With the investment bank UBS recently valuing Disney's (DIS) ESPN division at around $28 billion, it caused people to ask if it was a possible spinoff candidate.
Tom Staggs, ESPN's CFO, responded that at this time there was no plans in the works concerning that, even with the huge payoff it would bring. He said: "I feel pretty good about ESPN being part of the overall family as it is."
One of the reasons why it would be difficult for Disney to spin ESPN off is its powerful brand that can be spread across multiple platforms. Even though its recent foray into the mobile market failed, that should be the only screen that ESPN won't work with well. People aren't really interested much in video on their mobiles at this time.
Another statistic that UBS throws out is that ESPN accounts for 40% of Disney's $70.7 billion market capitalization. That's a huge amount when you take into consideration that Disney owns 80% of ESPN.
Disney projects that they think they will bring in around $700 million in digital revenue for the next fiscal year, and ESPN will play a big part in that.
I don't think Disney will be in any hurry to drop the powerful ESPN brand.
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