It looks like ESPN's "$6.4 billion in 2014" in profit is pre-tax, so it generated $4+ billion in cash that year leading an analyst to value ESPN at $50 billion

It looks like ESPN's "$6.4 billion in 2014" in profit is pre-tax, so it generated $4+ billion in cash that year leading an analyst to value ESPN at $50 billion three years ago ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2014/04/29/the-value-of-espn-surpasses-50-billion/#28f7088561f5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2014/04/29/the-... ) Probably not anymore... It does point to Netflix eventually making a lot of money and being worth a lot more than it currently is. Netflix doesn't have ad revenue (in addition to such huge consumer fees, ESPN had nearly $4 billion a year in ad revenue in 2014 at least) but its subscription fees are comparable to ESPN. Better for Netflix is its aggressive move into its own content generation. If it was "merely" a way to watch other companies content, it would be at the mercy of those content owners the way ESPN pays a king's ransom for NFL, NBA, etc. games. ESPN's strategy to focus on opinion (original content) makes a lot of sense in terms of retaining fans and having a business that could survive losing broadcasting rights for a lot of sports. While sports team/network owners could go direct to fans fairly easily these days with 1000 tv channels and everyone having "Smart" TVs, they're probably better off under the ESPN umbrella both as a bundle of many sports and through aggregated ad sales.