Another day, and another major media company is gathering significant momentum.

Roughly 24 hours after Fox reported a robust quarter financially, due in large part to success in sports broadcasting, Disney delivered very similar news. The ESPN parent company said it generated a 5% increase in revenue to $24.7 billion for its fiscal first quarter running from October to December 2024 and boosted operating income by 31% to $5.1 billion. 

Disney’s sports division, led by ESPN, was flat in revenue at $4.85 billion, but segment operating income reversed from a $103 million loss in the comparable period a year ago to a $247 million gain. The company is now projecting a 13% bump in operating income for the sports division during the current fiscal year. 

More broadly, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the improved results were further signs of a streaming-focused strategy—one that includes ESPN now having a featured tile on Disney+—bearing fruit after a difficult multiyear period that included several rounds of layoffs. 

“Our results in Q1 demonstrate our creative and financial strength, and they reflect the success of our strategic initiatives that we set in motion over the past two years,” Iger said Wednesday in a call with analysts.

The quarterly earnings report also arrived less than two weeks after news of Iger boosting his 2024 compensation package by 30% to $41.1 million.

All Things to All People

Iger received numerous questions Wednesday about ESPN’s presence in a rapidly accelerating market for sports-oriented skinny bundles and streaming services, one that involves offerings from DirecTV, Comcast, and ESPN’s own forthcoming “Flagship” service that Iger reiterated Wednesday will be a “sports fan’s dream.”

“The goal all along with ESPN is to make it as accessible as possible, and in as many ways as possible,” he said. “Some will want to consume it just through an app, some as part of the more traditional expanded basic bundle, and some will migrate in the direction of skinnier bundles, or sports bundles only. We plan to take advantage of the emergence of these bundles.”

ESPN+, now nearly seven years old, could be getting somewhat left out in that reshaping market, as subscribers fell 3% during the quarter to 24.9 million, perhaps retreating to a prior pattern of decline. 

Within that sports focus, Iger also was repeatedly queried about sharply heightened NBA rights costs in a contract renewal with the league beginning next season, particularly in the context of current viewership declines that have been a dominant storyline. 

“We obviously believe in the NBA long-term,” Iger said. “We think it’s a growth sport, We don’t really look at ratings year-to-year that carefully. We haven’t even seen half a season [this year]. We’re not distracted in any sense by what’s happening ratings-wise this season. We’re happy to have this now for 11 more years, including the Finals in 10 of those years. It is and will continue to be a marquee part of ESPN’s offering.”

Venu Post-Mortem

Like Fox on Tuesday, Disney also addressed last month’s demise of Venu Sports. Disney is much more involved in this saga, as ESPN was to provide a substantial chunk of the content for that streaming service, and Disney is now acquiring a majority stake in Fubo, which had challenged Venu’s formation. 

Disney said it will incur about $50 million in costs, to be reflected in fiscal second-quarter earnings, related to the shutdown of Venu.

“After the emergence of these skinnier bundles surfaced, Venu basically looked redundant to us,” Iger said.

Is this the beginning of the end of the Rays in the Tampa area after 27 years? It may be after St. Petersburg, Fla., mayor Ken Welch said the city is prepared to move on without the MLB club. 

Speaking Tuesday at his State of the City address, Welch said St. Petersburg has other options should the Rays walk away from a deal to build a $1.3 billion stadium and an adjacent mixed-use development in the city’s Historic Gas Plant District, and is prepared to exercise them. Both the city and Pinellas County recently approved bonding to fund $600 million of the projected stadium cost, but perceived delays in those legislative moves have introduced additional costs that the Rays say they cannot bear alone. 

“We will not pursue the deal at any cost,” Welch said. “The greatness and future of St. Pete does not depend solely on this deal, and I am confident that we have given this endeavor our very best effort. It’s an effort and a process we can all be proud of.”

Welch’s comments highlight further the unique and particularly fraught nature of the Rays stadium deal. Even after the long-sought-after approvals for the public bonding, there is not a finalized agreement to build the stadium. The Rays have until March 31 to meet certain logistical benchmarks that will unlock the public money. Up to this point, though, team owner Stu Sternberg has only said, “We’ll decide how we want to proceed at that point, well before that point.”

That murky-at-best position has frustrated many local leaders.

“It’s not like we both haven’t spent a lot of time talking about what the right deal would be, and so now to say, ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ I think it would undermine any efforts moving forward,” Welch said.

Inherent Conflict

The stadium debate also exposes a mix of local priorities that are frequently at odds with each other. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has been highly invested in resolving the Rays’ situation, including spending considerable time in the Tampa area late last year to help secure votes for the bonds. The league is also reluctant to give up what is now the country’s No. 11 media market, and one continuing to see strong population growth. 

The Tampa area, however, is continuing a difficult recovery from multiple large-scale hurricanes in recent years, with public leaders facing constant questioning about the use of taxpayer funds for a stadium in the midst of that rebuilding effort.

“These storms are undeniable evidence of our new reality,” Welch said. “Extreme weather and climate change will affect our quality of life and our ability to provide and maintain critical services.”

The broader discussions about a new stadium also are running parallel to shorter-term considerations around repairs to the hurricane-damaged Tropicana Field, and the Rays’ temporary stay at George M. Steinbrenner Field, the spring training home of the Yankees.

A whirlwind WNBA free agency has finally slowed down with many of the league’s biggest names finding new homes. Brittney Griner, Satou Sabally, and Kelsey Plum are just a few of the multiple-time All-Stars who will don new jerseys next season.

However, the 2025 offseason may only be a stopgap for what’s to come next year. As the league prepares for a new CBA and the influx of revenue from an 11-year, $2.2 billion media-rights deal that kicks in next season, WNBA players have agreed to contracts that will allow them to be free agents in 2026.

It won’t just be a few names available. It will be the majority of the league. 

Of the 24 players who made the All-Star Game last year, 21 (87.5%) will be unrestricted free agents next year (including Diana Taurasi, who has yet to sign a contract for next season and is mulling retirement). The list of 2026 free agents includes multiple-time MVP winners A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart, who admitted before last year’s Finals that she was targeting free agency in 2026 because of the uncertainty surrounding the CBA and TV deal.

There is a lot of unknown about what will happen in 2026, including how much the new CBA will change the contracts of players, which last season ranged from around $64,000 to $250,000 per year. The $200 million annual revenue from the new media-rights deal is more than three times the league’s current deal.

However, the NBA saw an exponential increase in its media-rights deal in 2016 that caused about a 35% increase in its salary cap that year. Players lucky enough to be free agents that offseason received relatively large contracts, and the added cap space was a key reason why the Warriors were infamously able to acquire Kevin Durant.

Women’s National Basketball Players Association executive director Terri Jackson told Front Office Sports that the players are working to ensure any changes will also help the league thrive in the long term.

“The players want to make sure that what we create for this league is sustainable and does not create an imbalance,” Jackson said ahead of the debut of Unrivaled in Miami last month. “The implementation of that has to address everyone in a holistic way.”

It’s also unclear whether the CBA will change the contracts of those on rookie deals. The three 2024 All-Stars who will not be free agents next year are Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Aliyah Boston—all of whom are still on their rookie contracts. Paige Bueckers, who is expected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 draft, will also be on her rookie deal—unless she chooses to stay another year in college.

—FOS reporter Margaret Fleming contributed reporting.