universities, players and coaches."
And it's not just going after the sports fan - it's actually attracting a number of geeks with its focus on analytics as in the sponsorship of the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics event
"Aside from the general sponsorship (every Sloan Conference badge, pamphlet and logo was meticulously emblazoned with a reminder: "Presented by ESPN"), the company brought along 189 registered attendees to the event, ranging from low-level data scientists and researchers to president John Skipper and evp John Walsh, who could be seen wandering the halls in a cowboy hat. All conference attendees were treated to a complimentary issue of ESPN The Magazine's 2nd annual analytics issue, a rare company celebration of data and charts, the timing of which was no mere coincidence. During the show, ESPN's message was painfully obvious: See, you nerds, we're here! We're listening!"
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