ESPN is having a tough year when it comes to subscribers. Yup ESPN, often seen as a bellwether for how cable is doing, is down big on subscribers.
According to 2016 Nielsen data ESPN lost over 1.5 million subscribers in just four months and over the last three years ESPN lost over 10 million subscribers. That is an average of 10,400 people canceling cable TV every single day over the last three years.
This is just for the main ESPN channel. ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, etc., are not even counted in this number so loses may have even been greater as people downgrade their cable packages.
Now ESPN still has a ton of subscribers with over 89 million current subscribers to the main ESPN channel; however, this is down from almost 100 million subscribers just a few years ago. But the really scary part for ESPN is the $840 million a year they are no longer receiving.
Money talks and as people take their money to newer ways to watch TV it is no surprise that we have started to see ESPN on services such as Sling TV that now offer ESPN with no contract or cable company and now even ESPN is talking about a standalone ESPN streaming service.
This is also just the start of the cord cutting growth. As more people cut the cord more people find out it is possible.
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