How ESPN Makes Money—in 1 Graph
Every month, you pay a cable bill. Let's say it's $80. The channels on your menu get a sliver of that $80. It's called a subscription fee. ESPN gets the biggest cut: about $5 per month. That's $60 a year, per pay-TV household, before advertising.
The company will make more than $10 billion in revenue in 2013, according to an analyst note from Wunderlich Securities in November 2012.
Pretty simple formula. I guess adding more channels allows them to get a larger chunk of subscription payments. How many ESPN channels are there now?