Still no internet/TV. Still no sign of Comcast trucks. Nor is Comcast willing to say how much longer the outage will last–today is Day 17. The whole neighborhood is switching to FIOS.
This is, of course, a trivial issue when compared with the devastation in low-lying areas of Long Island or with the low-income housing in NYC that still has no power (but whose residents are still being charged full rent–rebates to come in January???).
This post is prompted by a reader’s question about ESPN. It also addresses some assumptions I’m making about ESPN in saying I think DIS will be a good relative performer over the coming year.
limits to what I know
I’m very comfortable as an investor that I know more than I really need to about how the Disney part of DIS works. I think I know enough about ESPN, too.
This is an important distinction, however. In my mind–if nowhere else–there’s an unresolved question about the long-term growth prospects for ESPN. I don’t think this is a near-term issue. I don’t think it’s primarily about competition, either. In its simplest form, it’s how long can ESPN continue to grow revenues at twice the rate of nominal GDP, as it is currently. When does growth slow down?
ESPN’s importance to DIS
Today, ESPN accounts for 2/3 of DIS’s profits. What happens if ESPN stops growing at 15% a year and slows down to 10%? What does the rest of the business have to do to take up the slack? The answer: rev up growth to +25%/year. Is that possible?? Possible, yes; probable, no–in my opinion. Therefore, if ESPN slows down, Wall Street revises down its estimates of DIS’s long-term growth rate–and the stock adjusts downward.
ESPN doesn’t have to speed up for DIS to be a good stock. But it can’t slow down either, in my view.
sports programming
What’s unique about sports programming–and what makes ESPN so attractive–is that it’s the only type of mass media where consumers are regularly willing to pay higher prices for pictures of events in cutting-edge resolution, and for tons of expert (or even not so expert) commentary.
This is not only true in the US, where there’s a mad rush to buy the latest model TV set just before the Super Bowl (the Big Game, to those unwilling to pay to use the SB moniker). It’s the same in every country whose stock market I’ve ever been involved in.
programming rights
Not everyone can broadcast a sporting event. Most sports teams/leagues periodically auction off to the highest bidder exclusive rights to broadcast their games. For many profession teams (and icons like Notre Dame), these broadcasting rights can be their single most important asset, running into the hundreds of millions of dollars in value.
Many organizations break the rights down into a number of pieces to make them more affordable, and therefore encourage more spirited bidding. The NFL, for example, has separate packages for Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football, NFC Football and AFC Football–broadcast by NBC, ESPN, the NFL Network, Fox and CBS, respectively.
where ESPN fits in
ESPN is by a mile the dominant sports broadcasting distribution network in the US. It broadcasts all the major sports. It also fills a bunch of channels, in both English and Spanish, with 24/7 commentary and analysis. Over the years it has been consistently innovative, so it possesses an unparalleled internet presence as well–only commentary but fantasy league and broadcasting, too.
network effects
ESPN’s is a business where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. As a distribution network gets larger and if a distributor can raise prices (which so far ESPN has been able to), the distributor generates more money to spend on content, including broadcasting rights. This gives it a huge, and growing advantage over smaller rivals. At some point, the amount of capital needed to enter the market, or even to maintain a presence, becomes prohibitively high and the weak links drop out.
For market leaders like ESPN, this is a great business.
a sign of maturity?
About two years ago, ESPN decided to make a major move into soccer. Two reasons: this would be the leading edge of ESPN’s expansion into Europe; and ESPN could become the leading distributor to a small but growing fan base in the US.
The heavy investment ESPN began to make implied to me that management saw this as the company’s most attractive long-term expansion opportunity. (Otherwise, it would have focused on something else.)
ESPN, however, lost out in the bidding for Premier League soccer rights in Europe to incumbents who recognized the threat ESPN posed. It was worth losing money to them just to keep ESPN out. Not a great solution to the threat of ESPN, but probably the best alternative available.
So, for now anyway, the geographical expansion is off the table.
spending up on the Disney side
Since then, DIS has agreed to buy Lucasfilms for $4 billion. It has added Cars Land to Disneyland and is overhauling Fantasyland at Disneyworld. It’s also installing new reservations/guest interface software at the parks.
…a coincidence that Disney capital spending is rising just after ESPN’s need for capital has decreased? Maybe. Another interpretation, though, is that DIS’s capital is going into the highest return projects–and that none are in ESPN.
my take
It’s not necessarily a bad thing if ESPN sees no new big untapped markets to enter. In fact, DIS’s generally conservative accounting philosophy implies ESPN’s near-term profits will likely be higher because the expenses of European soccer rights and of expanding its soccer coverage won’t be there.
But DIS’s shifting capital allocation priorities do bring up the issue that ESPN won’t continue to grow at the current rate indefinitely.
The only practical conclusion I’m drawing is that if what I’ve just said is right, I’ve got to be careful to set a price target ($55?) and remember to sell.