If you compare them to the CBS’s and the NBC’s of the world, ESPN has been like Facebook (a growth stock) while NBC has been like Whirlpool (slow growth and pays dividends—not much innovation).
What’s going on is that ESPN is shifting from a “you can spend money like it’s water” growth phase into a “we’re bringing in the bean counters” mature company phase. They’re in much better shape than CBS and traditional TV, and much more profitable, but there’s not much more greenfield market for them to corner. They’re not going to corner MLB. They have about as much NFL as they’re going to get. They’re not going to take over soccer (and it’s not growing fast enough to matter).
They took over CFB, and there’s not another CFB. They don’t have another huge unaddressed market to consume.
The bean counters at Disney are all over them now.