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The Rise and Fall of ESPN (2 Viewers)

Joe T

Footballguy
What was the point the started the downfall of ESPN? Sportscenter is now basically unwatchable.

Was it the Kaitlyn Jenner courage award? Was it when Disney bought ESPN? Was it the constant pressure for diversity among sports anchors? All of the above? Other? 

 
Corporate philosophy of TV, perpetrated or imitated by Disney. Worry not about content, only what stops a clicker. Hence, yelling and weather twinkies.

Oddly, NBC's & Fox's attempts to compete ignored what would get viewers - people who splain #### good so we win our bets and leagues. Instead, ex-jocks and whatever losers wash out of the Big E in tight suits jokin around and giving big ups to highlight plays & each other.

 
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Corporate philosophy of TV, perpetrated or imitated by Disney. Worry not about content, only what stops a clicker. Hence, yelling and weather twinkies.

Oddly, NBC's & Fox's attempts to compete ignored what would get people back - people who splain #### good so we win our bets and leagues. Instead, ex-jocks and whatever losers wash out of the Big E in tight suits jokin around and giving big ups to highlight plays & each other.
and the Internet

 
What was the point the started the downfall of ESPN? Sportscenter is now basically unwatchable.

Was it the Kaitlyn Jenner courage award? Was it when Disney bought ESPN? Was it the constant pressure for diversity among sports anchors? All of the above? Other? 
:rolleyes:  Somehow I doubt that was the start of ESPN's downfall...

 
What was the point the started the downfall of ESPN? Sportscenter is now basically unwatchable.

Was it the Kaitlyn Jenner courage award? Was it when Disney bought ESPN? Was it the constant pressure for diversity among sports anchors? All of the above? Other? 
The start was probably the Disney purchase.  When it became more focused on expanding viewership, it started to lose what made it such a staple of the avid sports fan.  We wanted sports and sports reporting.  Now we have more debate and social commentary and not enough X's & O's.  Women and casual fans don't like the X's and O's, but the serious fans are sick of watching people yell at one another about non-sports topics.  They have kind of started alienating almost everyone at some point or another.  The only time I watch ESPN anymore is when they have a game on I want to watch.

 
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.
Kinda agree with this. I think ESPNews could be attributed too, it just became overload.

 
Kinda agree with this. I think ESPNews could be attributed too, it just became overload.
Yup. ESPN and SportsCenter were at their best when you had the 6am, 6pm, and 11pm SCs. Now, there's jus too many that rehash the same stories over and over again. Sports doesn't need 24/7 updates. This is when they started trying to create stories so they had something to talk about all day and stopped showing as many highlights of the games.

 
Kinda agree with this. I think ESPNews could be attributed too, it just became overload.
I think the beginning of the end was ESPN2. Too many channels and not enough content for those channels. Then came ESPNews, ESPNU, the Spanish ESPN. There just isn't enough there to fill that much time. It used to be an honor to be featured on Sportscenter. Now, what isn't featured on Sportscenter?

 
I blame Dodgeball. In Dodgeball we were given the idea, the concept, the vision, the dream that there could be The Ocho. As the days since seeing Dodgeball began to pass, and the reality set in there the wasn't going the be The Ocho, my interest, as I'm sure the rest of humanity's interest in all things ESPN waned.

 
The Major sports starting their own networks hurt too. 
Good point. July/August timeframe, I watch way more MLB Network than ESPN. If you just want info on a specific sport, it's easier to just turn to that league's network then to ESPN.

 
Pee Wee Vermin and Much Pablum on "The Sports Reporters"  :thumbdown:

two bigger pantload milquetoasts you could never find ... they make Johnny Weir look like Chuck ####### Norris. 

 
The Major sports starting their own networks hurt too. 
as did the rise of regional sports network.  These drove the cost of broadcast rights up, decreased the amount of live sports content available to ESPN and also created competition for viewership by sports fans. 

I know we like to think the majority of people follow sports but we're in the minority.  Fragmentation of this already limited audience has been bad for ESPN's bottom line.

 
as did the rise of regional sports network.  These drove the cost of broadcast rights up, decreased the amount of live sports content available to ESPN and also created competition for viewership by sports fans. 

I know we like to think the majority of people follow sports but we're in the minority.  Fragmentation of this already limited audience has been bad for ESPN's bottom line.
That makes sense. Though, haven't regional sports networks been around awhile? Or maybe there's just more of them? I always remember watching Orioles games in the 90s on HTS and that was when ESPN was really hitting it's stride.

 
What was the point the started the downfall of ESPN? Sportscenter is now basically unwatchable.

Was it the Kaitlyn Jenner courage award? Was it when Disney bought ESPN? Was it the constant pressure for diversity among sports anchors? All of the above? Other? 
When they started forcing shtick that was natural with olberman, patrick, and even berman where eventually berman became a charicature of himself. I have not watched espn for highlight for years, a big reason being I can't stand all of the circus that goes along with it.

Pretty much the same thing as the ffa.

 
When they started forcing shtick that was natural with olberman, patrick, and even berman where eventually berman became a charicature of himself. I have not watched espn for highlight for years, a big reason being I can't stand all of the circus that goes along with it.
agree bigly with all that ... gotta toss Scott in there as well.

 
Competition from streaming services is the #1 reason, without question.

The second big problem is that ESPN pushed their pricing too far, IMO. It was great for them while it lasted, but it was unsustainable. And then they poured those windfall profits into bidding up the cost of their own content. Their TV rights commitments (i.e. what they pay for content) are now double what they were in 2013. So dumb. 

There is a bubble in the sports business right now. It has been inflated by bundling and the excess fees that ESPN has managed to extract from cable subscribers. People who don't care about sports have been subsidizing the entire sports business complex for years. Those excess fees are now ebbing. The whole bubble is going to deflate. It will eventually impact player and coach salaries and franchise values, I believe.

ETA:

In fairness to ESPN, they didn't just bid up the cost of their own content for no reason. TV sports became the must-have TV property due to another recent technological change: the DVR. Ad rates remained robust for live sports, even as they got worse everywhere else, because many people still care about watching sports as they happen. And the scarcity of that program led to overbidding...just in time for the cable cutting trend to poleaxe the whole industry.

 
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That's true too. I can get updates and highlights on my phone which I am sure has also impacted it.
It's not that though. ESPN thrived during the initial wave(s) of the internet boom.

It is the availability of streaming content via IP, leading to the disintermediation of the business and "cord cutting".

 

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