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ESPN is tightening its belt, which can't be good news for BYU and the West Coast Conference.

It is, however, doubtful that the cost-cutting going on in Bristol, Conn., is going to hurt the Pac-12 Conference's bottom line. At least not any time soon.

ESPN president John Skipper has announced that the Worldwide Leader in Sports will cut $100 million from its 2016 budget and another $250 million from its 2017 budget. Yes, ESPN is a huge operation — but that's a lot of money.

The problem? It's very simple. ESPN is in fewer homes than it was a few years ago, costing the channel hundreds of millions of dollars.

Four years ago, ESPN was in more than 100 million homes that subscribe to cable or satellite TV. Today, that number has fallen to 92.9 million, mostly because fewer people are subscribing to cable or satellite TV.

ESPN charges cable operators between about $6 and $6.60 per month per subscriber. Using the lower number and a conservative estimate of how many subscribers it has lost (7 million), that's a loss of $42 million per month/$504 million per year in revenue.

And that's just ESPN. ESPN2, which, according to SNL Kagan, charges cable companies $0.83 per subscriber per month, is down more than 7 million subscribers itself in the past four years. And, conservatively, that's a loss of $6 million per month/$72 million per year.

Cutting $350 million from the budget over the next two years won't make up for $1.2 billion (and growing) ESPN will be down in subscriber fees during that time.

ESPN still has advertising. And it still makes money. But will this mean that it will pay less for rights fees when they come up?

For the most part, no. Perhaps those fees won't go up as dramatically as they have in recent years, but the problem for ESPN is that there are plenty of other entities out there just waiting to snatch prime properties away.

You think Fox Sports 1 and NBCSN aren't chomping at the bit to take programming away from ESPN?

But that would only cause further damage to viewership, advertising and subscriptions. You can't balance your budget by cutting programming.

For Utah, the long-term deal the Pac-12 signed with ESPN and Fox runs through 2024. Which means stability for now — and who knows what the TV landscape will look like nine years down the road?

For the West Coast Conference and BYU, there's less certainty. The WCC's basketball deal with ESPN runs through 2019; the Cougars' football contract ends after the 2018 season, and ESPN has an option on 2019.

No one at the network wants to go on record publicly with anything but enthusiasm and support for its deal with BYU, but could it end up being a casualty of the cost-cutting?

Again, who knows what the TV landscape will look like four years from now. And, while we've never gotten financials on the BYU-ESPN deal, there's no doubt it's but a drop in the bucket compared to what ESPN is paying the Pac-12, let alone the NFL, NBA, MLB, et cetera.

If what BYU has said behind closed doors matches the public stance, well, that's a different story. We've been told repeatedly that going independent and signing with ESPN wasn't about money, it was about exposure.

ESPN will be able to say, "We'll continue to give you the exposure, but we can't give as much money" — and see if BYU blinks.

Scott D. Pierce covers TV for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.