Via BBTF, ESPN lost seven million subscribers over the last two years:

ESPN’s woes are a bad sign for other cable channels and, to a lesser extent, pay-TV operators. Sports programming and, to a lesser extent, reality TV are key reasons to continue subscribing to traditional cable and satellite providers. You can’t get the Super Bowl live on Netflix or Amazon streaming services.

Subscriber losses suggest ESPN is less of a must-have, or that cable operators decide they won’t pay heavily for ESPN2, ESPN News and other sister channels, and may push them to lesser tiers as “skinny packages” become more common.

Note that MLB is well positioned to take advantage of this decline in traditional delivery systems. MLBAM pioneered live streaming, so it could end up that to survive, ESPN starts streaming using MLBAM technology. Sling is already streaming ESPN and other cable channels. I think the news is less dire that this report shows, and ESPN already cut staff to stay profitable. It will be interesting to see how all this shakes out over the next few years.