The idea of Disney selling a stake in ESPN — or even the majority of the network — has been one of the hottest topics in sports media this year. 

However, the move may not be as certain as previously thought.

ESPN has an estimated sale value of $24 billion, and Disney has confirmed discussions with several entities about an equity partnership in the sports channel. Sources previously told Front Office Sports that talks with the NFL and NBA as potential ESPN buyers had been heating up.

During a companywide town hall on Tuesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that financial partners for ESPN’s future plans are not mandatory. “We could go at it alone,” Iger said. “We are fully prepared to do that. It would be a little more challenging if we did.” Iger did reiterate that Disney has been speaking to sports leagues and tech companies.

Iger also took exception to the reaction and fallout from his comments in July that he was open to selling major assets like ESPN, as well as other crucial parts of Disney’s business: “I did not think everyone would run with a story that everything is being sold, which is not the case.”

ESPN’s Streaming Future

Still in the works are plans to make the flagship ESPN channel available via a new direct-to-consumer streaming option no later than 2025.

“We don’t just want to flip the switch,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said. “We don’t want to just move our networks over and make them available over the top without significant product enhancements.” Pitaro was referring to special features like advanced stats and fantasy sports and sports betting integrations. 

A price point is still being determined, Iger said.

Tennis’s Grand Slam tournaments are mulling over a massive restructuring that could not only reshape the landscape of the major pro game, but create a windfall for the sport in the process. 

Each of the four Grand Slams is looking to partner with other top tournaments to create a premium tour somewhat similar to that of Formula 1, according to The Athletic. Such a move would represent perhaps the largest overhaul of the sport’s competitive structure since the formation of the ATP Tour in the early 1990s. 

The move seeks to achieve several critical goals — and chief among them, unsurprisingly, is money. A more collective media rights package would allow a winning bidder to be the home of most, if not all, top-flight tennis and would almost certainly lead to more aggregate dollars than the currently divided rights. A similar dynamic would likely exist for sponsorship, too. 

Such a radical shift, however, would require time to sync up the various rights, as well as striking agreements on revenue sharing among the tournaments and governing bodies. A plan could be ready for formal presentation to various stakeholders by the Australian Open in January.

A more streamlined competitive schedule would guard against player fatigue and be easier for fans to follow — a key consideration as leaders within the sport look to elevate top events outside the Grand Slams.

“We want to grow our premium product, and that’s a fact that we’ve been very vocal about,” Andrea Gaudenzi, ATP Tour CEO, told a group of journalists recently in Italy. “For the sport, closing the gap between the Masters and the Slams is good for everybody. Now, there is a very big gap.”

Lessons Learned

A large-scale commercial union within tennis is also designed to protect the sport from the type of disruption unfolding in golf, as seen with the still-unsettled merger between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour. 

The Saudi-backed PIF, however, could still be involved in this new venture given its immense resources, though in this case such a deal would be pushed through more proactively than its golf counterpart.

The NHL is the latest major U.S. sports property to recognize a growing problem with its midseason All-Star Game — and the league is doing something about it.

Closely following the NFL’s move to create the Pro Bowl Games and the NBA’s shift back to a traditional, conference-based All-Star Game, the NHL is scrapping the division-based All-Star format it has used since 2016.

In its place will be a player-led draft system previously used in 2011-12 and 2015. 

Notably, this player-based structure is very similar to what the NBA is now jettisoning. But in each instance, the leagues are looking to find a competitive format for midseason showcases that restores some lost excitement — and boosts broadly declining viewership.

The NHL actually saw a 31% increase in its All-Star Game viewership on ESPN last season, but the game’s average audience of nearly 1.5 million viewers was still down by more than a third compared to 2017. 

The new format for the 2024 NHL All-Star Game in Toronto is also part of a newly enlarged, three-day event weekend, one that will also include a 3-on-3 showcase of players from the newly formed PWHL, which the NHL is supporting. 

“We had to make it bigger and better,” said NHL chief content officer Steve Mayer to the Canadian Press. “We always had thoughts about doing other events.”

The 2024 NHL All-Star weekend is set for Feb. 1-3.

The controversy surrounding Sports Illustrated and its alleged use of artificial intelligence to develop content and writer profiles is heightening tensions with a key employee union, as well as creating new stress within the venerable outlet’s complex ownership structure. 

A report from Futurism claims that SI routinely attributed the writing of articles to authors who don’t exist and used AI-generated pictures to give those fake authors a visual presence. The story strongly suggests that SI may have even used AI to generate articles.

SI was quick to dismiss the report as only relating to licensed content of product reviews — and insisted those articles were written and edited by humans. The company did, however, acknowledge that the AdVon Commerce-created content did use pseudonyms, and the partnership has now been terminated.

The Sports Illustrated Union, which represents the outlet’s writers, is pressing for answers, saying it is demanding a full accounting from SI publisher Arena Group on what “exactly has been published under the SI name” using artificial intelligence, as well as a commitment to “adhering to basic journalistic standards, including not publishing computer-written stories by fake people.”

“It sucks. It f—ing sucks,” tweeted former SI staffer and noted author Jeff Pearlman. “SI was the land of legends. Deford and Jenkins and Hoffer and Rushin. [Some] of the greatest sports writers of the past century. But this is what we’ve done with the continued corporatization of media. These companies don’t care about content. At all. It’s entirely clicks and ads and ads and clicks.”

Ownership Stress

For many years a flagship brand within the former Time Inc., SI now exists in a layered ownership and operating structure.

The brand is owned by Authentic Brands Group, a brand management company that also owns Reebok and many other entities, and actively partners with outside entities to license and merchandise those brands.

Arena Group, which also oversees brands such as The Hockey News and Athlon Sports, holds such a relationship with ABG for SI, and acts as the outlet’s publisher. Shares in Arena Group ended Tuesday trading down 27%, as investors were clearly alarmed by the claims. The stock has dropped 80% since the start of the year.

Even before this latest incident, a potential transfer in control of Arena Group has been the subject of repeated rumors.