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Is ESPN in Big Trouble?

Bucky said:
This was long overdue. When people watch sports they want to talk about sports. They don't want to listen to a political speech by Caitlyn Jenner, support for Black Lives Matter, or ant-American rhetoric.
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ESPN was great back in the day when they were the go-to source for sports highlights. Today, we all get our highlights off the web, and ESPN has devolved into just about what you wrote--a lame political station promoting an agenda.
 
calamity said:
ESPN was great back in the day when they were the go-to source for sports highlights. Today, we all get our highlights off the web, and ESPN has devolved into just about what you wrote--a lame political station promoting an agenda.
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They're in trouble because they spent way too much on live sports contracts. Their only 'agenda' is hawking their own shows and live events that they paid way too much for. Years ago the ridiculed Soccer and NASCAR. Now that they carry both they spend 1/4 of Sportscenter promoting both.

As you said back in the day they were great. But then they got carried away with their own early success. They paid billions and billions in Sports contracts?? They thought their money stream was never going to top out, it was never going to end. They were wrong, and it's cost them.
 
On a tangent to the OP, how is it a viable business model when (take the NFL) everyone's compensation is public information. The next 'hot' player wants to be the highest pad at his position, therefore he wants more than so and so who just signed a mega contract. When does the weight of this bring down the entire system? Reminds me of musical chairs, again more asses than seats when the music quits.
 
SenorXm/Sirius said:
They're in trouble because they spent way too much on live sports contracts. Their only 'agenda' is hawking their own shows and live events that they paid way too much for. Years ago the ridiculed Soccer and NASCAR. Now that they carry both they spend 1/4 of Sportscenter promoting both.

As you said back in the day they were great. But then they got carried away with their own early success. They paid billions and billions in Sports contracts?? They thought their money stream was never going to top out, it was never going to end. They were wrong, and it's cost them.
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Well, if any of us have been wondering how average players in, say, the NBA could be getting $20 million per year contracts--I sure have---well, we now know how. ESPN threw billions of dollars at these leagues by banking on revenue streams coming from cable bundles.

That ship has sunk. People are sick of paying $100's of dollars for TV stations that they do not want. And, most people, by far, do not want ESPN.
 
Rexedgar said:
On a tangent to the OP, how is it a viable business model when (take the NFL) everyone's compensation is public information. The next 'hot' player wants to be the highest pad at his position, therefore he wants more than so and so who just signed a mega contract. When does the weight of this bring down the entire system? Reminds me of musical chairs, again more asses than seats when the music quits.
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THe gravy train will continue until either ESPN goes bankrupt or the next TV contract comes up and no one bids $3 Billion to broadcast games only 6% of the TV audience watches.
 
calamity said:
lol...I'm one of those who cut the chord. 8 or 9 years ago, I began living without TV and went over the top or outright bootleg to watch my entertainment. Seems this is happening across the board, but it is apparently hurting ESPN the most because so much of their revenue is dependent on cable bundles. Add to that their incredibly high expenses for sports programming, and you can see how their model is on the path to ruin.

ESPN Loses Another 555,000 Subscribers Per Nielsen | Outkick The Coverage
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If a cable enterprise has to resort to being bundled to get an audience, they're already in trouble. ESPN has been in trouble for a long time.
 
calamity said:
Well, if any of us have been wondering how average players in, say, the NBA could be getting $20 million per year contracts--I sure have---well, we now know how. ESPN threw billions of dollars at these leagues by banking on revenue streams coming from cable bundles.

That ship has sunk. People are sick of paying $100's of dollars for TV stations that they do not want. And, most people, by far, do not want ESPN.
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I don't have them anymore. I dropped down to DirecTV's basic, lowest cost bundle. And that doesn't have ESPN. Or any sports channels. I don't miss it. I pay $50 a month for that bundle. And IMO that's too much, but it's better than the $120+ I was spending for DirecTV's PoS channels that I never watched and ESPN, who have lost their way. Watching Sportscenter now is like watching 1 long ESPN commercial. It's a waste of time.

I might drop cable all together some day, but for now I can live with $50 a month.

It's got nothing to do with left wing or right wing. When it comes to sports, people don't care about politics. 10 years ago if the NFL is on ESPN or your favorite team was you'll watch them. But that's not true anymore. . I can't remember the last time I watched a MLB game on ESPN. And I'm a HUGE baseball fan. I can just get MLB games elsewhere. So I don't need ESPN anymore. They've just spent too much on packages and contracts that people can get elsewhere
 
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calamity said:
This article says 94 of 100 people getting ESPN in their bundle would not buy it if given a choice. That's amazing.

Only 6 percent of Consumers would Pay $20 a Month For ESPN | Outkick The Coverage
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If I was interested it would cost me, IIRC, about $14.99 from DirecTV to get ESPN and other sports channels. I could add it to my basic low cost package I am currently getting. I can afford the $15 a month, no problem. But again, I can get my sports elsewhere now. So why pay the $15?
 
Back in the day there was a need for ESPN. Now, not so much.

Want baseball news? There's the MLB channel.
Football news? NFL channel.
Hell, there's even a freakin' golf channel (one step up from a "paint drying" channel).

Then there's the internet, where you can get any statistic or opinion. Finally, there's the individual sport packages. I share the MLB and NHL packages with a cousin, and together we pay $100 or so annually.

And for me...I get sick of hearing about all the teams in New England and California. Yeah, yeah...I know...more eyes = more ratings, but ESPN is alienating a LOT of subscribers who don't give two [feces] about left/right coast teams. Perhaps they're hurting because of the flyover states giving them the boot.
 
SenorXm/Sirius said:
If I was interested it would cost me, IIRC, about $14.99 from DirecTV to get ESPN and other sports channels. I could add it to my basic low cost package I am currently getting. I can afford the $15 a month, no problem. But again, I can get my sports elsewhere now. So why pay the $15?
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Yep. For me it's principle of the matter. I pay for internet. So, whatever I watch is online.
 
calamity said:
Yep. For me it's principle of the matter. I pay for internet. So, whatever I watch is online.
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As I mentioned before I have 4 grown kids. 2 don't have ANY cable. And as I said I have the basic lowest priced package. So there's 5 household and only 2 get ESPN. We all got super fast internet though, and Netflix, or Amazon, or in my case Hulu. The 2 without cable also have 'smart TV's'. ( I have a smart TV too, except for Hulu I don't use it much, though... Not yet anyway)

As you said whatever they/I want to watch now, even sports, is online.
 
SenorXm/Sirius said:
As I mentioned before I have 4 grown kids. 2 don't have ANY cable. And as I said I have the basic lowest priced package. So there's 5 household and only 2 get ESPN. We all got super fast internet though, and Netflix, or Amazon, or in my case Hulu. The 2 without cable also have 'smart TV's'. ( I have a smart TV too, except for Hulu I don't use it much, though... Not yet anyway)

As you said whatever they/I want to watch now, even sports, is online.
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I watch very little sport---well, unless you ask my wife's opinion, she'll say I watch it all the time. My viewing is usually limited to watching the Cavs whenever they play and catching a few minutes of an NFL game until I get bored, which doesn't take long these days.

I surprised myself this year by not watching more than about 15 minutes of two playoff NHL games. I thought I would watch the crap out of that. But, I just could not get into it since the games I picked were not very competitive. I guess, if I watched last night's Predators-Blues game, I might have been impressed and really gotten into it, but I never even bothered tuning in. I did enjoy reading about it though.
 
ESPN was extremely useful in the 90s and even perhaps in the early 2000's as a means of easily and quickly getting access to sporting news, and more importantly sporting highlights and updates from the days before. It also provided a place for the average fan to get a bit better insight into various sports, to feel more learned on them.

Going into the mid-00s, connectivity and speeds both increased. Access to scores and news was easily accessible, and even highlights weren't hard to find. ESPN began to become more personality driven and focused.

By the late 00's to early 10's, even highlights were easy to find. Blogs were everywhere, with people having the ability to learn far more about the various games then they'd get from a talking head like Berman. Personalities alone weren't doing it, so it became more about creating drama. Creating news. The best example of this was Colin Kaepernick and his ceiling. People were questioning how good he could be. An ESPN personality, talking on an ESPN show, makes an outlandish claim of him having the potential to be the best of all time. The next 24 hours consists of ESPN shows asking ESPN personalities to give their take on the outlandish claim made by another ESPN personality on a different ESPN show. They had create a cycle where they would create, and then report, on "news" that really wasn't news.

This only worked so long. People grow tired of that kind of thing, and with it becoming a bigger and bigger digital world, and with more and more competition (both specialized and broad) coming up in the realm of TV, it's getting hard for ESPN. This is compounded by the ridiculous fees they impose on cable companies to carry their channels, which helps to cause the prices to be driven up in the fashion that is causing people to consider dumping cable all together.

At this point, I won't be sad to see ESPN fully fall from the mountain top.
 
Zyphlin said:
ESPN was extremely useful in the 90s and even perhaps in the early 2000's as a means of easily and quickly getting access to sporting news, and more importantly sporting highlights and updates from the days before. It also provided a place for the average fan to get a bit better insight into various sports, to feel more learned on them.

Going into the mid-00s, connectivity and speeds both increased. Access to scores and news was easily accessible, and even highlights weren't hard to find. ESPN began to become more personality driven and focused.

By the late 00's to early 10's, even highlights were easy to find. Blogs were everywhere, with people having the ability to learn far more about the various games then they'd get from a talking head like Berman. Personalities alone weren't doing it, so it became more about creating drama. Creating news. The best example of this was Colin Kaepernick and his ceiling. People were questioning how good he could be. An ESPN personality, talking on an ESPN show, makes an outlandish claim of him having the potential to be the best of all time. The next 24 hours consists of ESPN shows asking ESPN personalities to give their take on the outlandish claim made by another ESPN personality on a different ESPN show. They had create a cycle where they would create, and then report, on "news" that really wasn't news.

This only worked so long. People grow tired of that kind of thing, and with it becoming a bigger and bigger digital world, and with more and more competition (both specialized and broad) coming up in the realm of TV, it's getting hard for ESPN. This is compounded by the ridiculous fees they impose on cable companies to carry their channels, which helps to cause the prices to be driven up in the fashion that is causing people to consider dumping cable all together.

At this point, I won't be sad to see ESPN fully fall from the mountain top.
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They used to have very good analysis back then too. You could watch ESPN and get a good feel for which players, teams, whatever, was going to be relevant this year and why. For example, they used to have the best NFL draft coverage and laid out pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about the top 20-30 prospects.

Nowadays, you can get analysis from any of a dozen different websites, some of which focus on just one subject and break it down better than ESPN ever could. ESPN has become superficial. In fact, they have become so weak on their in depth analysis that I rarely even read any of their articles online anymore. I get much more out of Bleacher Report and SI.
 
I honestly haven't watched ESPN directly for almost 10 years, seriously. They spent way too much capital on the NBA and college Hoops, and basketball is the one sport I can't stand to watch or follow.


Tim-
 
Let's be honest. If you are in the sports industry, you need to talk about sports, and not politics.

ESPN has an extreme liberal bias. The problem with the liberal bias is they believe it as gospel and caters to those with a liberal viewpoint. Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, Jemele Hill, Max Kellerman, Michelle Beadle, etc...

ESPN is about sports, not politics. These commentators are interjecting their liberal politics and perpetrating them as fact.

That's why ESPN will lose continue to lose viewers, principles, positions and elections.

Will Cain made a good point about this when arguing with the very partisan Max Kellerman:

 
Bucky said:
Let's be honest. If you are in the sports industry, you need to talk about sports, and not politics.

ESPN has an extreme liberal bias. The problem with the liberal bias is they believe it as gospel and caters to those with a liberal viewpoint. Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, Jemele Hill, Max Kellerman, Michelle Beadle, etc...

ESPN is about sports, not politics. These commentators are interjecting their liberal politics and perpetrating them as fact.

That's why ESPN will lose continue to lose viewers, principles, positions and elections.

Will Cain made a good point about this when arguing with the very partisan Max Kellerman:

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I tune into sports to get away from work, politics, wife, and what ever. I don't want to listen to pajama boy "Costas" ranting about gun laws, or some ESPN talking head ranting about race and who visits the Trump's White House.
 
calamity said:
lol...I'm one of those who cut the chord. 8 or 9 years ago, I began living without TV and went over the top or outright bootleg to watch my entertainment. Seems this is happening across the board, but it is apparently hurting ESPN the most because so much of their revenue is dependent on cable bundles. Add to that their incredibly high expenses for sports programming, and you can see how their model is on the path to ruin.

ESPN Loses Another 555,000 Subscribers Per Nielsen | Outkick The Coverage
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I heard a discussion about this yesterday where the media expert gave ESPN about 5 more years and it will be dead. His argument was rather compelling.

The crux of the problem for ESPN is that as a part of the old basic cable package format they were receiving $84.00 a year from every cable subscriber in the country. Now that the old idea of cable packages is going away people are having to decide is they want to pay a monthly fee for ESPN, and it turns out that the cable subscribers who never watched ESPN -- even though they are paying for it -- were not thrilled about paying ESPN $84.00 a year.

This is compounded by the sports-rights bubble that ESPN went all-in on at the exact wrong time. They sunk $2 billion in NFL rights to air 17 games a season. They have that contract for another 3 years whether they can afford to keep paying the NFL or not.

These two alone might be enough to kill ESPN, but it is further compounded by ESPN's decision to start being too political. During ESPN's heyday they had no shortage of people with strong political opinions. Hell, Keith Olbermann was a mainstay during those years and only really became known as a liberal firebrand after migrating to MSNBC. But back then the political opinion was not part of the broadcast, just the sports. Now you can't avoid political opinion on ESPN.

I agree with Zyphlin's point that ESPN shows became about making news for other ESPN shows to report on... and usually those points were politically tinged, or outright political screeds.

Their magazine is dead, their phone app sucks, their website is essentially behind a pay wall.

They should have stuck to the old model where they give the people entertainment and sports stats in abundance for free and use the traffic that that generates to fuel advertising revenue... somewhere along the way they thought that we ESPN viewers should have to pay AND get inundated by advertisers at the same time.

I'll hate to see it go, but I also get an odd pleasure out of watching horrible business models go bust.
 
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jmotivator said:
I heard a discussion about this yesterday where the media expert gave ESPN about 5 more years and it will be dead. His argument was rather compelling.

The crux of the problem for ESPN is that as a part of the old basic cable package format they were receiving $84.00 a year from every cable subscriber in the country. Now that the old idea of cable packages is going away people are having to decide is they want to pay a monthly fee for ESPN, and it turns out that the cable subscribers who never watched ESPN -- even though they are paying for it -- were not thrilled about paying ESPN $84.00 a year.

This is compounded by the sports-rights bubble that ESPN went all-in on at the exact wrong time. They sunk $2 billion in NFL rights to air 17 games a season. They have that contract for another 3 years whether they can afford to keep paying the NFL or not.

These two alone might be enough to kill ESPN, but it is further compounded by ESPN's decision to start being too political. During ESPN's heyday they had no shortage of people with strong political opinions. Hell, Keith Olbermann was a mainstay during those years and only really became known as a liberal firebrand after migrating to MSNBC. But back then the political opinion was not part of the broadcast, just the sports. Now you can't avoid political opinion on ESPN.

I agree with Zyphlin's point that ESPN shows became about making news for other ESPN shows to report on... and usually those points were politically tinged, or outright political screeds.

Their magazine is dead, their phone app sucks, their website is essentially behind a pay wall.

They should have stuck to the old model where they give the people entertainment and sports stats in abundance for free and use the traffic that that generates to fuel advertising revenue... somewhere along the way they thought that we ESPN viewers should have to pay AND get inundated by advertisers at the same time.

I'll hate to see it go, but I also get an odd pleasure out of watching horrible business models go bust.
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I used to like the Grantland articles. They were well written, rather in depth and often put things into a perspective I normally would not have considered. Those days are gone. Now, if I want to read a decent sport's article, I go to SI.

Check this piece out, for a good example of something ESPN does not even remotely do anymore.

https://www.si.com/longform/nfl-draft-82/
 
Henrin said:
I learned in my mid twenties to never live with a woman again. Apparently guys just deal with it and look for escapes, but as for me, I figured out that avoiding it all together was the best course of action.
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I can't imagine why that didn't work out for you.
 
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