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ESPN pays out an insane amount of cash for their deals with various sports leagues. Their business model completely relies on people who don't watch the channe

by sbov 10y ago

ESPN pays out an insane amount of cash for their deals with various sports leagues. Their business model completely relies on people who don't watch the channel to still pay them, and seem to be locked into that business model. If people who only watched ESPN paid ESPN, some estimates put the required monthly fee to be around $40/month. It's insane. They rode the gravy train for a long time, but don't seem to have an escape hatch.

AnAfrican 10y ago
It's actually the sport teams/leagues that rode the gravy train. ESPN paid huge amounts because they had to outbid the competition. If sportsbroadcasting gets less profitable, sports will get less profitable.
- hyperbovine 10y ago
  That's an interesting question: would anything change if the average NFL salary was $500k instead of the almost $2m that it is now? My guess is no.
  - dagw 10y ago
    The average might be $2m, but the median is only ~$750k. So if you flatten the payscale then you could probably get to a $500k average with most players not taking too big a paycut. But let's say you are 15 year old super talents that has every potential to make many millions in the NFL today. Would they still pursue football if they could only make at most 25% of the highest paid players today or would they focus on another sport, and if so which sport might do better in this future? Perhaps baseball or soccer will become more popular since if you're not getting paid a lot why risk the head trauma.
    - hyperbovine 10y ago
      I don't believe any 15 year old who feels they can choose from among several pro sporting careers is thinking rationally.
  - AnAfrican 10y ago
    My guess is also no.
  - douche 10y ago
    If you take the quarterbacks and the absurdly over-paid edge rushers out of the equation, and the NFL average salary starts to come down quite a bit closer to that 500k mark. Some would argue that that bit of economics is part of what is diluting the product on the field. There is little incentive to keep mid-career, mid-talent guys around, when you can use guys on rookie contracts that are half or a quarter the price, for 75% of the skill. Except there's a lot of deficit in experience and savviness.
rikkus 10y ago
They may then have a choice between obscurity and lower profits.

by sbov 10y ago

AnAfrican 10y ago

It's actually the sport teams/leagues that rode the gravy train. ESPN paid huge amounts because they had to outbid the competition. If sportsbroadcasting gets less profitable, sports will get less profitable.

hyperbovine 10y ago
That's an interesting question: would anything change if the average NFL salary was $500k instead of the almost $2m that it is now? My guess is no.
- dagw 10y ago
  The average might be $2m, but the median is only ~$750k. So if you flatten the payscale then you could probably get to a $500k average with most players not taking too big a paycut. But let's say you are 15 year old super talents that has every potential to make many millions in the NFL today. Would they still pursue football if they could only make at most 25% of the highest paid players today or would they focus on another sport, and if so which sport might do better in this future? Perhaps baseball or soccer will become more popular since if you're not getting paid a lot why risk the head trauma.
  - hyperbovine 10y ago
    I don't believe any 15 year old who feels they can choose from among several pro sporting careers is thinking rationally.
- AnAfrican 10y ago
  My guess is also no.
- douche 10y ago
  If you take the quarterbacks and the absurdly over-paid edge rushers out of the equation, and the NFL average salary starts to come down quite a bit closer to that 500k mark. Some would argue that that bit of economics is part of what is diluting the product on the field. There is little incentive to keep mid-career, mid-talent guys around, when you can use guys on rookie contracts that are half or a quarter the price, for 75% of the skill. Except there's a lot of deficit in experience and savviness.

rikkus 10y ago

They may then have a choice between obscurity and lower profits.