Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban on Thursday said ESPN being considered a drain on Disney's finances is being a "little bit blown out of proportion in the short term." Cuban: "It's just they're not going up." Cuban added the best way to watch sports remains "on traditional television." Cuban: "It doesn't buffer, it's the highest band-width, it's the highest resolution." He added, "We don't talk about, 'Hey, when it's time to watch the game, watching on a phone sucks.' Watch it on a big screen and sell that upside, that's the disconnect I think we have to solve" ("Fast Money," CNBC, 5/11). Meanwhile, Liberty Media Chair John Malone recently suggested that Disney "separate ESPN and ABC" from its movie studios and theme parks. CNBC's Mike Santoli said Malone "thinks several moves ahead and he has this very big-picture strategic view of the way all these assets are moving and where they have a proper home." Santoli: "There is some logic to it" ("Closing Bell," CNBC, 5/11).
NOT DONE YET: The Ringer's Bill Simmons said, "Reading that ESPN is done and reading that this is it and this is some turning point, clearly it's not." He added,"It was an unbelievably successful company, probably the most successful media network ever, and now it's not quite as successful. But they hired a lot of people and they had a lot of excess and they had every possible thing covered and now it seems like they're making specific choices to try to decide what to focus on, which is what most successful businesses would do." Simmons said the part that is "fascinating" is that ESPN now has to "pick and choose what sports they’re going to really care about.” Simmons: "They’re kind of stuck with baseball and it’s been really interesting to read all these people blaming" the NFL and NBA media-rights deals. Simmons: "They would do the NFL and the NBA deals again. You think they wouldn’t want to have the NBA right now? Give me a break.” The Ringer Editor-at-Large Bryan Curtis said the "only thing" that people watch live on TV is sports. Curtis said ESPN maybe "overpaid in some way for these deals, but I’m like, ‘What are you going to do?' You're going to be out of business with the NFL? You're going to be out of business with the NBA? What’s going to be on?" The Wall Street Journal's Jason Gay said the NFL and NBA are ESPN's "top two investments," so that was where they "did the least amount of cutting" among talent. Gay: "That’s a pretty clear statement about where you are going" (“The Bill Simmons Podcast,” THERINGER.com, 5/8).
