ESPN cut approximately four percent of their workforce in layoffs last week with the rising cost of television rights fees cited as a contributing factor.

The NBA's new deal has increased by 143 percent, while the MLB's increased by 136 percent.

“The cost of goods is going up and sales are going down,” one longtime industry executive observed. “That’s not a good trend.”

Many past and present employees place most of the blame for the layoffs on the company’s huge NFL, MLB and NBA rights deals. 

ESPN pays $1.9 billion per year for their NFL contract, which is $800 million more than the next biggest deal to broadcast football.

“It’s been a total mismanagement of rights fees, starting with the NFL renewal,” said one former employee. “We overpaid significantly when it did not need to be that way, and it set the template to overpay for MLB and the NBA.”

“You can’t keep spending on rights at high levels when the business model and fundamentals have changed,” another former ESPN employee said.

Television rights have increased with the competition of NBC Sports Network and Fox Sports 1.