Industry Analysts Are Speculating Apple Should Purchase ESPN For $50 Billion In A Move That Would Certainly Fuck Over Every Sports Fan
Source: Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives raised eyebrows this week by declaring it a “no-brainer” for Apple to acquire ESPN from The Walt Disney Co. at a potential price of $50 billion.
The tech giant made its biggest move into live sports so far with a 10-year, $2.5 billion streaming deal with Major League Soccer a year ago, and Lionel Messi makes it look like a smarter decision with every highlight-reel goal on Apple TV+.
Apple and ESPN are “the perfect fit,” Ives told CNBC. “Cupertino is looking to go after live sports content as the golden goose. I believe it’s a matter of when — not if — ESPN and Apple get together.”
Apple would get rights to the NFL, NBA, WNBA, MLB, NHL, UFC, the PGA Tour, tennis Grand Slams, Formula 1, and college football’s Big 12 and SEC Conferences — plus ESPN’s first two Super Bowls after the 2026 and 2030 seasons.
Apple could have landed the rights to the struggling Pac-12 conference for a song. Instead, they walked away, he noted. The NFL’s “Sunday Ticket” rights were ultimately landed up by Google’s YouTube TV, and Apple’s MLB streaming deal is just for Friday night games.
This sounds like absolute hell. I'm such an Apple stan that I initially didn't hate this idea, until I thought of what that would mean for Apple TV+ and watching sports. It's already a nightmare to watch those Friday night MLB games that are Apple exclusives, and if you put everything that ESPN has rights to in the same boat, we're fucked. Also, 50 billion? I know that seems like a lot of money, but you can't tell me all of those packages included and ESPN as a whole is only worth 50 billion. The tweet saying "Apple has enough in their couch cushions to fundamentally alter the media rights landscape" as we're talking about 50 billion dollars is laugh out loud funny though. 50 billion is just a cup of coffee to those guys.
This would actually be remembered as the pinpoint moment in history that we killed off cable television too. I'm not even sure the FTC would let this go through. Monopoly like you read about. I don't claim to know shit about finances or publicly traded companies, but I looked up $AAPL just for shits and giggles while writing this and their market cap is $2.73 TRILLION dollars. Just truly unfathomable numbers. So it shouldn't be a problem to offer us a free yearly pass to watch sports on Apple with the purchase of an iPhone, right?
Whatever. Hopefully this never comes to fruition, but at least we'll have some speculation in the aim of getting some Twitter and blog clicks. And let us pray that we never have to watch the LeBron win another ring on Apple TV and not on cable television. Some things should be sacred.