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To answer some of the questions you are getting about the logical error: The logical error is assuming that sports franchises are overvalued just because the e

To answer some of the questions you are getting about the logical error: The logical error is assuming that sports franchises are overvalued just because the entertainment options that report on sports (ESPN) may be overvalued. The OP is saying that reddit/r/cfb, reddit/r/nba, bleacher report, twitter, youtube etc. all now actively compete against ESPN's cash cow, highlights / analysis. People are tuning in to live sports more than ever, and sports are the only consistent option for TV advertisers to capture viewers due to the importance of watching sports live. Several major college football conferences will be renegotiating their TV rights over the next 36 months, including the Big 10. Most people expect it to be the highest price ever paid for TV rights because there are so few 'live' options left for advertisers and the Big 10's viewership is increasing rapidly. At the same time, less and less people think ESPN is important.

btrautsc 11y ago
This is not only a more concise but also a clearer explanation. well put!
- wtvanhest 11y ago
  I thought you had a great comment, but when I read the rebuttals, I realized that it needed a more detailed explanation for people who do not watch sports and assume that ESPN is "sports". Since you cannot buy ESPN alone, we do not know who is cancelling ESPN because they never cared about ESPN and are simply ending their relationship with cable. I know that if it wasn't for live sports, I would not have cable and from talking to friends that also seems true. Those 7m subs that ESPN lost, may all be people who switched away from cable because ESPN wasn't important to them. If that is the case, ESPN may be able to actually get more value from less subs. There are going to be a lot of bloggers out there that do not understand how value is migrating from one group to another. Its a complex problem for cable companies and ESPN and I think ultimately, sports franchises are going to be able to capture most of the value.
  - p4wnc6 11y ago
    This is not quite accurate. You'd have to figure that if people are canceling subscriptions as part of a random process, then they ought to also be signing up for a subscription randomly too. When it averages out, ESPN should be seeing about as many people canceling as they see signing up if it all just comes down to noise. If it's not all noise, then there are a few different scenarios: 1. Some exogenous factor is causing more people to cancel in general than to sign up. This would mean that across the board every television content provider would be seeing similar subscriber loss as what ESPN sees. I'd argue that we're not seeing that, even though there is huge rage against the major cable providers. People are tuning into live sports on network TV more than ever ... so if they are doing that, yet ESPN sees consistent subscriber loss uncompensated by complementary new account sign ups, it's evidence that people are indeed choosing to drop ESPN specifically. 2. There could be an exogenous factor causing people to sign up for cable more than drop it -- in which case ESPN's subscriber loss would be even worse. I don't think we're seeing this either. 3. It could be the endogenous factor that ESPN's content offerings are no longer compelling. This is generally directly tied with advertising metrics, so if advertisers are putting a red flag on ESPN, you can bet that they did lots of due diligence to ensure they were measuring the right thing, and not some accidental side effect of exogenous changes in cable habits overall. On this last point, I think it bears pointing out that ESPN has a lot of different digital properties. There is the WatchESPN app which provides a ton of free content that doesn't require anything but an internet connection, even though it also provides more premium content that does require you to obtain login credentials through a supported cable provider based upon your level of ESPN subscription. It's very easy to see how they could use the overall viewership statistics of WatchESPN combined with the specific statistics based on the subset of viewers who actually log in via a subscription to watch WatchESPN content. From that you could derive reasonable estimates of the changing number of subscribers. Add on to that things like fantasy sports accounts, "insider" subscribers, and so forth, and it should give you a decent holistic understanding of whether subscriptions overall are increasing or not specifically in response to ESPN's offerings.
austenallred 11y ago
Especially considering ESPN is tied into cable TV, which is a huge bundle of channels, 99% of which are garbage.
chrismcb 11y ago
Is it really the case that fewer people think ESPN is important or is that more people think cable is useless and dropping it. Many of which didn't watch ESPN to begin with. The real issue is the non sports watchers are no longer subsidizing the sports watchers. B
- wtvanhest 11y ago
  I believe that is the real issue. I didn't want to include it in the parent to keep it clear so I wrote it below.
chrismcb 11y ago
Is it really the case that fewer people think ESPN is important or is that more people think cable is useless and dropping it. Many of which didn't watch ESPN to begin with. The real issue is the non sports watchers are no longer subsidizing the sports watchers. B

btrautsc 11y ago

This is not only a more concise but also a clearer explanation. well put!

wtvanhest 11y ago
I thought you had a great comment, but when I read the rebuttals, I realized that it needed a more detailed explanation for people who do not watch sports and assume that ESPN is "sports". Since you cannot buy ESPN alone, we do not know who is cancelling ESPN because they never cared about ESPN and are simply ending their relationship with cable. I know that if it wasn't for live sports, I would not have cable and from talking to friends that also seems true. Those 7m subs that ESPN lost, may all be people who switched away from cable because ESPN wasn't important to them. If that is the case, ESPN may be able to actually get more value from less subs. There are going to be a lot of bloggers out there that do not understand how value is migrating from one group to another. Its a complex problem for cable companies and ESPN and I think ultimately, sports franchises are going to be able to capture most of the value.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  This is not quite accurate. You'd have to figure that if people are canceling subscriptions as part of a random process, then they ought to also be signing up for a subscription randomly too. When it averages out, ESPN should be seeing about as many people canceling as they see signing up if it all just comes down to noise. If it's not all noise, then there are a few different scenarios: 1. Some exogenous factor is causing more people to cancel in general than to sign up. This would mean that across the board every television content provider would be seeing similar subscriber loss as what ESPN sees. I'd argue that we're not seeing that, even though there is huge rage against the major cable providers. People are tuning into live sports on network TV more than ever ... so if they are doing that, yet ESPN sees consistent subscriber loss uncompensated by complementary new account sign ups, it's evidence that people are indeed choosing to drop ESPN specifically. 2. There could be an exogenous factor causing people to sign up for cable more than drop it -- in which case ESPN's subscriber loss would be even worse. I don't think we're seeing this either. 3. It could be the endogenous factor that ESPN's content offerings are no longer compelling. This is generally directly tied with advertising metrics, so if advertisers are putting a red flag on ESPN, you can bet that they did lots of due diligence to ensure they were measuring the right thing, and not some accidental side effect of exogenous changes in cable habits overall. On this last point, I think it bears pointing out that ESPN has a lot of different digital properties. There is the WatchESPN app which provides a ton of free content that doesn't require anything but an internet connection, even though it also provides more premium content that does require you to obtain login credentials through a supported cable provider based upon your level of ESPN subscription. It's very easy to see how they could use the overall viewership statistics of WatchESPN combined with the specific statistics based on the subset of viewers who actually log in via a subscription to watch WatchESPN content. From that you could derive reasonable estimates of the changing number of subscribers. Add on to that things like fantasy sports accounts, "insider" subscribers, and so forth, and it should give you a decent holistic understanding of whether subscriptions overall are increasing or not specifically in response to ESPN's offerings.

austenallred 11y ago

Especially considering ESPN is tied into cable TV, which is a huge bundle of channels, 99% of which are garbage.

chrismcb 11y ago

Is it really the case that fewer people think ESPN is important or is that more people think cable is useless and dropping it. Many of which didn't watch ESPN to begin with. The real issue is the non sports watchers are no longer subsidizing the sports watchers. B

wtvanhest 11y ago
I believe that is the real issue. I didn't want to include it in the parent to keep it clear so I wrote it below.

chrismcb 11y ago