With the Walt Disney Co. (DIS) doing everything right lately, they took at hit with their failed mobile venture involving their ESPN brand: Mobile ESPN.
The try wasn't only a failure though; it was a disaster. They spend around $150 million to get the service going and took in only 30,000 subscribers, in comparison to the goal of 3 million envisioned. Somebody didn't do their homework here obviously.
In Wayne Friedman's mind they got "Sucked into the wireless world that has been touted as the holy grail of content, ESPN bought into the industry fever, assuming its crazy and loyal sports fans would pay anything to get closer to ESPN and its sports properties."
Licking their wounds, ESPN will now license its content to other wireless companies, offering it in chunks or its entire Mobile ESPN content.
With the recent announcement that T-mobile is dropping Catherine Zeta-Jones as their spokeswoman, shows that the industry can't support the hype that has surrounded mobile as being the next big thing. Things are going a lot slower in this space than projected.
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