The scariest chart in sports television

Despite all of the craziness that's going on in the sports world and the diligent job that ESPN has been doing in keeping us all informed, the channel's subscribers simply continue to fall by the wayside.

Earlier this year, we saw that the number of homes with ESPN had fallen below 90 million for the first time in a decade. Since then, ESPN has only lost more subscribers, and the pace appears to be accelerating.

ESPN graph

(Nielsen, ESPN, TVbytheNumbers, Sports Business Daily, Sports TV Ratings)

According to Nielsen, ESPN has lost a whopping 2 million subscribers since the beginning of the year to put its total subscriber count at 89 million. At this rate, the network will lose another 2 million subscribers before the end of 2016 to put its end-of-year total at 87 million, a 13% drop since its peak in 2011.

This is incredibly worrisome for a company that depends on its TV subscribers for the majority of its revenue — 60% of it, in fact.

For a company whose networks were in 100 million households just five years ago, this news that ESPN is continuing to lose revenue does not bode well for a company that calls itself "The Worldwide Leader in Sports."

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