Disney is looking to sell its TV assets. Bob Iger built Disney into a top entertainment company by acquiring Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm. Now he’s looking to downsize in a big way. Some analysts and pundits think that Apple, with its focus on sports deals for Apple TV+, may be eyeing Disney’s ESPN.
[There’s] scuttlebutt around Silicon Valley about the possibility of Apple buying a Disney asset if it becomes available, with a specific eye on ESPN.
From my viewpoint, doing aggressive deals with the top professional sports bodies to carry major league sports programs and teams in regions outside the U.S. makes more sense and is easier to manage.
Apple has proven that owning things like ESPN or Disney is not in its best interests. One could argue that ESPN and its subscription-based sports channel could make sense, although licensing sports content aligns more with Apple’s ultimate business objectives… I would be stunned if Apple does buy ESPN. Apple is probably grappling with the buy vs. license issue on this and other potential companies for sale. Historically, except for Beat’s $3 billion purchase, Apple mostly buys small companies and associated technology that could enhance and impact Apple hardware, apps and services.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote on April 4th:
Tim Cook has shown no appetite for mega acquisitions… Apple’s largest acquisition ever occurred in 2014, when the company acquired Beats Electronics for a mere $3 billion, a relatively paltry drop in the bucket (in Apple’s last-reported quarter, the company posted revenue of $117.2 billion. Apple’s revenue for calendar 2022 was $387.537 billion).
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It seems like Apple is not interested in content deals where it can’t get simple worldwide rights.
Buying ESPN is like saying you want to start a ‘regional’ airline, and you buy a fleet of 747s . . . I can’t even imagine what the production costs are for a legacy media company like that. There are YouTube sports shows that get more views than an episode of SportsCenter, at 1/10000 of the production cost.
Thankful that Apple has no interest. ESPN has turned into a bunch of overpaid talking heads who just espouse opinions with no effort to investigate or provide support for such opinions. The woke agenda of ESPN is largely turning people off and so they turn off ESPN. Haven’t watched it in over a year.
How about Apple buying a sports team ie. a basketball team for ex?