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ESPN Can't Afford to Go on Like This

121 points by jsm386 9y ago

nnfy 9y ago
I don't watch sports networks of any kind, but I've seen anecdotes online that ESPN, especially sportscenter, is losing viewers because of politicization of content, where people just want sports talk.
- m52go 9y ago
  Not sure since I don't watch much ESPN either but this is a trend across media properties. I just saw MIT Technology Review tweet something about Trump's politics...didn't make me very happy.
  - blackguardx 9y ago
    MIT is an institution of higher learning. When the president says that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese to ruin the American economy, it goes beyond politics. Science isn't conservative or liberal. Science institutions are right to speak out against foolish policies that aren't rooted in science.
    - m52go 9y ago
      > MIT is an institution of higher learning. MIT Technology Review is not an institution of higher learning. It's a magazine supposedly focused on reporting about science and technology. > When the president says that climate change is a hoax The tweet I mentioned had nothing to do with climate change...not sure where you got that from. https://twitter.com/techreview/status/858577857110528000 https://twitter.com/techreview/status/858577857110528000
      - burkaman 9y ago
        This is a pretty interesting, fact-based article, what's the problem? I understand not wanting political opinions in a publication like this, but there's no discussion of whether the wall is a good idea or anything like that in here. "The mission of MIT Technology Review is to equip its audiences with the intelligence to understand a world shaped by technology." I don't think ignoring any story that happens to involve a politician would help serve that mission.
        nnfy 9y ago
        >I understand not wanting political opinions in a publication like this But that's exactly the problem.
        burkaman 9y ago
        Where in that article is there a political opinion?
    - geodel 9y ago
      Science funding is conservative or liberal. And when people force funding to a particular program, it is politics.
      - blackguardx 9y ago
        I think directing funding away from things can be political. It is like saying, "we don't want this question answered." Directing funding towards answering certain questions isn't political in my mind, though.
        hackuser 9y ago
        How about directing funding toward creationism, or alternative views of the causes of climate change (i.e., non-human ones), or the benefits of authoritarianism? How about when the Koch brothers fund research into the benefits of their brand of libertarianism? Anything can be used politically.
        blackguardx 9y ago
        Funding research is different than funding a specific result. The latter is definitely political.
        LanceH 9y ago
        The fact that there were votes to take someone's money away and give it to someone else makes it political no matter what it is spent on.
        hackuser 9y ago
        That description is a misconception, IMHO. First, it's an investment; it's not taking away money; it's not robbery. It has a return, a benefit that generally exceeds the cost (I'm not sure how much I paid to fly Cassini to Saturn, but wow was it worth it). People make investments all the time and are happy to do it, in everything from houses to the local homeless shelter to a new computer. Second, people normally and frequently participate in group decisions, even though they rarely get exactly what they want. To suggest that anything besides an individual choosing alone is extraordinary - that isn't how people really operate.
- itbeho 9y ago
  I like to watch sports for the competition, not preachy politics. Life in America is already too polarized politically. It's a shame broadcast sports can't be at least one place for common ground.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > It's a shame broadcast sports can't be at least one place for common ground. I don't know. There's a "sportsmanship" mythos out there, but I'm not sure it's the dominant one. I see a lot more of the love-my-team-hate-your-team culture in sports that looks a lot like modern "my team" politics. I'm just struggling with the implication of that. Do we encourage rabid sports fandom to give a relatively harmless space for the tribal impulse? Or does it just train people to support their parties and politicians the same way they support their favorite jerseyed heroes?
    - 0xcde4c3db 9y ago
      Also, trying to exclude politics often plays out as the majority promulgating their own "neutral" political positions and traditions unchallenged. It's much harder to create a truly apolitical space than it is to just get people with grievances to shut up or leave.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  It doesn't really matter to ESPN if people watch all of Sportscenter or not.
- endorphone 9y ago
  is losing viewers because of politicization of content They're losing viewers because we're turning away from television. That much is obvious to all. There are many ways to view, every event has countless streams, we get our sports news in granular form on our mobile, etc. However in the wake of that, some very sad people have decided to get on their soapbox and claim that they're really declining because they don't parrot whatever their personal position is. I've seen these people claim that ESPN is faltering because they have a problem with players who rape or beat women. Others -- the same ones who say that they don't want it to be "preachy" -- get up in arms if ESPN isn't preachily attacking the Colin Kaepernick's of the world. Etc. So as is often the case, the most partisan of all are the ones claiming that everything is some crazy partisan slant.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    It's not even about personal opinions. Every second they spend talking about whichever pro-athlete got a misdemeanor this week or scolding some college because its athletes were at a party where shit went down is a second they're not talking about actual sports content.
    - ubernostrum 9y ago
      The professional leagues all have conduct policies. So do colleges with sports teams. If a player violates those policies and faces consequences such as being suspended from play, how is that not "actual sports content"? You might as well say that if a politician commits crimes, political coverage shouldn't mention it -- after all, that's not "actual political content", right?
      - nnfy 9y ago
        Criminal behavior is generally presumed to be a reflection of a politician's character, which may affect a politician's decision making in office. I doubt the same inferences should be made so strongly regarding sports players.
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- deleted 9y ago
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- querulous 9y ago
  espn's best performing shows (other than live broadcasts of actual sports events) are it's most politicized. 'First Take', 'Highly Questionable', 'Pardon the Interruption', 'Around the Horn', etc the same is true for Fox Sports 1. it's simply not true that consumers are watching sports programming that isn't politicized more than that which is
  - zaroth 9y ago
    My first thought is, what's the ratio of those shows live vs. on-demand viewers? If you're looking at mostly live viewers, the time-slot the show is given could be the driver of the volume of eyeballs as much as the content. In otherwords, perhaps their best watched shows are the ones in the worst decline / their best watched (i.e. tent pole shows) are bleeding the most viewers. I can't speak to the cause.
  - cardiffspaceman 9y ago
    Is it possible that ESPN/sports channels are facing a demographic change and are guessing that mainstreaming their content, by appealing to non-sports fans by way of personality content that's just like an entertainment channel? This would be no different than the weather channel that changes from hardcore weather data to reality shows about bad weather.
    - querulous 9y ago
      no. these shows have been popular for years. pardon the interruption first aired in 2001. around the horn in 2003. first take in 2007. espn isn't flailing around looking for a new business model, it's following the money espn's problems are overpaying for content (live sports), paying a huge number of employees who barely move the needle in the twitter age (all of their reporters, basically) and the rise of alternatives to cable like netflix, amazon prime, hulu and bamtech
      - ubernostrum 9y ago
        Also: the sports themselves starting to get savvy. MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL all have their own television networks, and MLB is setting a strong example of how to do a streaming sports service right. In fact, ESPN has announced they'll start airing one of the MLB network's daily shows and massively scaling back their own daily baseball show (which will now only air once a week). Add in rumors that the NFL influences its schedule to give ESPN less-desirable games for Monday Night Football, and the NBA strongly favoring TNT/TBS, and what's left? They can't run Sportscenter 24 hours a day.
- redthrowaway 9y ago
  ESPN would be in trouble without pushing progressive politics. The business model simply isn't holding up. But alienating half of your consumers probably isn't the best way to deal with a failing business model.
  - xienze 9y ago
    > ESPN would be in trouble without pushing progressive politics. The business model simply isn't holding up. I agree that ESPN's decline has more to do with over-extending themselves on rights deals while cord-cutting has become "a thing" than politics. However, I don't think you can discount the politics angle as a reason that a sizable number of people have finally decided "you know, I can do without ESPN." The amount of people who I've seen, online and in person, citing the absolutely insufferable, constant politicization of ESPN (and the media in general), regardless of which side of the aisle these people sit on, leads me to believe that a lot of people are simply exhausted and just want "sports". Barring that, they're quite willing to just drop ESPN. I think it really is a legitimate factor here.
    - redthrowaway 9y ago
      >However, I don't think you can discount the politics angle as a reason that a sizable number of people have finally decided "you know, I can do without ESPN." I don't. In fact I agree entirely with the notion that ESPN is shooting itself in the foot by constantly pushing politics that play well in NYC & LA, but actively turn off viewers in the rest of the country. I'm just saying it would still be failing; albeit more slowly if it "just stuck to sports".
    - hackuser 9y ago
      > The amount of people who I've seen, online and in person, citing the absolutely insufferable, constant politicization of ESPN ... How many?
- golemotron 9y ago
  I see the politicization as an effect, not a cause. They are trying to get market by becoming "more than sports." MTV tried to become "more than music" in the same way decades ago. It's a not a trend limited to cable but there are many examples.
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  What is "political" about it?
- hackuser 9y ago
  I don't see ESPN's content as politicized. Politicized content would be to support a candidate or political policy (e.g., for or against national health care). I see ESPN addressing social issues, such as abuse of women, but I don't call that political. Of course, any person can say: X is against my politics; but on that basis everything is politics. The reality is that there's a segment of the public that's part of an ideological political movement. Consistent with such movements, everything and everyone that doesn't share the political ideology are viewed as political enemies; the goal is to wipe out all apostates and non-believers. If ESPN doesn't share their ideology, they are portrayed as political enemies. In the end, that group is a small minority (per surveys, not per online volume or representation on cable news); we can't be intimidated into silence on important social issues. > I've seen anecdotes online As a basis of knowledge, that has been so misleading for so long, especially regarding politicized issues like this one, that IMHO repeating it mostly magnifies misinformation.
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    I don't see ESPN's content as politicized. It isn't. A simpler way to explain what you're getting at is: if reporting is about someone the viewer identifies with, or an issue the viewer sees as relevant to/personally affecting them, then they see it as fine. But if it's about someone the viewer doesn't identify with, or an issue the viewer doesn't see as relevant to/personally affecting them, well, that's "politics". Thus: male viewers see it as "political" to cover women or issues affecting women. White viewers see it as "political" to cover people of color or issues affecting people of color. And there is some research to show that even small amounts of representation get perceived as a much higher percentage, by an audience used to zero as the baseline representation of people unlike themselves. Oddly, they never seem to realize just how much "politics" had to happen to create and maintain the situation in which those other people and issues weren't considered fit to cover or even mention.
kbos87 9y ago
As a millennial consumer (rolling my own eyes but it's true) who cut the cord, the biggest thing that pushed me toward doing so was seeing all of the sports channels I was paying for and never had an ounce of desire to watch. The way my cable company breaks out a mandatory $15 fee for ESPN specifically was the nail in the coffin. Personally, sports programming was dragging the already shaky value prop of the cable industry down much further.
- deleted 9y ago
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- Dan_Nguyen 9y ago
  ESPN is suffering from a two pronged death. Like you, there's plenty of people who aren't interested in sports and aren't interested in paying extra for a sports-bundled cable package. Then there's people like me who like sports and don't like the programming on ESPN. Two decades ago, ESPN reporting used to be legitimately great. They'd talk about strategy, roster moves, interviews with players/coaches, etc. These days it's TMZ with a sports focus. Even something as mundane as Tom Brady's new haircut became a talking point on ESPN. The most recent example I have of ESPN's decline was the recent NFL draft. It was nothing but baseless conjecture on who's getting whom. It's a lot of random guesswork and hot takes portrayed as journalism. The talking heads would just shout about the most outrageous conjecture with no rationale. ESPN has gotten complacent and they're paying for it now. In my opinion they were relying on cable subscriptions when that's going away, and they haven't invested in quality programming to keep the sports fans in the longest time.
  - scotch_drinker 9y ago
    And it's only going to get worse. The article notes that most of the 100 laid off were reporters and that ESPN was moving towards opinion. This is the beginning of the end for most sports fans, I'd imagine. I remember the days of being home in the morning from classes in the early 90s and seeing Australian Rules Football or a quality discussion of some sport on ESPN. Now it's Mike and Mike or some other inane uselessness.
jgalt212 9y ago
Why is ESPN under such pressure, but sports franchise values seem to be still increasing? Aren't they competing/sharing the same dollar?
- ssharp 9y ago
  Maybe. It's not clear that these TV rights deals are unprofitable. If those deals are the drag on ESPN's financials, the leagues will take a big hit. Those deals are longer-term though and the leagues have lots of existing and emerging opportunities. You also have to consider that some owners treat their franchises like fancy sports cars, not businesses, and they are extremely rare cars at that!
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  ESPN makes its money from cable subscriptions, on average about $7 per subscriber. A lot of those subscribers value ESPN ... but a lot don't. They're all paying around $7 / mo for ESPN. Every cordcutter is a loss for ESPN. This is affecting not only ESPN, but The Walt Disney Company's profits substantially. ESPN makes up ~30% of their gross revenue. They've seen losses most of the last several quarters, in large part due to bad numbers from ESPN.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  The franchises exist in a sloppy private market. For football, the valuations also already take into account that players get about 50% of revenues.
- twoodfin 9y ago
  Guess: Franchises have more flexibility in their revenue model. Somebody will be bidding billions for broadcast rights whether OTA, premium cable, or streaming. ESPN has a ton of inertia to overcome and an uncertain future if they can't rely on an ever-growing "bundled" subscriber base.
- siegecraft 9y ago
  Sports franchise values are increasing, in general, because they're artificially limited in number (there are only 32 NFL teams) and specifically because of (a) increased rights fees, (b) rising value of local broadcast deals, especially in large markets like LA and NY and (c) taxpayer-subsidized stadiums. At the same time, there's more competition than ever for the national broadcast deals which is why ESPN had to overpay for its NFL and NBA deals. And those broadcasting rights keep decreasing in value as each league gets to sell its product multiple times (for the NFL there are games on broadcast networks, ESPN, streaming-only games, NFL network games, Sunday Ticket, and RedZone). ESPN is in a bad spot since they have to have NFL games, because even though their Sunday Night Football deal only lets them air one (usually terrible) game a week, it means they get to fill their network the rest of the time with NFL highlight / analysis shows.
elmerland 9y ago
Why would they make less money by moving to a streaming model? I would imagine more people would go and buy just that instead of getting a cable package. They can also start charging a reasonable amount based on what it costs to produce the content. If right now they rely on people paying for the channel but not watching it. Wouldn't switching to a streaming model mean that advertisers would be more interested because more people were actually watching the channel and saw ads?
- maxerickson 9y ago
  There's ~50 million households in the US that subscribe to cable. That's a lot of streamers to get to commit to 12 months of subscription.
- bmh_ca 9y ago
  ESPN is paid by cable subscriber, regardless of whether they watch sports. Most people (>50% iirc) don't watch sports, but because of the arrangement described above most cable subscribers end up subsidizing it. As a result: Selling sports directly to people who watch it dramatically undercuts their business model.
  - coldcode 9y ago
    ESPN's contracts forbid it to sell to anyone other than a Cable system. Otherwise it would be selling direct like Netflix. This is the terrible deal that major sports networks forced on it (and it took on anyway). Some day all that massive money will vanish and sports leagues will be gasping for income.
    - protomyth 9y ago
      > ESPN's contracts forbid it to sell to anyone other than a Cable system. In Major League Baseball's case, they reserve that right for themselves. Of course, every baseball team also has its own local contract or network. I get the feeling that ESPN is a middleman that is increasingly being seen as not adding enough value for the price by its subscribers.
mark-ruwt 9y ago
"If you see any article that tries to blame ESPN’s economic struggles on the 'liberal' tilt of the network, use those to line your birdcage. First, it’s not true. Second, it seems to be a reaction to the fact that ESPN actually has a laudable commitment to diversity and putting women, black people, and people of color in a position to actually talk about sports. This sends the alt-right sewers of the Internet and their minions at publications like the National Review into fits of hysterics. It’s an unserious argument made by unserious people." https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-espn-layoffs-are-so-disappointing/ https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-espn-layoffs-are-s...
- pcardh0 9y ago
  The National Review is not alt-right. Don't believe me, read it and decide where it fits on the spectrum of things.
- nnfy 9y ago
  Why is someone immediately slandered as "alt-right" if they object to corporate virtue signalling and the implicit bias against white males?
  - wtf_is_up 9y ago
    Alt-right has become a catch-all boogeyman for anyone who doesn't identify as a """progressive""".
  - hackuser 9y ago
    > bias against white males? IME, the premise that such a thing exists (with any meaningful impact at any meaningful scale) almost defines the white nationalists (alt-right). The racists with some intelligence rarely will outright say something socially unpopular; they try to make themselves palatable - 'we don't hate people based on their skin color, we just want to protect people like you with white skin from the victimization we are facing'. It's an old tactic: Adolph invaded other countries to protect Germans; Russia recently invaded Ukraine to protect Russians; everyone is a victim.
epynonymous 9y ago
could not rtfa because of the china gfw, but i'd venture a guess that netflix and all the other download based services are hurting cable sales. anyone who cannot move in this direction will face declines in revenue. everything i need i can stream. i dont want a potpouri of channels, just give me nba, or nat geo. to be fair, espn does have a streaming service, but i've been out of the us for too long to understand it. it was probably too late to the game and it probably has complicated rules if you own cable already where you'd get charged twice if you wanted it or had to go through some cable company's crappy app to get the stream. i guess the other thing is the inflation set by all these pseudo celebreties or ex-players, they must have demanded a lot. some of these guys are worth it, but probably not most of them. for the record, i used to watch sportscenter everyday before work, and i'd often times watch it twice in row just to see all the highlights and witty commentary. sure i sometimes had to flips channels through the hockey or golf highlights, but most if the other content was good. i enjoyed the shows like pardon the interruption and nfl countdown, so there was quality content. now when i take business trips back home, i still turn on and enjoy sportscenter, so i dont think it's the content, probably more so the packaging and over pricing of the package, look at the nba tv deal. laying off should help reduce long term costs, but that doesnt solve their primary issue which is where the industry is going due to new tech innovations from netflix, hulu, etc. nba league pass is a great example, i just want to watch nba, i get access to all games, post game interviews, and commentary. i can imagine this being the future, more customized content, deeper, not a melting pot of sports news.
bilbo0s 9y ago
Many posts here fail to address one very salient point. And I don't think we can overstate the importance of it. Most "sports" fans are generally not "sports" fans. They are STANFORD fans. Or Arkansas fans. Or Michigan fans. Or Packers fans. Or Golden State fans. Or what have you. The pure football fan is rare. As is the pure baseball or hockey fan. Most fans are normally watching because they want to see their team. There certainly is a sub-demographic that are sports fans. These are people who watch every game of their chosen sport looking for tactics and strategy. Most, however, are watching because Manchester United is playing. Or because they like the Cleveland Cavaliers. Or they're fans of the Boston Red Wings. Or maybe PSG. You get the idea. What I'm getting at is that sports coverage would need be more personalized than ESPN is capable of in its current form if it wants to be of value to consumers today. It boils down to this... Why should one have to pay for ESPN if one doesn't watch it? Firstly, if you are not a fan of any team or school or city at all, then nothing in heaven or earth would get you to watch ESPN anyway. So making any changes to appease non sports fans is a foolish endeavor. Those resources are best deployed producing content that non sports fans would like to consume. I don't pretend to know what that looks like, but I'm certain it doesn't look like ESPN. Now let's say for the sake of argument that a person is a fan of some team or school or city. I'll take myself as an example. I might watch my alma mater play a few football games, and if they go to the basketball tournament then I watch that. Sometimes I watch the super bowl, maybe, but I have never watched a Halftime show. Now... why would a "sports" fan like that, which is the majority of us, pay $15 to $20 a month (MANDATORY) for an entire year when they only want to watch MAYBE 6 to 12 games between football and basketball that are usually not on ESPN anyway??? Answer: They shouldn't pay. And I'd imagine most of them won't in the future. ESPN will need to offer more customization. Be it through live streaming or time shifting or whatever. I'm not an expert, but I think the days of forcing a $20 fee on people every month for non personalized sports coverage are just not sustainable long term.
- temuze 9y ago
  I disagree. True, the average sportsfan only watches whole games of their favorite teams. However, people love highlight reels. That's why Sportscenter is so huge. Unfortunately, ESPN is moving more and more towards "personalities" and gossip and whatever. Just give me the highlights on loop. That way, bars, restaurants, people in their own homes will have it on in the background constantly. EDIT: Sure, they need to do more content on the web and on-demand or whatever. But their core TV programming should be less TMZ-y. I don't care what athletes did on vacation.
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easilyBored 9y ago
It pays too much for content and costs too much for consumers. It paid too much because it could even more for it on resale. Bigger fool. They'll realign as contracts start to expire. Meanwhile they had a great run, until people awoke up to the scam.
jjcm 9y ago
I wonder if the prominence of esports is cutting into ESPN as well. Hell just yesterday there were over a million viewers on Twitch[1], in large due to a major esports tournament for dota. League of Legends regularly hits those numbers and beyond for their tournaments. In the past esports were kinda sideshow attractions, but now the production quality and audience numbers are quickly catching up to traditional sports. On top of that their distribution models are more consumer friendly. I'm sure there's overlap of people who watch both, but I wonder if the next generation of kids will defer to esports over traditional ones. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/68heiu/600k_viewers_wow/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/68heiu/600k_viewers_...
- csydas 9y ago
  Probably not like you're thinking. ESPN already has picked up esports and typically the esports tourneys don't overlap with major sports events. This is likely a conscious decision on the part of Riot, Valve, and so on, to ensure they're not competing with audiences. ESPN has tried to adapt to esports, but it met resistance from its audience and its own commentators not really accepting it. There was this famous career ending rants [1] that is just one of many from the ESPN commentators - viewer comments usually don't stray too far from such thoughts. esports fans seem pretty distinct from the core fans of ESPN, and ESPN deciding to cover it on their sub-channels (ESPN2, etc) is their attempt to reach out to those numbers and to get eyes on the channel. The internal rejection of esports doesn't help at all for ESPN who I'm sure is dying for the kinds of numbers that the Twitch and Youtube events get, especially since there is so much down-time between matches with virtually no advertisements, which likely makes the business side of ESPN wince quite a bit. But no, I don't think esports is causing problems for ESPN in the sense that it's cutting in; ESPN would be HAPPY to get on the esports train if they could. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzL21gHwt1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzL21gHwt1I
- douche 9y ago
  If there is any overlap between people who are interested in traditional sports leagues, and competitive Starcraft/League of Legends fans, it has to be very small. To be honest, I think that the more big-tent ESPN tries to go, the more likely they are to fail. There are periods of the year when nothing is happening in the big four US sports leagues, and Sportscenter becomes unwatchable - I'm just not going to tune in to watch highlights of the XYZ Open tennis tournament, or some golf tournament, or whatever other extra-niche sporting event is occurring in those months of the year. At one point, ESPN was farming that kind of stuff out to ESPN2, along with trick billiards competitions, professional bowling, and what have you, but has instead decided to triple-down on hot takes and outrage.
grecy 9y ago
"Watching professional sports is just watching other people have the time of their lives". If you have cable, you are paying for that privilege.
- gribbly 9y ago
  Comes close to what my father-in-law says about porn, 'why watch other people having fun ?'
- ryanx435 9y ago
  that is a severely reductionist outlook on a set of activities that generates billions of dollars of economic activity the entire world over.
vr46 9y ago
I'm seeing strong parallels between bundled channels that people don't necessarily want and Monty Python's Spam Sketch, Cable Companies: "Well there's egg and bacon; egg, sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg, bacon and spam; egg, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam; spam, spam, spam, egg and spam; spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam; or lobster thermidor aux crevettes, with a mornay sauce garnished with truffle paté, brandy and a fried egg on top and spam." Consumers: "Have you got anything without spam in it?" Cable Companies: "Well, there's spam, egg, sausage and spam. That's not got MUCH spam in it." Ad nauseam...
bitL 9y ago
I read on some forums that guys were canceling ESPN due to too many female presenters commenting on sports they weren't passionate/knowledgeable about, and pushing political agenda. Could that be a compounding factor for a major loss of subscribers where many viewers decided it's no longer worth watching and found more active outlets in their spare time?
- soundwave106 9y ago
  Generally speaking, the only forums I'm on that has mentioned the decline of ESPN have said nothing about politics or talking heads. I'm surprised they are such a huge talking point in this thread. Instead, it's the huge decline of coverage and quality. These forums are devoted to a more niche form of sports (open wheel auto racing). In the 1980s and 1990s ESPN coverage of these sports was actually very extensive. No longer. There was a time when one of ESPN's strengths was a huge coverage of a wide array of sports, including many niche sports. From my perspective, a lot of the niche (or even not so niche) sports has effectively moved off of the network for one reason or another. On the main channels, cheap programming where talking heads yell at each other have taken its place. Factor in this, and then factor in the people who got ESPN even though they weren't sports people to begin with, and now add in the cord-cutting movement. It's easy to see why ESPN's in trouble.
__Joker 9y ago
There is also bundling of other sports. As a fan of, say, NBA , I really don't care about all the NFL broadcast. Still those prices paid by me. Future to me seems, where there will be option to subscribe or buy ticket to individual events like, say only this weekend's match between team A and team B. And it seems it is more and more possible.
theprop 9y ago
It looks like ESPN's "$6.4 billion in 2014" in profit is pre-tax, so it generated $4+ billion in cash that year leading an analyst to value ESPN at $50 billion three years ago ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2014/04/29/the-value-of-espn-surpasses-50-billion/#28f7088561f5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2014/04/29/the-... ) Probably not anymore... It does point to Netflix eventually making a lot of money and being worth a lot more than it currently is. Netflix doesn't have ad revenue (in addition to such huge consumer fees, ESPN had nearly $4 billion a year in ad revenue in 2014 at least) but its subscription fees are comparable to ESPN. Better for Netflix is its aggressive move into its own content generation. If it was "merely" a way to watch other companies content, it would be at the mercy of those content owners the way ESPN pays a king's ransom for NFL, NBA, etc. games. ESPN's strategy to focus on opinion (original content) makes a lot of sense in terms of retaining fans and having a business that could survive losing broadcasting rights for a lot of sports. While sports team/network owners could go direct to fans fairly easily these days with 1000 tv channels and everyone having "Smart" TVs, they're probably better off under the ESPN umbrella both as a bundle of many sports and through aggregated ad sales.
andr3w321 9y ago
The problem with sports broadcasting nowadays is twofold 1. Viewing games costs too much 2. The commentary for said games sucks I'd happily watch a random MLB game on a Tuesday, but sorry I am not going to spend $113/season to watch on MLB TV. The NFL is the worst. If you're out of the US you can purchase and stream games for $200/season or so, but for in the US you have to have directTV to get all the games which isn't even offered for many possible subscribers or spend $30 in beer/food for lunch at a sportsbar with no audio for your game. If I'm at home I have the choice of the local game and maybe one other random national game and if both of these games are blowouts I'm tuning out. People want to watch their team play. They don't even mind commercials as long as there's not TOO many of them. The NFL is reaching their limit. NFL viewership has peaked. 2016 ratings declined 8%. Watching a touchdown followed by a commercial followed by a kickoff touchback followed by a commercial is too much. The only way to grow a sport is to grow viewership and fans and the only way to do that is make content cheap, easy to access and enjoyable to watch which brings us to the commentary. The future of sports and money in sports is in the live aspect and in the commentary. I want to watch a football game commented by Conan O'Brian or Snoop Dogg or even some entertaining twitch or youtuber not Al Michaels and Phil Simms. Why not collect royalties on commentary streams? Let 1000s of people pay for the rights to comment on an NFL game and let the viewers decide who they want to listen to commentary from. Its absurd that in 2017 people still resort to reddit.com/NFLstreams or NHLstreams to watch some low res game with pop up ads everywhere with commentary from two old white guys. Once viewership increases, ad money will increase which would offset the streaming fees the leagues would be missing out on by providing their content for free. If ESPN would simply show sports and provide interesting commentary from interesting individuals I would watch around the clock.
- tells 9y ago
  > The future of sports and money in sports is in the live aspect and in the commentary. I want to watch a football game commented by Conan O'Brian or Snoop Dogg or even some entertaining twitch or youtuber not Al Michaels and Phil Simms. Why not collect royalties on commentary streams? Let 1000s of people pay for the rights to comment on an NFL game and let the viewers decide who they want to listen to commentary from. Its absurd that in 2017 people still resort to reddit.com/NFLstreams or NHLstreams to watch some low res game with pop up ads everywhere with commentary from two old white guys. Over a decade ago, I was channel surfing and stumbled upon an English Premier League (edit: may have been a lower tier matchup) match cast by 2 shit-talking fans, one from each team. I thought it was absolutely genius and while having no interest in either team or even the sport, I was thoroughly entertained.
tomohawk 9y ago
Sports is one of the very few things people can totally devote themselves to without being threatened. You can talk about sports at work without worrying about getting fired. You can talk about sports at a party and not lose friends. At least you used to be able to. The more sports wanders from just sports into social, political, or even partisan issues, the less it is actually about sports. Associating these other things with sports destroys the value. It makes it so sport is no longer an escape, but instead becomes yet another politicized venue. Here's some other interesting theories as to why ESPN is having trouble. http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/the-real-story-behind-espns-wednesday-massacre/ http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/the-real-story-behind-es...
- acchow 9y ago
  People also talk about music without worrying about getting fired. And traveling. And normal, everyday things in life. I rarely talk sports with anyone...
  - megablast 9y ago
    And movies. And books. In fact, there are only a few things you can't and shouldn't talk about at work.
    - wiredfool 9y ago
      Oh god. Ix-nay on the macs-eay discussion/holy war.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      > there are only a few things you can't and shouldn't talk about at work Just the most important things in life: family structure, pregnancy, race, God, health issues, etc. List all the things that are inappropriate to talk about in an interview. Then realize they come up again when you are a candidate for a new promotion or transfer. Plus, increasingly employers are taking positions on things. We don't exactly call them out on that.
  - syshum 9y ago
douche 9y ago
It's symptomatic of the general decline in television across the last couple of decades. MTV - when was the last time you saw a music video? History - Apparently "History" now includes bizarre religious crackpottery, ancient aliens, and idiots buying and selling things in Las Vegas. A&E - "Arts and Entertainment" is apparently all about terrible people and Honey Boo-Boo. Discovery - Remember science and wildlife documentaries? Neither does the Discovery Channel. TLC - ugh. Dwarfs and tattoos and people with way too many children. SyFy - We can't even spell anymore, and SHARKNADO!
- humanrebar 9y ago
  I don't actually watch the "channel", but The Expanse is produced by SyFy and is excellent. And, yeah, Duck Dynasty and Cake Boss are nowhere near where A&E and TLC were when they launched, but they are family-centered sitcoms, more or less, in a time with a lack of those. I won't defend Honey Boo Boo or that sort of thing, though. Anyway, Disney is now the company of Star Wars and Marvel, not just Mickey and princesses. If companies want to take a risk and change their brand, I guess it's their right. There's tons of content out there if we don't like it.
  - ewheeler 9y ago
    Technically, The Expanse is financed and produced by Alcon Television Group, which is a division of Alcon Entertainment. Certainly having SyFy on board for US broadcast distribution is a big boon for the series, but I suspect a lot of the series' excellence is due to Alcon and not SyFy
- metaphorm 9y ago
  MTV - Viacom History - A&E networks (subsidiary of Hearst and Disney) A&E - take a guess Discovery - Discovery Communications TLC - Discovery Communications SyFy - NBC this is called "race to the bottom" and also "media collusion".
spcelzrd 9y ago
Kind of buried near the end of the article, but as ESPN moves away from sports reporting in favor of opinion there might be some great opportunity for alternative reporting. Deadspin comes to mind.
user5994461 9y ago
Damn. I thought this had something to do with the Sony Playstation Network.
tells 9y ago
I think the criticisms of ESPN and the advent of cord-cutting is severely missing a larger issue at hand. Sports are just another form of entertainment for people. I can probably safely say that the decline of ESPN first started with the rise of well-produced TV shows on HBO, AMC, Netflix, etc. I believe it's more than just correlation. Just like a captivating TV series, sports demands your attention to the details and personal stories for you to become a fan. However, sporting events take hours to ingest at a time and the outcome leave many disappointed. People who have money to spend are typically people with fewer hours to allocate for entertainment. With the rise of quality TV shows that take one hour to consume, how do sports like baseball stand a chance at gaining new viewers? The best thing ESPN has going for it are its 30 for 30 documentaries. A well produced documentary series. However, documentaries generally don't bring in huge sums of cash. If they can pivot to a create must-see dramatic show with a sports theme, they may have a chance.
- thrillgore 9y ago
  They actually had a drama, Playmakers. It was axed in the wake of the NFL Monday Night Football deal.
  - tells 9y ago
    I remember watching it. It had an 'Any Given Sunday' feel to it which missed the mark of it being generally captivating. Currently, the HBO series 'Ballers' does a much better job of toe-ing (sp?) the line between sports and drama.
- crabasa 9y ago
  > I can probably safely say that the decline of ESPN first started with the rise of well-produced TV shows on HBO, AMC, Netflix, etc. You are remarkably wrong here. In fact, live sports has come to completely dominate TV over the last 20 years. 9 of the top 10 most watched TV shows in 2016 was a sporting event: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2016/tops-of-2016-tv.html http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2016/tops-of-2016... I would argue the opposite: that "prestige" TV shows are a response to live sports by networks that don't have NFL or NBA rights.
deleted 9y ago
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losteverything 9y ago
People learn to love sports growing up. My millenial children didn't and they won't/ didn't pick it up as an adult. Anytime i see a Bloomberg article on hn i read it.

121 points by jsm386 9y ago

nnfy 9y ago

I don't watch sports networks of any kind, but I've seen anecdotes online that ESPN, especially sportscenter, is losing viewers because of politicization of content, where people just want sports talk.

m52go 9y ago
Not sure since I don't watch much ESPN either but this is a trend across media properties. I just saw MIT Technology Review tweet something about Trump's politics...didn't make me very happy.
- blackguardx 9y ago
  MIT is an institution of higher learning. When the president says that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese to ruin the American economy, it goes beyond politics. Science isn't conservative or liberal. Science institutions are right to speak out against foolish policies that aren't rooted in science.
  - m52go 9y ago
    > MIT is an institution of higher learning. MIT Technology Review is not an institution of higher learning. It's a magazine supposedly focused on reporting about science and technology. > When the president says that climate change is a hoax The tweet I mentioned had nothing to do with climate change...not sure where you got that from. https://twitter.com/techreview/status/858577857110528000 https://twitter.com/techreview/status/858577857110528000
    - burkaman 9y ago
      This is a pretty interesting, fact-based article, what's the problem? I understand not wanting political opinions in a publication like this, but there's no discussion of whether the wall is a good idea or anything like that in here. "The mission of MIT Technology Review is to equip its audiences with the intelligence to understand a world shaped by technology." I don't think ignoring any story that happens to involve a politician would help serve that mission.
      - nnfy 9y ago
        >I understand not wanting political opinions in a publication like this But that's exactly the problem.
        burkaman 9y ago
        Where in that article is there a political opinion?
  - geodel 9y ago
    Science funding is conservative or liberal. And when people force funding to a particular program, it is politics.
    - blackguardx 9y ago
      I think directing funding away from things can be political. It is like saying, "we don't want this question answered." Directing funding towards answering certain questions isn't political in my mind, though.
      - hackuser 9y ago
        How about directing funding toward creationism, or alternative views of the causes of climate change (i.e., non-human ones), or the benefits of authoritarianism? How about when the Koch brothers fund research into the benefits of their brand of libertarianism? Anything can be used politically.
        blackguardx 9y ago
        Funding research is different than funding a specific result. The latter is definitely political.
        LanceH 9y ago
        The fact that there were votes to take someone's money away and give it to someone else makes it political no matter what it is spent on.
        hackuser 9y ago
        That description is a misconception, IMHO. First, it's an investment; it's not taking away money; it's not robbery. It has a return, a benefit that generally exceeds the cost (I'm not sure how much I paid to fly Cassini to Saturn, but wow was it worth it). People make investments all the time and are happy to do it, in everything from houses to the local homeless shelter to a new computer. Second, people normally and frequently participate in group decisions, even though they rarely get exactly what they want. To suggest that anything besides an individual choosing alone is extraordinary - that isn't how people really operate.
itbeho 9y ago
I like to watch sports for the competition, not preachy politics. Life in America is already too polarized politically. It's a shame broadcast sports can't be at least one place for common ground.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > It's a shame broadcast sports can't be at least one place for common ground. I don't know. There's a "sportsmanship" mythos out there, but I'm not sure it's the dominant one. I see a lot more of the love-my-team-hate-your-team culture in sports that looks a lot like modern "my team" politics. I'm just struggling with the implication of that. Do we encourage rabid sports fandom to give a relatively harmless space for the tribal impulse? Or does it just train people to support their parties and politicians the same way they support their favorite jerseyed heroes?
  - 0xcde4c3db 9y ago
    Also, trying to exclude politics often plays out as the majority promulgating their own "neutral" political positions and traditions unchallenged. It's much harder to create a truly apolitical space than it is to just get people with grievances to shut up or leave.
maxerickson 9y ago
It doesn't really matter to ESPN if people watch all of Sportscenter or not.
endorphone 9y ago
is losing viewers because of politicization of content They're losing viewers because we're turning away from television. That much is obvious to all. There are many ways to view, every event has countless streams, we get our sports news in granular form on our mobile, etc. However in the wake of that, some very sad people have decided to get on their soapbox and claim that they're really declining because they don't parrot whatever their personal position is. I've seen these people claim that ESPN is faltering because they have a problem with players who rape or beat women. Others -- the same ones who say that they don't want it to be "preachy" -- get up in arms if ESPN isn't preachily attacking the Colin Kaepernick's of the world. Etc. So as is often the case, the most partisan of all are the ones claiming that everything is some crazy partisan slant.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  It's not even about personal opinions. Every second they spend talking about whichever pro-athlete got a misdemeanor this week or scolding some college because its athletes were at a party where shit went down is a second they're not talking about actual sports content.
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    The professional leagues all have conduct policies. So do colleges with sports teams. If a player violates those policies and faces consequences such as being suspended from play, how is that not "actual sports content"? You might as well say that if a politician commits crimes, political coverage shouldn't mention it -- after all, that's not "actual political content", right?
    - nnfy 9y ago
      Criminal behavior is generally presumed to be a reflection of a politician's character, which may affect a politician's decision making in office. I doubt the same inferences should be made so strongly regarding sports players.
      - 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
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querulous 9y ago
espn's best performing shows (other than live broadcasts of actual sports events) are it's most politicized. 'First Take', 'Highly Questionable', 'Pardon the Interruption', 'Around the Horn', etc the same is true for Fox Sports 1. it's simply not true that consumers are watching sports programming that isn't politicized more than that which is
- zaroth 9y ago
  My first thought is, what's the ratio of those shows live vs. on-demand viewers? If you're looking at mostly live viewers, the time-slot the show is given could be the driver of the volume of eyeballs as much as the content. In otherwords, perhaps their best watched shows are the ones in the worst decline / their best watched (i.e. tent pole shows) are bleeding the most viewers. I can't speak to the cause.
- cardiffspaceman 9y ago
  Is it possible that ESPN/sports channels are facing a demographic change and are guessing that mainstreaming their content, by appealing to non-sports fans by way of personality content that's just like an entertainment channel? This would be no different than the weather channel that changes from hardcore weather data to reality shows about bad weather.
  - querulous 9y ago
    no. these shows have been popular for years. pardon the interruption first aired in 2001. around the horn in 2003. first take in 2007. espn isn't flailing around looking for a new business model, it's following the money espn's problems are overpaying for content (live sports), paying a huge number of employees who barely move the needle in the twitter age (all of their reporters, basically) and the rise of alternatives to cable like netflix, amazon prime, hulu and bamtech
    - ubernostrum 9y ago
      Also: the sports themselves starting to get savvy. MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL all have their own television networks, and MLB is setting a strong example of how to do a streaming sports service right. In fact, ESPN has announced they'll start airing one of the MLB network's daily shows and massively scaling back their own daily baseball show (which will now only air once a week). Add in rumors that the NFL influences its schedule to give ESPN less-desirable games for Monday Night Football, and the NBA strongly favoring TNT/TBS, and what's left? They can't run Sportscenter 24 hours a day.
redthrowaway 9y ago
ESPN would be in trouble without pushing progressive politics. The business model simply isn't holding up. But alienating half of your consumers probably isn't the best way to deal with a failing business model.
- xienze 9y ago
  > ESPN would be in trouble without pushing progressive politics. The business model simply isn't holding up. I agree that ESPN's decline has more to do with over-extending themselves on rights deals while cord-cutting has become "a thing" than politics. However, I don't think you can discount the politics angle as a reason that a sizable number of people have finally decided "you know, I can do without ESPN." The amount of people who I've seen, online and in person, citing the absolutely insufferable, constant politicization of ESPN (and the media in general), regardless of which side of the aisle these people sit on, leads me to believe that a lot of people are simply exhausted and just want "sports". Barring that, they're quite willing to just drop ESPN. I think it really is a legitimate factor here.
  - redthrowaway 9y ago
    >However, I don't think you can discount the politics angle as a reason that a sizable number of people have finally decided "you know, I can do without ESPN." I don't. In fact I agree entirely with the notion that ESPN is shooting itself in the foot by constantly pushing politics that play well in NYC & LA, but actively turn off viewers in the rest of the country. I'm just saying it would still be failing; albeit more slowly if it "just stuck to sports".
  - hackuser 9y ago
    > The amount of people who I've seen, online and in person, citing the absolutely insufferable, constant politicization of ESPN ... How many?
golemotron 9y ago
I see the politicization as an effect, not a cause. They are trying to get market by becoming "more than sports." MTV tried to become "more than music" in the same way decades ago. It's a not a trend limited to cable but there are many examples.
ubernostrum 9y ago
What is "political" about it?
hackuser 9y ago
I don't see ESPN's content as politicized. Politicized content would be to support a candidate or political policy (e.g., for or against national health care). I see ESPN addressing social issues, such as abuse of women, but I don't call that political. Of course, any person can say: X is against my politics; but on that basis everything is politics. The reality is that there's a segment of the public that's part of an ideological political movement. Consistent with such movements, everything and everyone that doesn't share the political ideology are viewed as political enemies; the goal is to wipe out all apostates and non-believers. If ESPN doesn't share their ideology, they are portrayed as political enemies. In the end, that group is a small minority (per surveys, not per online volume or representation on cable news); we can't be intimidated into silence on important social issues. > I've seen anecdotes online As a basis of knowledge, that has been so misleading for so long, especially regarding politicized issues like this one, that IMHO repeating it mostly magnifies misinformation.
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  I don't see ESPN's content as politicized. It isn't. A simpler way to explain what you're getting at is: if reporting is about someone the viewer identifies with, or an issue the viewer sees as relevant to/personally affecting them, then they see it as fine. But if it's about someone the viewer doesn't identify with, or an issue the viewer doesn't see as relevant to/personally affecting them, well, that's "politics". Thus: male viewers see it as "political" to cover women or issues affecting women. White viewers see it as "political" to cover people of color or issues affecting people of color. And there is some research to show that even small amounts of representation get perceived as a much higher percentage, by an audience used to zero as the baseline representation of people unlike themselves. Oddly, they never seem to realize just how much "politics" had to happen to create and maintain the situation in which those other people and issues weren't considered fit to cover or even mention.

kbos87 9y ago

As a millennial consumer (rolling my own eyes but it's true) who cut the cord, the biggest thing that pushed me toward doing so was seeing all of the sports channels I was paying for and never had an ounce of desire to watch. The way my cable company breaks out a mandatory $15 fee for ESPN specifically was the nail in the coffin. Personally, sports programming was dragging the already shaky value prop of the cable industry down much further.

deleted 9y ago
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Dan_Nguyen 9y ago
ESPN is suffering from a two pronged death. Like you, there's plenty of people who aren't interested in sports and aren't interested in paying extra for a sports-bundled cable package. Then there's people like me who like sports and don't like the programming on ESPN. Two decades ago, ESPN reporting used to be legitimately great. They'd talk about strategy, roster moves, interviews with players/coaches, etc. These days it's TMZ with a sports focus. Even something as mundane as Tom Brady's new haircut became a talking point on ESPN. The most recent example I have of ESPN's decline was the recent NFL draft. It was nothing but baseless conjecture on who's getting whom. It's a lot of random guesswork and hot takes portrayed as journalism. The talking heads would just shout about the most outrageous conjecture with no rationale. ESPN has gotten complacent and they're paying for it now. In my opinion they were relying on cable subscriptions when that's going away, and they haven't invested in quality programming to keep the sports fans in the longest time.
- scotch_drinker 9y ago
  And it's only going to get worse. The article notes that most of the 100 laid off were reporters and that ESPN was moving towards opinion. This is the beginning of the end for most sports fans, I'd imagine. I remember the days of being home in the morning from classes in the early 90s and seeing Australian Rules Football or a quality discussion of some sport on ESPN. Now it's Mike and Mike or some other inane uselessness.

jgalt212 9y ago

Why is ESPN under such pressure, but sports franchise values seem to be still increasing? Aren't they competing/sharing the same dollar?

ssharp 9y ago
Maybe. It's not clear that these TV rights deals are unprofitable. If those deals are the drag on ESPN's financials, the leagues will take a big hit. Those deals are longer-term though and the leagues have lots of existing and emerging opportunities. You also have to consider that some owners treat their franchises like fancy sports cars, not businesses, and they are extremely rare cars at that!
cookiecaper 9y ago
ESPN makes its money from cable subscriptions, on average about $7 per subscriber. A lot of those subscribers value ESPN ... but a lot don't. They're all paying around $7 / mo for ESPN. Every cordcutter is a loss for ESPN. This is affecting not only ESPN, but The Walt Disney Company's profits substantially. ESPN makes up ~30% of their gross revenue. They've seen losses most of the last several quarters, in large part due to bad numbers from ESPN.
maxerickson 9y ago
The franchises exist in a sloppy private market. For football, the valuations also already take into account that players get about 50% of revenues.
twoodfin 9y ago
Guess: Franchises have more flexibility in their revenue model. Somebody will be bidding billions for broadcast rights whether OTA, premium cable, or streaming. ESPN has a ton of inertia to overcome and an uncertain future if they can't rely on an ever-growing "bundled" subscriber base.
siegecraft 9y ago
Sports franchise values are increasing, in general, because they're artificially limited in number (there are only 32 NFL teams) and specifically because of (a) increased rights fees, (b) rising value of local broadcast deals, especially in large markets like LA and NY and (c) taxpayer-subsidized stadiums. At the same time, there's more competition than ever for the national broadcast deals which is why ESPN had to overpay for its NFL and NBA deals. And those broadcasting rights keep decreasing in value as each league gets to sell its product multiple times (for the NFL there are games on broadcast networks, ESPN, streaming-only games, NFL network games, Sunday Ticket, and RedZone). ESPN is in a bad spot since they have to have NFL games, because even though their Sunday Night Football deal only lets them air one (usually terrible) game a week, it means they get to fill their network the rest of the time with NFL highlight / analysis shows.

elmerland 9y ago

Why would they make less money by moving to a streaming model? I would imagine more people would go and buy just that instead of getting a cable package. They can also start charging a reasonable amount based on what it costs to produce the content. If right now they rely on people paying for the channel but not watching it. Wouldn't switching to a streaming model mean that advertisers would be more interested because more people were actually watching the channel and saw ads?

maxerickson 9y ago
There's ~50 million households in the US that subscribe to cable. That's a lot of streamers to get to commit to 12 months of subscription.
bmh_ca 9y ago
ESPN is paid by cable subscriber, regardless of whether they watch sports. Most people (>50% iirc) don't watch sports, but because of the arrangement described above most cable subscribers end up subsidizing it. As a result: Selling sports directly to people who watch it dramatically undercuts their business model.
- coldcode 9y ago
  ESPN's contracts forbid it to sell to anyone other than a Cable system. Otherwise it would be selling direct like Netflix. This is the terrible deal that major sports networks forced on it (and it took on anyway). Some day all that massive money will vanish and sports leagues will be gasping for income.
  - protomyth 9y ago
    > ESPN's contracts forbid it to sell to anyone other than a Cable system. In Major League Baseball's case, they reserve that right for themselves. Of course, every baseball team also has its own local contract or network. I get the feeling that ESPN is a middleman that is increasingly being seen as not adding enough value for the price by its subscribers.

mark-ruwt 9y ago

"If you see any article that tries to blame ESPN’s economic struggles on the 'liberal' tilt of the network, use those to line your birdcage. First, it’s not true. Second, it seems to be a reaction to the fact that ESPN actually has a laudable commitment to diversity and putting women, black people, and people of color in a position to actually talk about sports. This sends the alt-right sewers of the Internet and their minions at publications like the National Review into fits of hysterics. It’s an unserious argument made by unserious people." https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-espn-layoffs-are-so-disappointing/ https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-espn-layoffs-are-s...

pcardh0 9y ago
The National Review is not alt-right. Don't believe me, read it and decide where it fits on the spectrum of things.
nnfy 9y ago
Why is someone immediately slandered as "alt-right" if they object to corporate virtue signalling and the implicit bias against white males?
- wtf_is_up 9y ago
  Alt-right has become a catch-all boogeyman for anyone who doesn't identify as a """progressive""".
- hackuser 9y ago
  > bias against white males? IME, the premise that such a thing exists (with any meaningful impact at any meaningful scale) almost defines the white nationalists (alt-right). The racists with some intelligence rarely will outright say something socially unpopular; they try to make themselves palatable - 'we don't hate people based on their skin color, we just want to protect people like you with white skin from the victimization we are facing'. It's an old tactic: Adolph invaded other countries to protect Germans; Russia recently invaded Ukraine to protect Russians; everyone is a victim.

epynonymous 9y ago

could not rtfa because of the china gfw, but i'd venture a guess that netflix and all the other download based services are hurting cable sales. anyone who cannot move in this direction will face declines in revenue. everything i need i can stream. i dont want a potpouri of channels, just give me nba, or nat geo. to be fair, espn does have a streaming service, but i've been out of the us for too long to understand it. it was probably too late to the game and it probably has complicated rules if you own cable already where you'd get charged twice if you wanted it or had to go through some cable company's crappy app to get the stream. i guess the other thing is the inflation set by all these pseudo celebreties or ex-players, they must have demanded a lot. some of these guys are worth it, but probably not most of them. for the record, i used to watch sportscenter everyday before work, and i'd often times watch it twice in row just to see all the highlights and witty commentary. sure i sometimes had to flips channels through the hockey or golf highlights, but most if the other content was good. i enjoyed the shows like pardon the interruption and nfl countdown, so there was quality content. now when i take business trips back home, i still turn on and enjoy sportscenter, so i dont think it's the content, probably more so the packaging and over pricing of the package, look at the nba tv deal. laying off should help reduce long term costs, but that doesnt solve their primary issue which is where the industry is going due to new tech innovations from netflix, hulu, etc. nba league pass is a great example, i just want to watch nba, i get access to all games, post game interviews, and commentary. i can imagine this being the future, more customized content, deeper, not a melting pot of sports news.

bilbo0s 9y ago

Many posts here fail to address one very salient point. And I don't think we can overstate the importance of it. Most "sports" fans are generally not "sports" fans. They are STANFORD fans. Or Arkansas fans. Or Michigan fans. Or Packers fans. Or Golden State fans. Or what have you. The pure football fan is rare. As is the pure baseball or hockey fan. Most fans are normally watching because they want to see their team. There certainly is a sub-demographic that are sports fans. These are people who watch every game of their chosen sport looking for tactics and strategy. Most, however, are watching because Manchester United is playing. Or because they like the Cleveland Cavaliers. Or they're fans of the Boston Red Wings. Or maybe PSG. You get the idea. What I'm getting at is that sports coverage would need be more personalized than ESPN is capable of in its current form if it wants to be of value to consumers today. It boils down to this... Why should one have to pay for ESPN if one doesn't watch it? Firstly, if you are not a fan of any team or school or city at all, then nothing in heaven or earth would get you to watch ESPN anyway. So making any changes to appease non sports fans is a foolish endeavor. Those resources are best deployed producing content that non sports fans would like to consume. I don't pretend to know what that looks like, but I'm certain it doesn't look like ESPN. Now let's say for the sake of argument that a person is a fan of some team or school or city. I'll take myself as an example. I might watch my alma mater play a few football games, and if they go to the basketball tournament then I watch that. Sometimes I watch the super bowl, maybe, but I have never watched a Halftime show. Now... why would a "sports" fan like that, which is the majority of us, pay $15 to $20 a month (MANDATORY) for an entire year when they only want to watch MAYBE 6 to 12 games between football and basketball that are usually not on ESPN anyway??? Answer: They shouldn't pay. And I'd imagine most of them won't in the future. ESPN will need to offer more customization. Be it through live streaming or time shifting or whatever. I'm not an expert, but I think the days of forcing a $20 fee on people every month for non personalized sports coverage are just not sustainable long term.

temuze 9y ago
I disagree. True, the average sportsfan only watches whole games of their favorite teams. However, people love highlight reels. That's why Sportscenter is so huge. Unfortunately, ESPN is moving more and more towards "personalities" and gossip and whatever. Just give me the highlights on loop. That way, bars, restaurants, people in their own homes will have it on in the background constantly. EDIT: Sure, they need to do more content on the web and on-demand or whatever. But their core TV programming should be less TMZ-y. I don't care what athletes did on vacation.

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easilyBored 9y ago

It pays too much for content and costs too much for consumers. It paid too much because it could even more for it on resale. Bigger fool. They'll realign as contracts start to expire. Meanwhile they had a great run, until people awoke up to the scam.

jjcm 9y ago

I wonder if the prominence of esports is cutting into ESPN as well. Hell just yesterday there were over a million viewers on Twitch[1], in large due to a major esports tournament for dota. League of Legends regularly hits those numbers and beyond for their tournaments. In the past esports were kinda sideshow attractions, but now the production quality and audience numbers are quickly catching up to traditional sports. On top of that their distribution models are more consumer friendly. I'm sure there's overlap of people who watch both, but I wonder if the next generation of kids will defer to esports over traditional ones. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/68heiu/600k_viewers_wow/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/68heiu/600k_viewers_...

csydas 9y ago
Probably not like you're thinking. ESPN already has picked up esports and typically the esports tourneys don't overlap with major sports events. This is likely a conscious decision on the part of Riot, Valve, and so on, to ensure they're not competing with audiences. ESPN has tried to adapt to esports, but it met resistance from its audience and its own commentators not really accepting it. There was this famous career ending rants [1] that is just one of many from the ESPN commentators - viewer comments usually don't stray too far from such thoughts. esports fans seem pretty distinct from the core fans of ESPN, and ESPN deciding to cover it on their sub-channels (ESPN2, etc) is their attempt to reach out to those numbers and to get eyes on the channel. The internal rejection of esports doesn't help at all for ESPN who I'm sure is dying for the kinds of numbers that the Twitch and Youtube events get, especially since there is so much down-time between matches with virtually no advertisements, which likely makes the business side of ESPN wince quite a bit. But no, I don't think esports is causing problems for ESPN in the sense that it's cutting in; ESPN would be HAPPY to get on the esports train if they could. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzL21gHwt1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzL21gHwt1I
douche 9y ago
If there is any overlap between people who are interested in traditional sports leagues, and competitive Starcraft/League of Legends fans, it has to be very small. To be honest, I think that the more big-tent ESPN tries to go, the more likely they are to fail. There are periods of the year when nothing is happening in the big four US sports leagues, and Sportscenter becomes unwatchable - I'm just not going to tune in to watch highlights of the XYZ Open tennis tournament, or some golf tournament, or whatever other extra-niche sporting event is occurring in those months of the year. At one point, ESPN was farming that kind of stuff out to ESPN2, along with trick billiards competitions, professional bowling, and what have you, but has instead decided to triple-down on hot takes and outrage.

grecy 9y ago

"Watching professional sports is just watching other people have the time of their lives". If you have cable, you are paying for that privilege.

gribbly 9y ago
Comes close to what my father-in-law says about porn, 'why watch other people having fun ?'
ryanx435 9y ago
that is a severely reductionist outlook on a set of activities that generates billions of dollars of economic activity the entire world over.

vr46 9y ago

I'm seeing strong parallels between bundled channels that people don't necessarily want and Monty Python's Spam Sketch, Cable Companies: "Well there's egg and bacon; egg, sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg, bacon and spam; egg, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam; spam, spam, spam, egg and spam; spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam; or lobster thermidor aux crevettes, with a mornay sauce garnished with truffle paté, brandy and a fried egg on top and spam." Consumers: "Have you got anything without spam in it?" Cable Companies: "Well, there's spam, egg, sausage and spam. That's not got MUCH spam in it." Ad nauseam...

bitL 9y ago

I read on some forums that guys were canceling ESPN due to too many female presenters commenting on sports they weren't passionate/knowledgeable about, and pushing political agenda. Could that be a compounding factor for a major loss of subscribers where many viewers decided it's no longer worth watching and found more active outlets in their spare time?

soundwave106 9y ago
Generally speaking, the only forums I'm on that has mentioned the decline of ESPN have said nothing about politics or talking heads. I'm surprised they are such a huge talking point in this thread. Instead, it's the huge decline of coverage and quality. These forums are devoted to a more niche form of sports (open wheel auto racing). In the 1980s and 1990s ESPN coverage of these sports was actually very extensive. No longer. There was a time when one of ESPN's strengths was a huge coverage of a wide array of sports, including many niche sports. From my perspective, a lot of the niche (or even not so niche) sports has effectively moved off of the network for one reason or another. On the main channels, cheap programming where talking heads yell at each other have taken its place. Factor in this, and then factor in the people who got ESPN even though they weren't sports people to begin with, and now add in the cord-cutting movement. It's easy to see why ESPN's in trouble.

__Joker 9y ago

There is also bundling of other sports. As a fan of, say, NBA , I really don't care about all the NFL broadcast. Still those prices paid by me. Future to me seems, where there will be option to subscribe or buy ticket to individual events like, say only this weekend's match between team A and team B. And it seems it is more and more possible.

theprop 9y ago

It looks like ESPN's "$6.4 billion in 2014" in profit is pre-tax, so it generated $4+ billion in cash that year leading an analyst to value ESPN at $50 billion three years ago ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2014/04/29/the-value-of-espn-surpasses-50-billion/#28f7088561f5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2014/04/29/the-... ) Probably not anymore... It does point to Netflix eventually making a lot of money and being worth a lot more than it currently is. Netflix doesn't have ad revenue (in addition to such huge consumer fees, ESPN had nearly $4 billion a year in ad revenue in 2014 at least) but its subscription fees are comparable to ESPN. Better for Netflix is its aggressive move into its own content generation. If it was "merely" a way to watch other companies content, it would be at the mercy of those content owners the way ESPN pays a king's ransom for NFL, NBA, etc. games. ESPN's strategy to focus on opinion (original content) makes a lot of sense in terms of retaining fans and having a business that could survive losing broadcasting rights for a lot of sports. While sports team/network owners could go direct to fans fairly easily these days with 1000 tv channels and everyone having "Smart" TVs, they're probably better off under the ESPN umbrella both as a bundle of many sports and through aggregated ad sales.

andr3w321 9y ago

The problem with sports broadcasting nowadays is twofold 1. Viewing games costs too much 2. The commentary for said games sucks I'd happily watch a random MLB game on a Tuesday, but sorry I am not going to spend $113/season to watch on MLB TV. The NFL is the worst. If you're out of the US you can purchase and stream games for $200/season or so, but for in the US you have to have directTV to get all the games which isn't even offered for many possible subscribers or spend $30 in beer/food for lunch at a sportsbar with no audio for your game. If I'm at home I have the choice of the local game and maybe one other random national game and if both of these games are blowouts I'm tuning out. People want to watch their team play. They don't even mind commercials as long as there's not TOO many of them. The NFL is reaching their limit. NFL viewership has peaked. 2016 ratings declined 8%. Watching a touchdown followed by a commercial followed by a kickoff touchback followed by a commercial is too much. The only way to grow a sport is to grow viewership and fans and the only way to do that is make content cheap, easy to access and enjoyable to watch which brings us to the commentary. The future of sports and money in sports is in the live aspect and in the commentary. I want to watch a football game commented by Conan O'Brian or Snoop Dogg or even some entertaining twitch or youtuber not Al Michaels and Phil Simms. Why not collect royalties on commentary streams? Let 1000s of people pay for the rights to comment on an NFL game and let the viewers decide who they want to listen to commentary from. Its absurd that in 2017 people still resort to reddit.com/NFLstreams or NHLstreams to watch some low res game with pop up ads everywhere with commentary from two old white guys. Once viewership increases, ad money will increase which would offset the streaming fees the leagues would be missing out on by providing their content for free. If ESPN would simply show sports and provide interesting commentary from interesting individuals I would watch around the clock.

tells 9y ago
> The future of sports and money in sports is in the live aspect and in the commentary. I want to watch a football game commented by Conan O'Brian or Snoop Dogg or even some entertaining twitch or youtuber not Al Michaels and Phil Simms. Why not collect royalties on commentary streams? Let 1000s of people pay for the rights to comment on an NFL game and let the viewers decide who they want to listen to commentary from. Its absurd that in 2017 people still resort to reddit.com/NFLstreams or NHLstreams to watch some low res game with pop up ads everywhere with commentary from two old white guys. Over a decade ago, I was channel surfing and stumbled upon an English Premier League (edit: may have been a lower tier matchup) match cast by 2 shit-talking fans, one from each team. I thought it was absolutely genius and while having no interest in either team or even the sport, I was thoroughly entertained.

tomohawk 9y ago

Sports is one of the very few things people can totally devote themselves to without being threatened. You can talk about sports at work without worrying about getting fired. You can talk about sports at a party and not lose friends. At least you used to be able to. The more sports wanders from just sports into social, political, or even partisan issues, the less it is actually about sports. Associating these other things with sports destroys the value. It makes it so sport is no longer an escape, but instead becomes yet another politicized venue. Here's some other interesting theories as to why ESPN is having trouble. http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/the-real-story-behind-espns-wednesday-massacre/ http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/the-real-story-behind-es...

acchow 9y ago
People also talk about music without worrying about getting fired. And traveling. And normal, everyday things in life. I rarely talk sports with anyone...
- megablast 9y ago
  And movies. And books. In fact, there are only a few things you can't and shouldn't talk about at work.
  - wiredfool 9y ago
    Oh god. Ix-nay on the macs-eay discussion/holy war.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > there are only a few things you can't and shouldn't talk about at work Just the most important things in life: family structure, pregnancy, race, God, health issues, etc. List all the things that are inappropriate to talk about in an interview. Then realize they come up again when you are a candidate for a new promotion or transfer. Plus, increasingly employers are taking positions on things. We don't exactly call them out on that.
- syshum 9y ago

douche 9y ago

It's symptomatic of the general decline in television across the last couple of decades. MTV - when was the last time you saw a music video? History - Apparently "History" now includes bizarre religious crackpottery, ancient aliens, and idiots buying and selling things in Las Vegas. A&E - "Arts and Entertainment" is apparently all about terrible people and Honey Boo-Boo. Discovery - Remember science and wildlife documentaries? Neither does the Discovery Channel. TLC - ugh. Dwarfs and tattoos and people with way too many children. SyFy - We can't even spell anymore, and SHARKNADO!

humanrebar 9y ago
I don't actually watch the "channel", but The Expanse is produced by SyFy and is excellent. And, yeah, Duck Dynasty and Cake Boss are nowhere near where A&E and TLC were when they launched, but they are family-centered sitcoms, more or less, in a time with a lack of those. I won't defend Honey Boo Boo or that sort of thing, though. Anyway, Disney is now the company of Star Wars and Marvel, not just Mickey and princesses. If companies want to take a risk and change their brand, I guess it's their right. There's tons of content out there if we don't like it.
- ewheeler 9y ago
  Technically, The Expanse is financed and produced by Alcon Television Group, which is a division of Alcon Entertainment. Certainly having SyFy on board for US broadcast distribution is a big boon for the series, but I suspect a lot of the series' excellence is due to Alcon and not SyFy
metaphorm 9y ago
MTV - Viacom History - A&E networks (subsidiary of Hearst and Disney) A&E - take a guess Discovery - Discovery Communications TLC - Discovery Communications SyFy - NBC this is called "race to the bottom" and also "media collusion".

spcelzrd 9y ago

Kind of buried near the end of the article, but as ESPN moves away from sports reporting in favor of opinion there might be some great opportunity for alternative reporting. Deadspin comes to mind.

user5994461 9y ago

Damn. I thought this had something to do with the Sony Playstation Network.

tells 9y ago

I think the criticisms of ESPN and the advent of cord-cutting is severely missing a larger issue at hand. Sports are just another form of entertainment for people. I can probably safely say that the decline of ESPN first started with the rise of well-produced TV shows on HBO, AMC, Netflix, etc. I believe it's more than just correlation. Just like a captivating TV series, sports demands your attention to the details and personal stories for you to become a fan. However, sporting events take hours to ingest at a time and the outcome leave many disappointed. People who have money to spend are typically people with fewer hours to allocate for entertainment. With the rise of quality TV shows that take one hour to consume, how do sports like baseball stand a chance at gaining new viewers? The best thing ESPN has going for it are its 30 for 30 documentaries. A well produced documentary series. However, documentaries generally don't bring in huge sums of cash. If they can pivot to a create must-see dramatic show with a sports theme, they may have a chance.

thrillgore 9y ago
They actually had a drama, Playmakers. It was axed in the wake of the NFL Monday Night Football deal.
- tells 9y ago
  I remember watching it. It had an 'Any Given Sunday' feel to it which missed the mark of it being generally captivating. Currently, the HBO series 'Ballers' does a much better job of toe-ing (sp?) the line between sports and drama.
crabasa 9y ago
> I can probably safely say that the decline of ESPN first started with the rise of well-produced TV shows on HBO, AMC, Netflix, etc. You are remarkably wrong here. In fact, live sports has come to completely dominate TV over the last 20 years. 9 of the top 10 most watched TV shows in 2016 was a sporting event: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2016/tops-of-2016-tv.html http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2016/tops-of-2016... I would argue the opposite: that "prestige" TV shows are a response to live sports by networks that don't have NFL or NBA rights.

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losteverything 9y ago

People learn to love sports growing up. My millenial children didn't and they won't/ didn't pick it up as an adult. Anytime i see a Bloomberg article on hn i read it.