ESPN Is Pathetic

dcmissle

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Any reports on the length of the Grennie contract?

He had a staggering run with Golic. Phenomenal in terms of longevity. Sometimes, you just need to know your spot.
 

DJnVa

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Depending on where you look Greenie has a net worth of around $10 million. He'll be okay, but yeah, you gotta know your role.
 

kenneycb

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Some of the info you want is in the article linked.



I mean, it's a Clay Travis link, it's not great writing, but it's clear the show is a huge ratings disappointment.
After one show. They have leash from ESPN so I’m not ready to dance on their graves like so many are gleefully doing right now.
 

esfr

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Have only been watching while working out but I like the format and the hosts far more than the poorly produced predecessor which showed every single highlight 20-25 times. To each his own I guess
 

Lose Remerswaal

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This will effectively end both Greenie and Beadle's careers, Jalen never had one to lose. After Cold Pizza died Jay Crawford hung on for dear life at ESPN knowing he would never ever have any other shot at a national gig, laboring in the obscurity of mid-day Sportscenters , until the latest housecleanings. He just accepted the position of "executive in residence" at his alma mater, Bowling Green U. I assume that means 'we'll give you a job but there's no way we can pass you off as any sort of an academic with a straight face'.

For 6.5 mil/year where can they park Greenie ?

Greenie, maybe. Beadle will be fine. Just like a lefty who can get guys out can find a gig until he's 40, an attractive female with a sense of humor who knows a good amount about sports will never have trouble finding a TV sports role, no matter how badly a show she is on does in the ratings.
 

cheech13

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Not trying to continue the pile on, but I've never quite understood who this show was aimed at and what it was trying to accomplish. Greenie isn't a star and he's not dynamic enough to anchor this kind of vehicle. Beadle and Rose are fine as talents, but I don't think they are compelling enough, or make that opinionated enough, to draw eyeballs in a crowded morning market. People want highlights in the morning, or something to drive discussion for the coming day. An AM wrap-around/talk show is fine, I guess, but not worth $15 million in salaries and millions more on set design and promotion. It fills a niche that isn't there.
 

Couperin47

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I believe the answer to "Why does this exist ?" is that, it has evolved into this stillborn thing. When first proposed by Skipper in the heady days after being acquired by Disney/ABC the main thrust of his ideas was to expand ESPN by remembering what the "E" stands for. It was going to get far beyond sports, there would be lifestyle synergy with ABC and Disney. A high profile show in NYC could seriously compete with the network morning shows and they would pull A list celebrities every day as opposed to only now and then luring someone to Bristol for a 'car wash' day with every show that always was pretty sad by late afternoon when you have seen the victim now recite the same few anecdotes for the 4th or 5th time. Disney/ABC was hot for this idea at one point. Along the way economic realities intervened, ESPN was suddenly a drag on earnings, everyone who liked the idea, first outside Bristol then, last but not least, Skipper are gone. The concept was cut back and cut back til now it's just overpaid B list domestic talent in a ridiculously expensive NYC location and ...and...nothing more.
 

Couperin47

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Credit where it’s due... ESPN cleaned up their Sky F1 stream today and we had a fantastic viewing experience.
 

DJnVa

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Watched the Sunday Night Baseball Game on ESPN last night. A season of A-Rod providing color is really going to be a long one. The nonsense about the Mets was one thing. https://nypost.com/2018/04/09/ex-mets-exec-calls-out-a-rod-over-his-mets-fantasy/

He's just generally not good at it. He was fine on Fox for their Post Season coverage in small doses but that whole crew is very difficult to like on ESPN.
None of what Duquette said actually refutes Arod saying he regrets not signing there.
 

Dehere

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Greenie, maybe. Beadle will be fine. Just like a lefty who can get guys out can find a gig until he's 40, an attractive female with a sense of humor who knows a good amount about sports will never have trouble finding a TV sports role, no matter how badly a show she is on does in the ratings.
See, I think Beadle is the one who is on the ropes here. If this show fails she will have failed to launch shows on both NBCSN and ESPN, and there's a whole generation of female talent out there that can do what Beadle does but fresher and better. The notion of a good-looking woman who knows sports and seems fun to hang with isn't nearly as novel as it was when Beadle came up. That's why her hiring for this show is a mystery to me. They've got women already on staff who have better journalism chops, or are prettier, or come across as more fun. The next generation is nipping at her heels. Beadle feels like a compromise choice and when paired with Greenie the whole thing has a been there done that feel.

I guess I agree that she'll always be able to find some level of work somewhere, but she's done as someone who is in the running for big jobs unless this turns around quickly.
 

E5 Yaz

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They've got women already on staff who have better journalism chops, or are prettier, or come across as more fun..
They also have men already on staff who have better journalism chops, or are prettier, or come across as more fun than Greenberg. What's your point?
 

Lose Remerswaal

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See, I think Beadle is the one who is on the ropes here. If this show fails she will have failed to launch shows on both NBCSN and ESPN, and there's a whole generation of female talent out there that can do what Beadle does but fresher and better. The notion of a good-looking woman who knows sports and seems fun to hang with isn't nearly as novel as it was when Beadle came up. That's why her hiring for this show is a mystery to me. They've got women already on staff who have better journalism chops, or are prettier, or come across as more fun. The next generation is nipping at her heels. Beadle feels like a compromise choice and when paired with Greenie the whole thing has a been there done that feel.

I guess I agree that she'll always be able to find some level of work somewhere, but she's done as someone who is in the running for big jobs unless this turns around quickly.
She did well with SportsNation and when she left ESPN brought her back to get that show going again. I'd be interested in what the ratings there have been since they took her off again
 

Patriot_Reign

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I tuned in for a bit a couple times last week and was honestly aghast the first time I saw Greenie's "Word of the Day" segment....like holy crap who would ever think that is a good idea or would draw eyeballs?

And while I get Clay Travis's act is quite a bit of schadenfreude at ESPN's expense, he has had some interesting stuff about talking with current ESPN friends in Bristol who are hoping the show will fail (because of all the money thrown to NYC and the salaries while hundreds get laid off in Bristol)
 

Couperin47

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The news relating to Get Up! keeps getting...worse:

Ratings for the 2nd day dropped and so did the 3rd day, by which time barely 200,000 people were watching.
Get Up (ESPN, Apr. 2-5)
– 0.246 million viewers (-24.2% from SportsCenter 7-10AM on Apr. 3-6, 2017)

Splitting up Mike & Mike has also done serious damage to that program too, it's hard to find national radio stats, but as to the TV side. The last week of the new show before Wake Up! debuted to provide even more competition:

Golic and Wingo (ESPN2, Mar. 26-30)
– 0.127 million viewers (-40.9%)
– 0.056 million adults 18-49 (-49.3%)

The numbers in parenthesis are relative to the same week in 2017.

Hard to image how ESPN could have deliberately wrecked their morning lineups even more if they had actively attempted to do so. This tells me the new guys at the top in Bristol are unlikely to show much patience dealing with such unmitigated disaster, but how do you avoid the appearance of utter panic ?
 

shaggydog2000

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The news relating to Get Up! keeps getting...worse:

Ratings for the 2nd day dropped and so did the 3rd day, by which time barely 200,000 people were watching.
Get Up (ESPN, Apr. 2-5)
– 0.246 million viewers (-24.2% from SportsCenter 7-10AM on Apr. 3-6, 2017)

Splitting up Mike & Mike has also done serious damage to that program too, it's hard to find national radio stats, but as to the TV side. The last week of the new show before Wake Up! debuted to provide even more competition:

Golic and Wingo (ESPN2, Mar. 26-30)
– 0.127 million viewers (-40.9%)
– 0.056 million adults 18-49 (-49.3%)

The numbers in parenthesis are relative to the same week in 2017.

Hard to image how ESPN could have deliberately wrecked their morning lineups even more if they had actively attempted to do so. This tells me the new guys at the top in Bristol are unlikely to show much patience dealing with such unmitigated disaster, but how do you avoid the appearance of utter panic ?
250k people is basically all the gyms, bars, restaurants, and undiscerning people that just never change the channel on their TV's from ESPN and use it for background noise. It's pretty much unintentional viewing levels.
 

jon abbey

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Jumping in here late, sorry...

None of what Duquette said actually refutes Arod saying he regrets not signing there.
Exactly! I read this in the paper the other day (yes, I still buy the Post) and thought they totally missed the point. Duquette said it was “revisionist history” as if that was news, A-Rod’s whole point was that he wished in retrospect that he would have lowered his demands enough so that he could have agreed with the Mets. Admittedly easy to say a few hundred million in earnings later, but interesting at least, and not addressed at all by this pointless piece.
 

JimD

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The Get Up ratings situation was discussed on Richard Deitsch's podcast with James Andrew Miller, who's pretty well hooked in at ESPN. Miller believes that even though this show lost its champion when John Skipper left, management knows that an adjustment period is necessary and will give it at least through the coming football season to find its footing. Like everyone else, he has criticized the selection of Greenburg at the center of this show given that he is no one's idea of destination viewing (as in, 'Wow, the Yankees and Sox had a brawl last night ... I have to tune in to Get Up this morning to see what Greenie has to say about this!').
 

JimD

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Will anyone even notice? FiveThirtyEight's website gives virtually no clue that it's part of ESPN.
 

Kliq

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Does anyone know 538 exists? Talk about doing commodity work

The fact that ESPN couldn’t find a buyer speaks volumes
The only time I feel like I hear about 538 is when people bring up how wrong they were about something.
 

ifmanis5

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The ESPN Subs bloodbath continues...
https://www.outkickthecoverage.com/espn-loses-500000-subscribers-april/
And the start of this spring was brutal for ESPN, costing the network 500,000 subscribers, or nearly 17,000 lost subscribers a day in the month of April. Putting that into context, this is $48 million in revenue that ESPN has lost forever. (That’s $8 a month x 500,000 lost subscribers x 12 months in a year).

The loss in subscribers puts ESPN down to just north of 86 million, which is a precipitous decline from the 100 million subscribers the network had as recently as the end of 2011.
 

trekfan55

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But is this an indictment on ESPN or the Cable Industry in general?

As I understand it, ESPN is in the basic tier/level which means that they automatically get $8 per month from each person that has cable. The people dropping ESPN are not dropping it but rather are cutting the cord. Do those people then go to any other service like Sling, YouTubeTV or the specialized ESPN apps/services like "WatchESPN"? and if so, does ESPN get revenue from them?

I mean, ESPN is still pathetic, but the fault here, as usual for many decaying brands, is the change in the business model. They made tons of money because they were in the basic tier. Now, as people are cutting the cord and going with more and more "a la cart" services, ESPN has to actually sell their product. Time is running out.
 

ifmanis5

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But is this an indictment on ESPN or the Cable Industry in general?
It can be a bit of both.

No doubt lots of cord cutting is still happening without regard to ESPN's brand popularity. But it's also the case that one of the main factors of high cable bills is ESPN's pass through fees. Average Cable bill pays anywhere from $7 to $9 dollars per month to have ESPN and that is the highest fee out there by far. There is a bit of chicken and egg here as ESPN is actually dragging up monthly cable bill charges. Overall though I would agree, Cable TV is now seen by many as out of date content delivery technology. The only real question left is how far and how fast it takes for it to be dead for good and ESPN isn't totally to blame for that.
 

trekfan55

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It can be a bit of both.

No doubt lots of cord cutting is still happening without regard to ESPN's brand popularity. But it's also the case that one of the main factors of high cable bills is ESPN's pass through fees. Average Cable bill pays anywhere from $7 to $9 dollars per month to have ESPN and that is the highest fee out there by far. There is a bit of chicken and egg here as ESPN is actually dragging up monthly cable bill charges. Overall though I would agree, Cable TV is now seen by many as out of date content delivery technology. The only real question left is how far and how fast it takes for it to be dead for good and ESPN isn't totally to blame for that.
That is part of my point. The Cable TV model is becoming obsolete very fast. Not because of the price, but because of what is forcefully included in the price. As with many models before it, Cable has failed to see the changes coming and has somehow made it worse. Case in point, they should have offered a tiered a la carte model years ago. That way they could offer a bare bones local package and then you start adding channels (maybe not one by one but certain packages). It may be too late now as it was for Kodak, for Blockbuster Video, for many retail chains, etc.

What ESPN should have done some time ago is make sure people wanted to watch it. Get access to live sports, make sure to get the best post game analysis for those of us that like to watch that, get some great specials like the 30 for 30 series and land the best people for sports talk and discussion. At one point it could have done that. Nowadays it's been left behind.

I have not have access to Gringo ESPN for some time now (it used to be available over here) but I don't miss it. MLB Network, and NFL Network are available. I only tune in to Latin ESPN for live events, which I guess I would do even less if I lived in the USA as Latin ESPN brings me the World Series, the Superbowl, Sunday Night NFL and other events I would not find in Gringo ESPN. My point is, they became irrelevant and didn't realize it. Gone are the days when Sportscenter was the only way to get the days' highlights.
 
What ESPN should have done some time ago is make sure people wanted to watch it. Get access to live sports, make sure to get the best post game analysis for those of us that like to watch that, get some great specials like the 30 for 30 series and land the best people for sports talk and discussion. At one point it could have done that. Nowadays it's been left behind.
It seems to me that the bolded is exactly what ESPN tried to do, and it was at least competitive in each of these areas - taste in postgame analysis and sports talk/discussion is debatable, but its lineup in those departments is sound enough (for the average viewer if not my own taste), and in terms of live sports and great specials like 30 for 30, it's hard to quibble with what they've done. So I'm not sure I follow this line of criticism.
 

trekfan55

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My point is that some time ago ESPN was must watch for sports fans. Sportscenter was must see, it had great stuff.

Then it started to lose relevance. They also started to lose the live sports element. I mean they do have it, but it's less and less relevant. This is where they should have invested money. If the have the rights to one of the Baseball LCSs, or one of the playoff games for the NFL, or more NBA Playoff Games then people might think twice before cord cutting. Also, with the new formats available they can switch their revenue to new sources with the content they have and have people switch to that forum.
 

Cesar Crespo

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My point is that some time ago ESPN was must watch for sports fans. Sportscenter was must see, it had great stuff.

Then it started to lose relevance. They also started to lose the live sports element. I mean they do have it, but it's less and less relevant. This is where they should have invested money. If the have the rights to one of the Baseball LCSs, or one of the playoff games for the NFL, or more NBA Playoff Games then people might think twice before cord cutting. Also, with the new formats available they can switch their revenue to new sources with the content they have and have people switch to that forum.
They lost relevance largely in part because broadband became mainstream. SC was must watch because it was the only thing available. Same with NFL Prime Time and Baseball Tonight. They were the only show in town. Granted, they were great in the 90's but that could just be nostalgia from my youth.
 

trekfan55

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They lost relevance largely in part because broadband became mainstream. SC was must watch because it was the only thing available. Same with NFL Prime Time and Baseball Tonight. They were the only show in town. Granted, they were great in the 90's but that could just be nostalgia from my youth.
Same as with some other companies I mentioned, they did not change with the times. When broadband became mainstream they could have embraced it and joined the fray. And yeah, sports shows like Baseball Tonight and NFL Prime Time and Sportscenter should have transitioned and competed better. Again, they needed to keep being relevant. Make people want to have ESPN and also move into the other platforms before it's too late.

By just resting on the "we´re in the basic tier and get $8 per cable subscriber" they started losing revenue when those subscribers decided they no longer wanted cable and didn't care that they wouldn't get ESPN.
 

JimD

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I was a regular viewer of Baseball Tonight back in the day, but ESPN was notorious for jerking it all around the schedule or not airing it some nights even in its heyday. Once MLB Network launched I had zero reason to put up with that.
 

tims4wins

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They lost relevance largely in part because broadband became mainstream. SC was must watch because it was the only thing available. Same with NFL Prime Time and Baseball Tonight. They were the only show in town. Granted, they were great in the 90's but that could just be nostalgia from my youth.
There may be some nostalgia in there, but you are 100% right that they were the only show in town. Baseball Tonight and NFL Primetime were absolute staples of my teen years.
 

dcmissle

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Tied for 68th on the leaderboard makes you “alive” in 4-letter parlance — if you are Tiger Woods.

So the bar is making the cut, 14 strokes behind the leader, after all the breathless bullshit leading into the Tour season. That’s where we are?
 

johnmd20

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Tied for 68th on the leaderboard makes you “alive” in 4-letter parlance — if you are Tiger Woods.

So the bar is making the cut, 14 strokes behind the leader, after all the breathless bullshit leading into the Tour season. That’s where we are?
It's where we've been for the past 20 years.
 

kenneycb

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Tied for 68th on the leaderboard makes you “alive” in 4-letter parlance — if you are Tiger Woods.

So the bar is making the cut, 14 strokes behind the leader, after all the breathless bullshit leading into the Tour season. That’s where we are?
When it’s the best golfer of a generation who pretty much singularly drives ratings, yes. This isn’t unique to ESPN.
 

joe dokes

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Perhaps ESPN is catering to people like me, who think that making the cut on the number and playing every Sunday with a marker is the purgatory he deserves.
 

axx

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Tied for 68th on the leaderboard makes you “alive” in 4-letter parlance — if you are Tiger Woods.

So the bar is making the cut, 14 strokes behind the leader, after all the breathless bullshit leading into the Tour season. That’s where we are?
If Eldrick wasn't playing ESPN probably wouldn't even mention golf.
 

Freddy Linn

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1. The headline was about the marquee group of Tiger/Rickie/Phil that drew absolutely monster crowds. The photo evidence of the gallery is insane. Tiger made it, Rickie and Phil missed it. Alive/Dead. They’ve done much worse.

2. Tiger is now T11.