If ESPN is looking for a reason to sell its platform directly to customers as a stand-alone service, this survey might just be it.
A BTIG Research survey of 1,582 consumers last week found that 56 percent would get rid of ESPN and ESPN2 from their cable television packages to save $8 per month — the cost cable customers pay to get the sports networks — as reported by the Washington Post.
Within those numbers, 60 percent of women and 49 percent of men said they would extract ESPN and ESPN2 from their cable packages to save the money each month.
"Even more interesting, results did not vary by age, with Millennials, Gen X'ers and Boomers all similar, adjusting for the survey's margin of error," BTIG Research's Richard Greenfield wrote about the survey results, as reported by the Washington Post.
Given the findings of this survey and considering ESPN let go of 300 employees this past October and reported that it lost 7 million subscribers to cable-cord cutting in November, it seems like a stand-alone, direct-to-customer service from the Worldwide Leader in Sports could be a part of the company's plans ... possibly sooner than it thought.
HBO and CBS have seen success with such stand-alone platforms, allowing customers who want to unplug and cut the chords from their cable service to subscribe.
Last March, Forbes estimated that sports fans would have to pay $36 per month for ESPN and ESPN2 bundled in a stand-alone service.
If that estimation pans out to be true, would it be something you consider?
