ESPN Is Pathetic

Sportsbstn

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No, she's really not.

I'm assuming you mean that the ESPN skewing "liberal" have somehow killed the channel.

That's fucking stupid.
Well, that would be a bad assumption. I am talking about getting away from their core group of watchers. She is 100% right about that. I wouldn't call it going liberal but they definitely went away from what was working.
 

ifmanis5

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I'm not saying it is, but they aren't losing money. However, Disney's investors aren't interested in seeing shrinking profits because Americans are no longer interested in paying 200 dollars a month for cable.
They effectively are, though. They have already spent money they don't have.
 

CoffeeNerdness

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They aren't watching Madden, they're watching DOTA, Counter Strike, League of Legends, Hearthstone, and their favorite streamers on Twitch. There's over half a million people watching a major DOTA tourney on Twitch as I type this.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Well, that would be a bad assumption. I am talking about getting away from their core group of watchers. She is 100% right about that. I wouldn't call it going liberal but they definitely went away from what was working.
Define their "core group of watchers".
 

E5 Yaz

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She was asked by WABC radio co-hosts Bernard McGuirk and Sid Rosenberg whether some viewers have developed a “distaste” for ESPN’s more political statements.

Such as giving transgender Caitlyn Jenner the ESPY “Courage” award over Lauren Hill, who died of brain cancer. Cohn agreed.

“You’re right. That is definitely a percentage of it. I don’t know how big a percentage. But if anyone wants to ignore that fact, they’re blind. That’s what I meant about the core group that made ESPN so successful,” she said.
http://awfulannouncing.com/espn/linda-cohn-says-espns-massive-rights-fee-deals-main-contributor-layoffs.html
 

MuzzyField

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The scary thing for Mickey Mouse is that Disney and ESPN have robust research departments so going with the non-sports SC at 6 and the ratings lagging so far is possibility that this change was made in order to slow the bleeding and growing the audience (it may be a bit more attractive demographically) is unlikely. There were some really smart people discussing this at NAB. The Sports Video Group summit in ATL at the end of May should be equally as interesting.

This is unchartered territory for ESPN. I don't think they have the corporate culture or leadership in house to figure it out. We'll soon see.

Good Morning Greenie isn't going to reverse the trends either.
 

MuzzyField

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The rights fees are unsustainable. I wonder how much bleeding the leagues and conferences are going to force Disney to endure before a recalibration to economic reality occurs?
I don't expect much sympathy for ESPN in this process. When it reaches a point where the league and conference brands are negatively impacted may be too late.
 

NortheasternPJ

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According to this article ESPN is charging cable and dish providers $8.21 per month up from $3.xx in 2007. With cable companies losing subscribers due to cord cutting, which is due to cost, will there be a point where Comcast or Time Warner throw ESPN in to a sports package or offer it a la cart? At this point in time ESPN is changing more than HBO does (slightly).

If Comcast is charging $49.99 for their Digital Start package, do they make more money throwing out ESPN and Disney Channel and getting it down another $10? How many cord cutters will that save? I'm sure it'd never happen but cable companies are going to start getting more aggressive if cord cutting continues. More like they though is they'll just find another way to screw customers like just jacking up Internet prices because most customers have no choice.

http://awfulannouncing.com/2016/espns-rising-cable-fee-is-now-up-to-over-7-per-subscriber-per-month.html
 

MuzzyField

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Thanks to SEC Network I'm up to and maybe slightly over $9.

In a new world order how much is Extra Innings, Center Ice and League Pass?

If it wasn't for tailgating I'd drop Sunday Ticket. You can't use the app if you're too close to an NFL Stadium. How am I supposed to watch football while the Jags are playing?
 

Van Everyman

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Can't the reason for ESPN's woes be "all of the above"? Can't the problem be rights fees, politics, forgetting your "core viewer" and fluff garbage?

I don't entirely count myself among those who watched ESPN in its heyday. But there was a period in the mid to late 90s and into the 2000s where SportsCenter and other shows were close to must-see TV. They had a host of really impressive on air talent—this combination of quasi-comedians, political talking heads, and sports geniuses—that were amazing to watch. As viewers, I think we were pretty lucky in a lot of ways.

But yeah, the world changed. The talent left and brought SportsCenter-like breeziness to other networks. The internet rendered highlight shows boring and redundant. So they started becoming more dependent on broadcast rights and less entertainment news. Which is obviously stupid in the face of cable cutters, but may have seemed like a somewhat necessary move at the time, if not shrewd

I mean, in retrospect you can absolutely see why ESPN treated Deflategate the way it did. It was at least high drama. Something they didn't have on literally any other program.

I know we all want to piss all over their graves, but it's actually a little sad to see it come apart this way, if totally predictable.
 

Drocca

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Can someone smarter than me explain why they don't just go the HBO route and offer a subscription service for non-cable users. Isn't that free money? They could conceivably charge $30.00/mo.
 

Marceline

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Can someone smarter than me explain why they don't just go the HBO route and offer a subscription service for non-cable users. Isn't that free money? They could conceivably charge $30.00/mo.
I'm not sure why anyone would pay $30/month for an ESPN specific service when you can get ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN3 access on Sling TV for $20/month (plus a bunch of other channels).
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Can someone smarter than me explain why they don't just go the HBO route and offer a subscription service for non-cable users. Isn't that free money? They could conceivably charge $30.00/mo.
Would you pay $30 a month for ESPN? I don't think that many people would.
 

Ale Xander

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The only network I'd pay $30 a month for is CBS, and that's probably only during Sept.-January. (SEC GoW, most Pats, some college bball OOC, Survivor, some other "fluff").

And CBS is semi-obtainable for free.
 

cheech13

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Don't they have about 88 million subscribers at $7.21 per month right now? That means even at $30 they'd need to bring over more than 21 million people an OTT service to just break even and I can't see them even getting a fraction of that. I think HBO has about 2 million subscribers and WWE is in the 1 million area. Those are more niche markets, but they are at much lower cost points as well.

There really is no easy solution. It doesn't matter if they axe talent and it doesn't matter if ratings improve. Their entire business model is crumbling and it's going to get far worse before it gets better.
 

Drocca

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I'm not sure why anyone would pay $30/month for an ESPN specific service when you can get ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN3 access on Sling TV for $20/month (plus a bunch of other channels).
I should have been clear that they would have to discontinue their deal with Sling (and Playstation and whatever else). I'm just suggesting a completely different delivery system.

As to the question of whether I would pay $30.00/month. I would during college basketball season (as it stands I only get Sling during college basketball season for this reason). Some people would year round but I think a lot of people would for the sports/seasons that matter to them. And I'm throwing $30.00 out as a number and an admittedly high one.

The thing is ESPN has these rights and these rights are valuable content. There has to be a better way to monetize that content.
 

tims4wins

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I should have been clear that they would have to discontinue their deal with Sling (and Playstation and whatever else). I'm just suggesting a completely different delivery system.

As to the question of whether I would pay $30.00/month. I would during college basketball season (as it stands I only get Sling during college basketball season for this reason). Some people would year round but I think a lot of people would for the sports/seasons that matter to them. And I'm throwing $30.00 out as a number and an admittedly high one.

The thing is ESPN has these rights and these rights are valuable content. There has to be a better way to monetize that content.
They have the rights, but I think the huge problem here is the NFL. Monday Night Football simply isn't the premier game of the week any more.
 

Drocca

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In addition, establishments would HAVE to pay $30.00/month for it and those could be doled out like individual licenses. In other words, you pay $30.00/month for one license but charge by occupancy so if you are greater 100 occupancy you need 2 licenses, greater than 200 you need 3....
 

Drocca

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Don't they have about 88 million subscribers at $7.21 per month right now? That means even at $30 they'd need to bring over more than 21 million people an OTT service to just break even and I can't see them even getting a fraction of that. I think HBO has about 2 million subscribers and WWE is in the 1 million area. Those are more niche markets, but they are at much lower cost points as well.

There really is no easy solution. It doesn't matter if they axe talent and it doesn't matter if ratings improve. Their entire business model is crumbling and it's going to get far worse before it gets better.
Right, agreed completely. So they need to change the model. They have something of value and something that is not imitable so it really is a matter of changing the model to profit off a valuable, rare, imitable product.
 

cheech13

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I'm a cord cutter and initially I had a Sling membership so that I could continue watching ESPN, but after a couple months I realized that it wasn't worthwhile to drop $20 every month just for the couple hours a week I watched their programming. I never thought about its value to me when I had a cable package but once their was a dollar amount on it I just moved on. What content do they offer that is going to get people to consistently pay $30 a month? I can get MLB TV and NBA League Pass for far less and they offer more robust programming.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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As to the question of whether I would pay $30.00/month. I would during college basketball season (as it stands I only get Sling during college basketball season for this reason). Some people would year round but I think a lot of people would for the sports/seasons that matter to them. And I'm throwing $30.00 out as a number and an admittedly high one.
I think that you'd have to be a college hoops/football fan to even consider paying xxxx amount for ESPN. Yes they have NFL games, but it's the usual shitty MNF game. With the NBA you could get League Pass, same with MLB. The being said, if you were a college sports fan, chances are you'd pay for what you like: so you pay for four months of college hoops. Maybe your friend who is a college football guy pays for the four months of college football. What does ESPN do from April until September?

And in the fall there are literally two days when college football is on (Thursdays and Saturdays). I think if ESPN went to an ala carte situation, they'd be belly up within two or three years.

In addition, establishments would HAVE to pay $30.00/month for it and those could be doled out like individual licenses. In other words, you pay $30.00/month for one license but charge by occupancy so if you are greater 100 occupancy you need 2 licenses, greater than 200 you need 3....
So like the old days when people would go to bars to watch fights or Wrestlemania, right? As someone in their 40s, that's not my thing. Every once in awhile me and some friends hit a bar to watch a game (we went for Game Five of the Bruins and before that Game Seven of the World Series) but it's usually few and far between. I'm not sure if a bar or restaurant could see a return on their investment by charging people to watch whatever happens to be on ESPN that night -- unless it's a big game.

Though to be honest, I'm hard pressed to think of the last time I paid a cover charge to watch a sporting event at a bar. I think, it could be when Mike Tyson fought Peter McNeeley over 20 years ago. I know I paid to see that, but I can't think of any time since then when I paid.
 

Captaincoop

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I think that you'd have to be a college hoops/football fan to even consider paying xxxx amount for ESPN. Yes they have NFL games, but it's the usual shitty MNF game. With the NBA you could get League Pass, same with MLB. The being said, if you were a college sports fan, chances are you'd pay for what you like: so you pay for four months of college hoops. Maybe your friend who is a college football guy pays for the four months of college football. What does ESPN do from April until September?
College basketball on regular cable gets bad ratings. Can you imagine how few people would be willing to pay upwards of like $10-15 a month to watch it?

The NBA, MLB, and NHL already have the infrastructure in place to move all of their content off of cable, if need be. Those digital packages, sans any local or national blackouts, would be even more worthwhile than they are now. I gladly pay for the MLB and NBA packages and if they doubled the price and eliminated all the blackouts, I would still subscribe.

Let alone if they threw in some other content that is currently going to their cable networks (highlight shows, talk shows, etc.).
 

E5 Yaz

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Two things emerge from a Werder interview. First, how the compensation for existing contracts is being handled:

ESPN has told me, and I’m sure all of the others who were let go, that they’re going to honor our contracts. At the same time, their expectation is that we are going to honor those contracts. And what I’ve subsequently found out by having dialogue with a lawyer through the legal department is they are not anticipating allowing you to negotiate your way out of your contract. They’re allowing us to go pursue other opportunities if there are some, but if you get a job you want, what I’ve been told is, then you have to take the job knowing you’re not going to be paid by ESPN. They’re not going to double-dip. They’re not going to just offset.

Secondly, he appears to know four other significant names that haven't come out yet:

How is ESPN going to cover the NFL without all of the people who lost their jobs. What happens without Merrill Hoge and Ron Jaworksi to NFL Matchup? What happens to NFL Insiders without a number of analysts, former general managers like Joe Banner and Mark Dominik.

http://awfulannouncing.com/espn/115586.html
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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In addition, establishments would HAVE to pay $30.00/month for it and those could be doled out like individual licenses. In other words, you pay $30.00/month for one license but charge by occupancy so if you are greater 100 occupancy you need 2 licenses, greater than 200 you need 3....
This is essentially how DirecTV charges for their sports packages, like Sunday Ticket, Extra Innings, regional sports networks, (oddly, the Golf Channel is an add on), etc, with delineations in 50 viewer segments. Basically anyone that can see the TV is counted, so it's more based on occupancy than seat number and it's the same for fights, UFC, etc. - even Comcast does this for PPV events.

I'm not sure that it would be effective though. The way the pricing is structured, it makes more sense for larger places to get it, as it's a huge base number for these things and the increases aren't at all structured coherently. I think last time I bought it, the base 1-50 cost was something like $1500, 50-100 jumps a little to $2300, then 100-150 is doubled to $4600, but stays the same for 150-200, before going up again. Not many 50 seat places are bringing in enough from it to cover the initial tier nut, which is why you don't see all that many small places have it. And I think it would be the same for ESPN.

The place I'm at now has a total occupancy of about 140, so let's use that structure. We have 3 TVs, two in the bar, one in the dining room. I know for a fact my owner would never pay an additional $1,100 ($30 x 3rd tier x 12 months) for ESPN in addition to his cable bill (which is already inflated for businesses), just to have ESPN. And I can think of a lot of places that wouldn't do it either, both real life and hypothetical. I think in the end, they lose taking that route, which is to say nothing of how that would even work with the individual cable companies agreeing to it.
 

ifmanis5

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Transcrip of full interview here. One thing of note: They laid him off, then asked him to stay and cover the Saints' draft

https://sportsday.dallasnews.com/dallas-cowboys/cowboys/2017/05/01/ed-werder-shares-reaction-espns-massive-layoffs-feels-like-brett-favre
Not surprised by this at all. That's been their policy for years.

No Hoge is a good thing, no Jaws is a bad thing. Jaws was excellent and everything ESPN should want in an analyst. I didn't see him during the draft and since he had a Philly connection that was an obvious sign.
 

The Big Red Kahuna

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Not surprised by this at all. That's been their policy for years.

No Hoge is a good thing, no Jaws is a bad thing. Jaws was excellent and everything ESPN should want in an analyst. I didn't see him during the draft and since he had a Philly connection that was an obvious sign.
He was there. Announced an Eagles pick.
 

Sox and Rocks

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Transcrip of full interview here. One thing of note: They laid him off, then asked him to stay and cover the Saints' draft

https://sportsday.dallasnews.com/dallas-cowboys/cowboys/2017/05/01/ed-werder-shares-reaction-espns-massive-layoffs-feels-like-brett-favre
Apparently, several of the people who were laid off have contracts, like Warder, that are still being honored. Some even have multiple years left.

If the goal is to save money, laying people off and paying them to not work instead of keeping them through the length of their contract and paying them to work makes no sense to me. Am I missing something?
 

dcmissle

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Apparently, several of the people who were laid off have contracts, like Warder, that are still being honored. Some even have multiple years left.

If the goal is to save money, laying people off and paying them to not work instead of keeping them through the length of their contract and paying them to work makes no sense to me. Am I missing something?
The natural human desire to have meaningful work.

If they are honoring the contracts, it means that the four-letter essentially has no choice; there is no way out.

But the most a guy like Werder can expect is to be paid; the contract does not confer a right to work.

Parking a guy deprives him of work. It also makes it more difficult to get similar work when the contract period is over.

So ESPN says, you can take your full contractual amount and sit at home -- or you can take a haircut, and we'll let you work some place else. It's a pressure point to bring the cost down.
 

ZMart100

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NFL Matchup is the one ESPN show I actively seek out even though they bury it at terrible times. I'll miss being able to watch people actually talk about personel and schemes if they cancel it.
 

Dehere

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Apparently, several of the people who were laid off have contracts, like Warder, that are still being honored. Some even have multiple years left.

If the goal is to save money, laying people off and paying them to not work instead of keeping them through the length of their contract and paying them to work makes no sense to me. Am I missing something?
By laying them off they can take the financial hit for the rest of those contracts in the current fiscal and get the future commitments off the books, which is something one might do if you were getting ready to spin off a unit of a company.
 

TheoShmeo

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If there's a thread on ESPN on air, I've missed it. This comment is on this morning's story on Machado getting hit and his reaction.

ESPN covered the whole story -- from Pedey getting hit to Barnes to last night -- without noting that the Os hit Betts on Monday night.

There aren't a lot of moving parts here and that's clearly part of the narrative. Said differently, it's not at all clear or even likely that Sale would have thrown at Machado had Bundy not thrown at Betts.

Nice work, ESPN. No doubt, there were weightier stories last night. But if you're going to cover this one as breathlessly as they did, you might as well get it right.
 

TFP

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Apparently, several of the people who were laid off have contracts, like Warder, that are still being honored. Some even have multiple years left.

If the goal is to save money, laying people off and paying them to not work instead of keeping them through the length of their contract and paying them to work makes no sense to me. Am I missing something?
The natural human desire to have meaningful work.

If they are honoring the contracts, it means that the four-letter essentially has no choice; there is no way out.

But the most a guy like Werder can expect is to be paid; the contract does not confer a right to work.

Parking a guy deprives him of work. It also makes it more difficult to get similar work when the contract period is over.

So ESPN says, you can take your full contractual amount and sit at home -- or you can take a haircut, and we'll let you work some place else. It's a pressure point to bring the cost down.
By laying them off they can take the financial hit for the rest of those contracts in the current fiscal and get the future commitments off the books, which is something one might do if you were getting ready to spin off a unit of a company.
Yep, the underreported part here is basically ESPN is saying "sit at home and collect your paycheck" (which allows them to take the writeoff mentioned by Dehere), or "go get a job elsewhere, but then you give up any pay which is owed to you from us" (which is what dcmissile mentions). In truth it sounds like a good gig to sit at home and do nothing, but some of these folks have multiple years left on their contracts. Kind of a shitty position to put the EEs in versus coming up with a buyout or package or something.
 

Kliq

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If there's a thread on ESPN on air, I've missed it. This comment is on this morning's story on Machado getting hit and his reaction.

ESPN covered the whole story -- from Pedey getting hit to Barnes to last night -- without noting that the Os hit Betts on Monday night.

There aren't a lot of moving parts here and that's clearly part of the narrative. Said differently, it's not at all clear or even likely that Sale would have thrown at Machado had Bundy not thrown at Betts.

Nice work, ESPN. No doubt, there were weightier stories last night. But if you're going to cover this one as breathlessly as they did, you might as well get it right.
Hey ESPN has like, two people left covering baseball, give them a break!
 

DanoooME

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If there's a thread on ESPN on air, I've missed it. This comment is on this morning's story on Machado getting hit and his reaction.

ESPN covered the whole story -- from Pedey getting hit to Barnes to last night -- without noting that the Os hit Betts on Monday night.

There aren't a lot of moving parts here and that's clearly part of the narrative. Said differently, it's not at all clear or even likely that Sale would have thrown at Machado had Bundy not thrown at Betts.

Nice work, ESPN. No doubt, there were weightier stories last night. But if you're going to cover this one as breathlessly as they did, you might as well get it right.
Compare and contrast that to MLBN's coverage last night with Mike Lowell and Pedro dissecting the entire thing, with thorough thought processes as to why it happened, seeing both sides, and how they would have handled it and where it should stand now.

Thank goodness Harold Reynolds wasn't on last night, because I'm sure he wouldn't have been as rational as Lowell was about it. Lowell and Pedro should be their #1 guys in the studio. Pedro pretty much is right now, but Lowell needs more exposure.
 

Infield Infidel

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Yep, the underreported part here is basically ESPN is saying "sit at home and collect your paycheck" (which allows them to take the writeoff mentioned by Dehere), or "go get a job elsewhere, but then you give up any pay which is owed to you from us" (which is what dcmissile mentions). In truth it sounds like a good gig to sit at home and do nothing, but some of these folks have multiple years left on their contracts. Kind of a shitty position to put the EEs in versus coming up with a buyout or package or something.
Some of these writers could take time off and write a book. Unfortunately that book probably couldn't be about ESPN, since they almost certainly had to sign an NDA. They'd be able to write a book on ESPN's dime though
 

JimD

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I had time to kill at an airport last Friday night at 6:00 p.m. and one of the TV's had 'SC at 6' on. If I didn't know that it was actually SportsCenter, I would have thought it was just another ESPN show with two people talking past each other. Their personalities seemed interesting enough if given the right material but the debate (both in substance and style) completely failed to capture my interest.