{"id":110743,"date":"2017-08-09T00:58:17","date_gmt":"2017-08-09T04:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=110743"},"modified":"2017-08-09T00:58:42","modified_gmt":"2017-08-09T04:58:42","slug":"espn-facing-headwinds-might-still-reverse-its-slide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/08\/09\/espn-facing-headwinds-might-still-reverse-its-slide\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN, facing headwinds, might still reverse its slide"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_110744\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-110744\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/espn.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-110744\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/espn.png\" alt=\"ESPN (Photo: ESPN\/Facebook)\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/espn.png 500w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/espn-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/espn-300x300.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-110744\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">ESPN (Photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ESPN\/photos\/a.132043140175784.19935.104266592953439\/1045587505488005\/?type=1&amp;theater\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"background: white;margin: 15.0pt 0in 15.0pt 0in\"><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt;font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">NEW YORK <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;font-family: 'Open Sans','serif';color: #333333;background: white\">\u2014<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt;font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\"> Two years ago, Disney CEO Bob Iger acknowledged that ESPN, long a major Disney profit centre, was shedding subscribers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt;font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Since then, concern over ESPN&#8217;s dimming prospects have dampened investor enthusiasm for Disney itself, despite its success with theme parks, Marvel superheroes and Star Wars films.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt;font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">The big fear: ESPN might be facing long-term decline as more people quit cable or choose cheaper bundles without sports.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt;font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Over time, that could kick off a death spiral in which fewer subscribers mean less money for ESPN to use in bidding for sports rights; fewer games to air would then give more subscribers reason to quit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"background: white;margin: 15.0pt 0in 15.0pt 0in\"><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt;font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">But that gloomy outlook isn&#8217;t the only one. And Disney is readying itself for the future by buying a bigger stake in streaming service BAMTech for $1.6 billion.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK \u2014 Two years ago, Disney CEO Bob Iger acknowledged that ESPN, long a major Disney profit centre, was &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":110744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106,44],"tags":[14817],"class_list":["post-110743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","category-sports","tag-espn","mauthors-tali-arbel","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}