ESPN to Fire Hundreds
ESPN, the self-proclaimed worldwide leader in sports, will lay off a large number of employees.
The company will lay off 4 percent of its 8,000 strong workforce, or 350 people, according to a report from Bloomberg. The layoffs have not been publicly announced and the people who will lose their jobs will find out tomorrow morning.
The Bristol-based firm's announcement comes after the Disney corporation, which owns ESPN, said that the performance of its cable networks was not meeting company expectations.
ESPN gets the highest price per customer of all the basic cable channels, meaning that it accounts for the majority of a person's basic cable bill. In the last four years, the company has lost about 1 million subscribers annually, or 4 million paying customers.
A major factor in the high price of ESPN, and cable television generally, is the large fees that sports events like the Super Bowl, or Olympics, can demand from broadcasters because of their guaranteed viewership and lucrative sponsorships.
The major players in broadcast television have spent $149 billion on sports broadcasting rights for 2015 and into the future. Of that $149 billion, Disney has paid $44.2 billion, with the largest sources being for the right to broadcast NBA games and the NFL's Monday Night Football program.
