Jay Rasulo, the chief financial officer at Disney, has said that the media conglomerate is “exploring an exit” from the UK market for its sports broadcaster ESPN, according to the Financial Times newspaper.
Rasulo said that ESPN had “experienced losses” in the UK due to an increase in sports-rights fees.
The Guardian newspaper said that ESPN is considering a number of options, including selling off part of its UK operations.
Aside from the main ESPN UK-focused pay-television channel, the ESPN America US sports channel and archive sports channel ESPN Classic are also available in the UK, as well as more than 30 other countries.
ESPN launched its main UK channel in 2009 after acquiring live domestic rights to the English Premier League, the top division of football in the country. However, ESPN was dislodged as a rights-holder of the league for the next three-year cycle, from 2013-14 to 2015-16, and the broadcaster has also lost live rights for English club rugby union’s top-tier Premiership from the end of the current 2012-13 season.