ESPN is essentially a service and the franchises are a capital asset. As you know long term economic policy for a couple decades has been to inflate and bubble

ESPN is essentially a service and the franchises are a capital asset. As you know long term economic policy for a couple decades has been to inflate and bubble capital assets (real estate, for example). Meanwhile services get a mixed bag of tagging along or declining. So a capital asset like real estate or a pro sports team "must" go up 10x in price over a couple decades and a service may or may not keep up. ESPN kept up for awhile, not so much recently.