> It would cost billions of dollars to even attempt to go after ESPN. The primary value ESPN offers today is ownership of broadcast rights. Yahoo can't afford to outbid Disney on those rights and shareholders would never support risking that much capital on such.
I'm talking about web-based content first. Anyone who follows sports knows that there is a wide open gap ready for someone to take a swing on actual sports coverage. ESPN has turned into a steaming pile of trash. You want more articles on Johnny Manziel, have at it ESPN. We're gonna cover real sports on my Yahoo.
The better broadcasting play is to get into streaming / broadcasting for new sports. Be it eSports, rugby, lacrosse, and any scrap of basketball you can get your hands on -- NFL is going to collapse in the next generation or so (ask any Gen-X parents if their kids are allowed to play football and you'll understand why) -- so just give up on getting rights to the current powerhouse sports for the time being.
> What you're describing would never make money.
Killer content always makes money when you know your demographic and don't sell your soul too much. I wouldn't emphasize the aggregators, those would be portals. The trick is that much of it would be re-written on the actual Yahoo site by real journalists once something gets hot. Then you no longer give the traffic away.
> It would be a complete waste of time and wouldn't move the needle on Yahoo's business.
This is because you don't know how to monetize. Content isn't the end game, it's the easy advertising. Yahoo! Finance is an under-utilized tool. The content on a powerful domain like that would be used to inexpensively gather new users into the profitable toolset - the end game could be to build out a trading platform, for instance.
LOL at Yahoo's needle, BTW.