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The Rise and Fall of ESPN (1 Viewer)

jfranco77 said:
Spending too much money on rights fees

Deciding that Stephen A should be the core of their brand

In my mind I know it's the first one but I really want it to be the 2nd one. 
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The first point is only part of the problem. Losing subs is what is causing the double whammy. Which will soon become a triple-whammy.

 
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The internet.

Spending too much money to own rights on certain sports.

Younger people don't give a crap about sports but ESPN continues to market towards them.  They will continue losing subscribers

Stephen A Smith

 
MattFancy said:
When they started doing all day SportsCenters. There's not enough that happens in the sports world to have a show run all day. That's when they started focusing more on debates and less on the actual happenings of the games.
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Its like they are allergic to showing highlights anymore.

 
I think "the internet" is part of it...but lets face it, there are plenty of great TV stations out there.

I think they made the mistake of having too many channels.  ESPN2, ESPN classic, ESPN college or whatever...

Less is more.  Have one dominant channel.  There's no way you can fill 3-5 channels with great info 24/7.

As for sportscenter, that's due to the internet.  Highlight shows just aren't popular anymore.  People get their highlights as they want them on youtube, social media, etc.  

 
Many people simply no longer have cable or satellite, therefore don't get the programming. Those that get it, have found the programming sucks. Finally, while I wont say Jenner winning some award matters to any rational person, they have much more political BS on their station than they did a decade ago. 

 
Gr00vus said:
Or actual sporting events.

Better to broadcast Peruvian Alpaca racing than the majority of the talk shows they have on.
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The daily hour-long NFL Live show is always on at the gym.  It is the freaking offseason. They're just arguing about pointless stuff from either last season or doing rankings of the upcoming season.

 
when I watch the top 20 plays of the month

I don't need a 60 minute show with 5 "talking heads" voting on their favorite and ranking them in their preferred tier and order.

 
shader said:
I think "the internet" is part of it...but lets face it, there are plenty of great TV stations out there.

I think they made the mistake of having too many channels.  ESPN2, ESPN classic, ESPN college or whatever...

Less is more.  Have one dominant channel.  There's no way you can fill 3-5 channels with great info 24/7.

As for sportscenter, that's due to the internet.  Highlight shows just aren't popular anymore.  People get their highlights as they want them on youtube, social media, etc.  
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It isn't the internet generically. It is the ability of the internet to stream high quality broadband TV signals. That is a fairly new development. And a newer development is the proliferation of ways to consume high quality content without going through the cable companies or DirecTV.

ESPN's viewership peaked in 2011 and its profitability peaked a little bit thereafter. Households started moving away from Pay-TV in real numbers around that time period. And that trend is accelerating. And for many young people these days, cable TV is like a telephone land line.

 
NewlyRetired said:
Many of the most popular streaming services include ESPN programming.  The fastest growing section of streaming services are the ones that are simply making the cable channels available via streaming for a much cheaper monthly cost.
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Yeah. 

And the difference in what ESPN makes from those services and from their deals with traditional cable TV systems is massive.

 
For me, it started going down hill after the end of The Big Show Dan Patrick / Keith Olbermann Sports Center days. As others have mentioned, in the past 20 years there have been many more sports channels, leagues that spawned their own networks, and internet sites that are all sports or provide instant news. IMO, ESPN added so many staff people (tv, radio, web, insiders, bloggers, experts, plus guest coaches and athletes, etc. when they were no longer the only game in town. By the time they actually broadcast discussions on events or topics, many times it's already old news. As things stand now, people will text me something they saw or heard on ESPN hours or days after it hit the web. I don't have ESPN anymore, but the only reason I would get it again would be for the games they broadcast. To me, there is nothing else for programming that I would want to watch.

 
Kraft... said:
The Major sports starting their own networks hurt too. 
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This was the death nail for me.

MLBN and NFLN, NHLN, NBATV are all I watch pretty much.

I still love College Gameday and pretty much that is what ESPN is for these days for me (and 30 for 30). NCAA football.

 
RedmondLonghorn said:
Yeah. 

And the difference in what ESPN makes from those services and from their deals with traditional cable TV systems is massive.
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it certainly is but I personally believe it is temporary.  Once the tipping point comes in the next ~5 years when the majority of Americans streams instead of Sat\cable, I think slowly the prices are going to increase for streaming.

I watched this happen in the 90's when DBS came on the scene and blew cable out of the water for pricing, but eventually as DBS got bigger and bigger, things normalized.  I believe this will happen with streaming.

Of course that does not help ESPN in the mean time, which is why they need to be more expense aware until this time period passes.

 
Anyone else out there never use espn.com?    I've just never liked the site and maybe go to it once or twice a year.

 
NewlyRetired said:
it certainly is but I personally believe it is temporary.  Once the tipping point comes in the next ~5 years when the majority of Americans streams instead of Sat\cable, I think slowly the prices are going to increase for streaming.

I watched this happen in the 90's when DBS came on the scene and blew cable out of the water for pricing, but eventually as DBS got bigger and bigger, things normalized.  I believe this will happen with streaming.

Of course that does not help ESPN in the mean time, which is why they need to be more expense aware until this time period passes.
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That may well happen, but I promise you that whatever the equilibrium price is, it will be a fraction of the price per sub that they have been extracting out of the cable companies recently.

 
I think you have to be at least in your mid to late 40's to appreciate what ESPN meant to sports fans back in the day. Before ESPN, the only time we saw highlights of "other football games" (for me, non-Packer games) was the 2 minute segment at halftime on Monday night. The NFL Draft was something I might have read about a week or so after it happened, to learn something about the guys the Packers selected after the beat writers had enough time to figure out who they were. March Madness, particularly the early rounds, was at best a minor sporting event. When ESPN started showing the early rounds, live on Thursday and Friday afternoons, we were in heaven. Exposure to all the unknown sports and sport-like events they picked up in the early years - Aussie Rules football, snooker, darts, college softball, lacrosse, rugby 7s, chess, etc. - that was so much fun back when I had time to sit around and watch something I had no experience with.

When the time comes to write the ESPN obit, I think Bill Simmons has to be the guy. Although I don't follow him much anymore, his demographic and background is perfect, having come of age with ESPN, later joining the mothership and creating its only remaining property of any value, 30for30.

 
probably when they started thinking their audience gave a #### about how PC the coverage was.  No, Caitlyn Jenner wasn't the start of the downfall, but it was indicative of how little they cared what the customer thought.  Same as having all these women anchors.  Yes, the good ones are good, but there are some horrific ones as well...why?  There is more coverage of the WNBA than hockey....

It's definitely a combination of many things, Disney likely being the genesis of the corporate changes.

 
Slapdash said:
The daily hour-long NFL Live show is always on at the gym.  It is the freaking offseason. They're just arguing about pointless stuff from either last season or doing rankings of the upcoming season.
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Seriously.  Can I get ONE freaking good show on for me to watch over lunch?!  MLB Network has that loud-mouthed buffoon Mad Dog on and ESPN has NFL Live talking about Kaepernick for the 1000th time this month. :hot:  

 
I'll add one more.   The failure of ESPN to recognize the opportunities with regional networks was a massive miss.  All of these regional Fox affiliates got their hooks into all the local teams, local colleges, etc, and now have created another how-many-dozen networks around the country that stole sports eyeballs from ESPN.

 
Todem said:
This was the death nail for me.

MLBN and NFLN, NHLN, NBATV are all I watch pretty much.

I still love College Gameday and pretty much that is what ESPN is for these days for me (and 30 for 30). NCAA football.
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College Football is about all they have left.  They get one NFL game a week.  I don't care about the NBA or most MLB games other than my team.

 
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Ramblin Wreck said:
College Football is about all they have left.  They get one NFL game a week.  I don't care about the NBA or most MLB games other than my team.
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Agreed. When the Orioles are on, I couldn't care less what teams are on ESPN, I'm watching the Orioles. Same with the Wizards. There's just too many channel choices now for people if they want to watch a game.

 
MarvinTScamper said:
probably when they started thinking their audience gave a #### about how PC the coverage was.  No, Caitlyn Jenner wasn't the start of the downfall, but it was indicative of how little they cared what the customer thought.  Same as having all these women anchors.  Yes, the good ones are good, but there are some horrific ones as well...why?  There is more coverage of the WNBA than hockey....

It's definitely a combination of many things, Disney likely being the genesis of the corporate changes.
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People not liking that ESPN has become "too PC" doesn't cause them to lose subs though. It may well have caused them to lose some viewers, but people don't cut the cable because they think ESPN is too PC. They do it because cable TV, in general, is overpriced. And ESPN's pricing is a decent portion of that, but far from the whole story.

 
RedmondLonghorn said:
People not liking that ESPN has become "too PC" doesn't cause them to lose subs though. It may well have caused them to lose some viewers, but people don't cut the cable because they think ESPN is too PC. They do it because cable TV, in general, is overpriced. And ESPN's pricing is a decent portion of that, but far from the whole story.
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I know, but when the coverage suffers from a lower quality analyst or anchor who is there because of PC, it does matter.

 
ESPN's problems aren't unique in the industry.  Other cable networks have struggled to redefine themselves in the face of competition from online-only content providers.  

But ESPN faces a bigger problem because they have massive, long-term contracts for broadcast rights to their core content.  If the financials aren't good, the Food Network can cancel Iron Chef without being on the hook to pay billions to Morimoto.

The people running the sports leader aren't stupid and they have access to analytics that we don't.  I don't think anyone there considers the recent headcount cuts as anything other than a band-aid for their bleeding.  Their competitors are all in various stages of the same death spiral and this will have consequences on leagues, teams and athletes the next time the broadcast rights come up for bid.

 
RedmondLonghorn said:
People not liking that ESPN has become "too PC" doesn't cause them to lose subs though. It may well have caused them to lose some viewers, but people don't cut the cable because they think ESPN is too PC. They do it because cable TV, in general, is overpriced. And ESPN's pricing is a decent portion of that, but far from the whole story.
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I do wonder how much blame ESPN ultimately takes for driving cable prices through the roof, either directly or indirectly. Maybe we don't give them enough blame. 

 
One of the things people like about sports is that 99.9% of the time it's apolitical. It's fun, it's entertainment. You don't have athletes spouting off about politics like you do with Hollywood celebrities. It's an escape... ESPN aimed to change that and people tuned out.

 
Eephus said:
ESPN's problems aren't unique in the industry.  Other cable networks have struggled to redefine themselves in the face of competition from online-only content providers.  

But ESPN faces a bigger problem because they have massive, long-term contracts for broadcast rights to their core content.  If the financials aren't good, the Food Network can cancel Iron Chef without being on the hook to pay billions to Morimoto.

The people running the sports leader aren't stupid and they have access to analytics that we don't.  I don't think anyone there considers the recent headcount cuts as anything other than a band-aid for their bleeding.  Their competitors are all in various stages of the same death spiral and this will have consequences on leagues, teams and athletes the next time the broadcast rights come up for bid.
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OTOH, regional sports channels can continue to exist in a relatively competition-free environment. For example, ROOT Sports Pittsburgh has both the Pirates and Penguins and taps into FOX (IIRC) for college football and basketball coverage. Mix in poker, interview shows, coaches shows, local HS sports, and whatnot and you have a great local alternative to ESPN. They don't have a highlight show, but don't need one.

 
sublimeone said:
One of the things people like about sports is that 99.9% of the time it's apolitical. It's fun, it's entertainment. You don't have athletes spouting off about politics like you do with Hollywood celebrities. It's an escape... ESPN aimed to change that and people tuned out.
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Oh yeah?

 
jfranco77 said:
I do wonder how much blame ESPN ultimately takes for driving cable prices through the roof, either directly or indirectly. Maybe we don't give them enough blame. 
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The cable companies and content providers can point fingers at one another but there can only be one loser. 

The carriers are very nearly a monopoly and any competitors face huge barriers to entry.  Even a company as rich as Google has decided that the build out of wired local access isn't viable.  Cord cutters still have to go somewhere for Internet access and there's only one option available to most Americans.

 
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