ESPN is valued at about $30 billion, with the National Football Leagues 10 percent equity stake in the sports media giant securing an estimated fair market value of $3 billion, according to The Walt Disney Co.s latest quarterly earnings report.
Disney and the NFL closed their mega deal in the last week, giving the league its non-controlling interest, leaving Disney with 72 percent, and Hearst with 18 percent. According to the companys 10-Q, Disney will have an option to reacquire the NFLs stake in ESPN after July 2034, based on the divisions performance, in exchange for a ten-year note at70 percent of the then fair market value of the NFLs interest in ESPN. The league, meanwhile, has an option to acquire an additional 4 percent of ESPN on a similar timetable, also at 70 percent market value. The deal will see ESPN fully own NFL Network, with plans to bake it into the ESPN streaming service. The RedZone channel, meanwhile, will join Disneys linear portfolio, with Disney also planning to merge its ESPN fantasy football product with NFL Medias fantasy product. The NFL will also license games, RedZone, NFL Films programming and other content and rights to ESPN, with the sports media company also securing rights to the RedZone brand to use for other sports.
Disney is expected to integrate the NFLs media assets in the coming weeks and months.
The quarter also revealed just how vulnerable ESPN remains to the pay-TV ecosystem. All of Disneys channels, including ESPN, were dark for weeks on YouTube TV last quarter, the companys longest blackout in its history. The company disclosed a $110 million hit to operating income due to the blackout, underscoring how reliant ESPN remains to the ecosystem, even after launching its standalone streaming platform last year.










