Disney needs to sell ESPN

The world has changed and Disney needs to too.
Sports TV contracts were historically insulated from competition due to network effects.
The sporting brands could get the biggest money by selling to the companies with the widest viewership. Those with the widest viewership could afford to pay the most as they spread many fixed costs over high amounts of ad revenue.
While this dynamic hasn’t changed, the ability to monetize by the competition has. Amazon’s distribution network will allow them to pay more than others for sports rights as products and services will run ads and those that sell go through Amazon’s network. Also with linear TV you may know X million saw your ad, but on the stream you know who was logged in, and know which of the logged in people scanned the QR code. Maybe they didn’t buy the item, but they can retarget you next time you open the app. You were watching the game after all. Amazon gets paid for the Ad on the original TV and paid again to retarget the ad and then to deliver the item. How is Disney or anyone else supposed to compete with that?
If Disney sold ESPN the remainder of their business would be replicateable by competition (at least directly). There is only one Star Wars and they own the rights to the whole boat. Their model becomes purely turn IP into multiple avenues of growth.
It’s like the famous scene in Spaceballs, merchandising merchandising, spaceballs the flamethrower, the lunchbox and so on.
They can take their content creation and then license the good brand image to others.