ESPN, facing headwinds, might still reverse its slide

The service, to be delivered through the ESPN app, will offer baseball, hockey, soccer and tennis matches, as well as college sports.

Over time, that could kick off a death spiral in which fewer subscribers mean less money for ESPN to use in bidding for sports rights; fewer games to air would then give more subscribers reason to quit.

[...] optimists believe ESPN has the clout to strike better deals with cable and satellite-TV companies that would ensure the channel reached more households and raise the price Disney gets from cable distributors.