This article puts forth the opinion that it was Wall Street’s short term focus on quarterly revenue that drove Disney to kill Mobile ESPN shortly after it launched. “This is called, by some, myopic loss aversion (MLA). MLA is a point of view where the fear of short-term losses all but eliminates the potential for long-term gains. Peppers and Rogers have a great assessment of how this can be detrimental to the direction of public companies. Just imagine if the same type of MLA culture had been around six months after ESPN first broadcast its collection of World’s Strongest Man competitions and Australian-rules football games. It is entirely possible that during the summer of 1980, Getty Oil and Nabisco would have pulled the plug on what is now a cultural icon.”
I would agree with this assessment—whatever strengths and weaknesses Mobile ESPN had as a business, after putting all that effort into starting it Disney should have given it at least a year. The article points out that many mistakes were made, most of which we’ve covered, but the fact that the service was launched in the “off season” for Fantasy Leagues couldn’t have helped at all.