Is ESPN doomed? | THE COLLINE GATE—Thoughtful Political Discussion

robeiae
Thaumaturge

On a down bound train

Posts: 6,692

Is ESPN doomed? Apr 26, 2017 16:56:19 GMT -5

Post by robeiae on Apr 26, 2017 16:56:19 GMT -5

Honestly, I hope so. I find almost everyone on the air there to be terribly annoying.

Anyway: www.outkickthecoverage.com/espn-firing-over-a-hundred-employees-today-042617

Today, with the announcement that over 100 on air talent at ESPN were being let go, many will finally come to realize what Outkick readers have read here for the past several years -- ESPN's business model is fundamentally broken and there is no saving it. The continuing collapse of ESPN is the biggest story in sports -- the sub-prime mortgage crisis with bouncing balls.

Why is it imploding? Well according to this guy:

Middle America wants to pop a beer and listen to sports talk, they don't want to be lectured about why Caitlyn Jenner is a hero, Michael Sam is the new Jackie Robinson of sports, and Colin Kaepernick is the Rosa Parks of football. ESPN made the mistake of trying to make liberal social media losers happy and as a result lost millions of viewers.

But according to him, the above is just hastening a demise, brought on by this:

The simple truth of the matter is this -- ESPN spent way too much on sports rights just as its cable and satellite subscriptions began to collapse. On track for $8 billion in programming costs in 2017, ESPN will rack up its 15 millionth lost subscriber since 2011. Every single day so far in 2017 over 10,000 people have left ESPN. The numbers are astonishing and the collapse is rapid. All those lost subscribers add up to big money -- that's over $1.3 billion a year in money that comes off ESPN's books every year. And ESPN is on the hook for billions and billions a year for all the years ahead. That's guaranteed payments to leagues that ESPN can't escape no matter how many employees it fires.

There's more on this in the piece. And he may have a point in this regard. On the "liberal social media" angle? I don't think so.

Here's a running list of layoffs: deadspin.com/a-running-list-of-espn-layoffs-1794664091

Personally, I rarely watch ESPN these days. The things I want to see are on NBC Sports Network, FoxSports 1 and 2, and the major networks.

Anyway...thoughts?

Last Edit: Apr 26, 2017 16:56:54 GMT -5 by robeiae

Quote

Don
Illuminati

Posts: 1,547

Is ESPN doomed? Apr 27, 2017 1:35:42 GMT -5

Post by Don on Apr 27, 2017 1:35:42 GMT -5

Being neither a sports nut nor a social justice warrior, I don't have a dog in this race, although I know a fair sampling of both groups.

However, my impression is that the intersection of the sets "sports nuts" and "social justice warriors" is, for political purposes, damned near a null set. I can see how appealing to that near-null set is a bad business model.

That said, making long-term promises based on short-term revenues with a belief that the status quo will maintain indefinitely is also a bad business model. See also; Charles Ponzi, Bernie Madoff, Social Security Administration.

____________________________________________________
Economics puts parameters on people’s utopias. ~Peter Boettke
"It's the voter's fault" is victim-blaming in its purest sense. ~Don
The 'social contract' is to the politician what 'original sin' is to the priest. ~Don
The vision of the helpful and protective state is the most pervasive and counter-productive ideology in the world today. ~Don
____________________________________________________

Quote

robeiae
Thaumaturge

On a down bound train

Posts: 6,692

Is ESPN doomed? Apr 27, 2017 8:07:55 GMT -5 Don likes this

Post by robeiae on Apr 27, 2017 8:07:55 GMT -5

Well, here's Sean Davis echoing you, Don: thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/the-real-story-behind-espns-wednesday-massacre/

This is a salient observation, as well:

That’s because Disney, ESPN’s parent, uses the popularity of ESPN’s live sports programming to force cable companies into carrying and paying for a large swath of less popular Disney-owned networks. The message? If you want ESPN, then you’re not only going to pay Disney for it, you’re also going to pay for A&E and Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network and History and Freeform and Disney Junior and Disney XD and Vice. It doesn’t matter if you don’t plan to watch a second of any of those networks: if you want to watch college football for three months in the fall, you’re going to pay for the unrelated also-ran networks whether you like it or not.

ESPN knows people will pay for cable just to get ESPN, hence its near-extortion of cable companies into carrying myriad other Disney-owned channels. Given this fact, how can ESPN claim that cord-cutting has nothing to do with ESPN? If people are plugging the cord in just to get ESPN, then you can pretty much guarantee ESPN is very much a part of the cord-cutting conversation. ESPN can’t have it both ways.

Quote

robeiae
Thaumaturge

On a down bound train

Posts: 6,692

Is ESPN doomed? May 10, 2017 8:23:24 GMT -5

Post by robeiae on May 10, 2017 8:23:24 GMT -5

Disney's quarterly earnings down again, thanks to ESPN: www.wsj.com/articles/more-problems-at-espn-1494369199

Late Tuesday afternoon Disney reported its quarterly earnings and according to the Journal, “ESPN once again dragged quarterly results with revenue for its fiscal second quarter coming in below analysts’ expectations.” The Journal notes that operating revenue within the Disney segment that includes ESPN contracted for the fifth time in six quarters.

The author goes on to discuss an op-ed by Jason Whitlock wherein it is argued that ESPN's problems stem from it's politics, which are largely a response to Deadspin's trolling and baiting:

Progressives across social media have been in an uproar since the Journal published Mr. Whitlock’s op-ed on Sunday night. Mr. Whitlock wrote that ESPN is “diverse on its surface, progressive in its point of view, and more concerned with spinning media narratives than with the quality of its product. The channel has become too handcuffed by politics to protect its most experienced and loyal employees. It’s a massive symbol of everything that fueled Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency.” Mr. Whitlock also opined that ESPN had been highly influenced by attacks from the leftist website Deadspin to adopt its current politicized approach to sports coverage.

From Whitlock's op-ed:

Rather than sue Mr. Denton’s bullying internet pirates into submission the way tech billionaire Peter Thiel did, ESPN chose to acquiesce and adopt progressive ideology and diversity as groundbreaking business innovations. ESPN is the exact network Deadspin desired. It’s diverse on its surface, progressive in its point of view, and more concerned with spinning media narratives than with the quality of its product.

The channel has become too handcuffed by politics to protect its most experienced and loyal employees. It’s a massive symbol of everything that fueled Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency.

The above seems like it's a little too far into tinfoil land, the idea that ESPN's financial problems stem from it's politics. Politics had nothing to do with overpaying for broadcast rights and it has little to do--imo--with the hordes of people dumping cable in general.

That said...I flipped on ESPN to catch the hockey highlights this morning and got more Colin Kaepernick than I did anything else.

Last Edit: May 10, 2017 8:23:50 GMT -5 by robeiae

Quote