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These are uneasy days in Bristol. ESPN has shed 40 percent of its cable and satellite subscribers over the past decade, declining from 100 million households to 60 million, and the direct-to-consumer service that will make up for only a fraction of those losses is not yet two years old. Monday Night Football, for which the company pays $2.7 billion a year to the NFL in rights fees, could soon get a lot more expensive. There’s also the persistent rumor that the new guy, Disney C.E.O Josh D’Amaro, will spin the business out of the parentco. Now the mood has been further unsettled by whispers of imminent layoffs.
