The fucked up part in all of this is that "leaning left" or "trending left" in 2017 would be near right wing nut job 15 years ago. You are either 1000% committed to a far right ideology these days or at a minimum you are "left leaning", which to Trumps people means flaming liberal.
It really is unbelievable that we have to cohabitate with these neanderthals. Imagine taking the time to think about Disney pushing their liberal agenda.
we're talking about a network where it was actually debated whether kaepernick should be allowed to take a knee during the anthem another serious kaepernick topic: is his protest hurting the nfl's ratings? so yeah
I'm pretty sure this same demographic aggravated by the "politicization" of ESPN were upset by the princess from the princess and the frog being black.
I feel like people are arguing two different arguments. The question isn't necessarily whether ESPN is, in fact, liberal leaning. The question/comment is more based around do people view it as liberal leaning. What is liberal leaning to me might be something that doesn't even register on another's "liberal or not" radar. With that said, I think ESPNs decline is mainly due to it's movement from live sports and sports highlights to more celebrity/athlete gossip and talking heads giving hot take after hot take just to piss people off. Now some of that decline might also be due to the PERCEIVED left-ward leaning bias of ESPN. I don't have any facts or figures to say yes or no to that, nor am I saying that ESPN has a liberal bias. Think of it this way, MTV was once the hot new thing. Then they kept trending from actual music television and in to reality tv. Slowly but surely they died out and are a shell of what they once were. Basically, they stopped focusing on what they do best and couldn't keep up with the changing times. I don't think ESPN will ever reach this because too many people love sports, but I think they have some work to do to regain traction with the average sports viewer, whether that traction is based on political affiliation or on programming options. Personally, I think ESPN has some overly liberal moments and some overly conservative moments, just like most any tv station. ESPN lost me due to the celebrity/athlete gossip and talking heads.
the other side of this is that MTV/ESPN saw their ratings declines coming and it played out in certain areas of their programming. with the music industry being murdered by the internet and the advent of youtube hours and hours of music videos doesn't get an audience anymore. with the internet allowing instant highlight access at the press of a button and all breaking news happening on twitter, viewership was dropping for the classically programmed SC. they pivoted to a new model that their research said it'd stem the tide of dropping viewership or at least make the free fall slower. you can easily argue if MTV didn't switch to more reality based programming and ESPN didn't move towards talking head shows (which are where ratings come not only in sports so its not just ESPN making this shift) they'd be in worse shape then they are now. this argument is nowhere near as fun as "LIBRULS" or "ESPN WAS BETTER WHEN I WAS THE KEY DEMO", but imo it's much closer to the reality of the situation
MTV peaked with reality television. The Real World, Jackass, and then Jersey Shore were its biggest successes, not music videos.
MTV started pulling away from music videos in 1992. No one who watches MTV now was alive when music videos were its primary programming.
This, right here, is why I think ESPN is failing -- because they suck at everyting. This article is legitimately loathsome from every conceivable angle: http://www.espn.com/espnw/culture/feature/article/19248874/if-not-player-ray-rice-asks-forgive-man
Overlooked in these experts' opining on media management, politics and the economy, and effective market research is this critical point-- their product sucks. Amazing.
I'm at a bar and they have espn on the tv. Whatever show it is no idea But the first topic of discussion was: Is arena football more lit than we thought? Followed by: Was James harden wishing he was at the met gala last night?
And I'm sure plenty of people who stopped consuming it because it is utter dogshit, pipe up now and cry about how they don't watch it because it's liberal.
http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/19293340/red-sox-step-inexcusable-night-fenway I love the shock that Boston might be a racist city. Something that is one fairly widely known (or should be) and that pro athletes have complained about for over 20 years. But to this, other than ejecting fans for throwing things, as they did last night, what are the Red Sox really supposed to do about it?
"Conservatives are triggered by everything." "I will not take my kids to Disney!" It's fucking Disney you squares
If you're watching espn and a thought runs through your mind and it's 'these liberals are trying to pressure their opinions and beliefs onto me' then your immediate problem is that you are irretrievably stupid.
I actually didn't. But I do know you've said a few times you don't believe in a god (which is also fine). I didn't have to go much further. My bad
Oh so you thought my part about participating in the war on Christmas was real then? That's not much better tbh
"Conservatives were so much more reasonable back in the day" is one of the most tired cliches out there. When Bush was Hitler everybody missed those sane Republicans of the 80s/90s, now that Trump's Trump we long for the days of the aughts. Trump's a dipshit and so are his MAGA followers but conservatives care far less about social issues than they did 10 years ago, and are, by any measure, more tolerant of things they find objectionable than they've ever been.
WTF, are we really going to pretend that the vast majority of sports writers and journalists weren't sympathetic to Kaepernick? Really?
Yes, hence the triumph of the strict economic and fiscal conservative wing of the party in the presidential primary.
The man furthest to the left on social issues in the Republican Primary won the nomination and the presidency.
Oh are we not including banning Muslims and forcibly removing Hispanics from the country as social issues? Well when you use that filter you're correct, objection withdrawn.
He's the most gay friendly first term president in American history. He doesn't give a shit about abortion and defending publicly funding Planned Parenthood during a fucking presidential debate. Forcibly removing illegal aliens isn't really an extreme position in the Republican Party. The only thing he out flanked the major candidates on was the Muslim ban. I don't really consider that to be a social issue, but ok, I'll give you that one.
The racist misogynist was the furthest left on social issues? I guess that does say a lot about the current state of the party
How is the types of people we allow to be American citizens and the banning of an entire religion from our country NOT a social issue?