The network is firing 100 people. What the fuck did you think would happen here on a primarily sports forum?
what i need in the future at my airport bar is mike golic and lavar ball talking about beyonce's post-baby body
It doesn't seem like this is the last major landscape change we'll see in the next 1 to 3 years. I noticed someone on Twitter mentioning their NHL coverage took a huge hit and it looks like he's right. A lot of NHL writers gone, their coverage will be border on non-existent now.
Breaking up the only good radio show ESPN offers seems like a bold strategy cotton. Kanell isn't my favorite, but I thought he and Russillo worked pretty well together.
I am with everyone on ESPN should show more sports/highlights and less of the other bullshit. But Disney isn't exactly stupid - I'm sure there's very valid reasoning for what they are doing, and they wouldn't do this if it wasn't going to improve the bottom line. The sports media landscape is getting overcrowded anyway. A purge might do it some good. The casualties who are actually good at their jobs (i.e. Jayson Stark) will land on their feet. The rest, well, fuck 'em. Free market and all. Plus, it gives smaller outlets (Fox, NBC, SI, SB Nation, etc.) an opportunity to pick up more talent. This looks like a crushing development, but I don't think it will matter much in the grand scheme of things. The people who currently watch ESPN will continue to do so, and the rest (most of us in this thread) will continue to use other outlets and the world will keep turning.
Also, with regards to the more reporter/analyst types versus the Stuart Scott personality types, the internet is dramatically changing how they reach their readers. I no longer follow specific networks for sports, I follow the reporters I like - Jonah Keri, Stark, local beat writers, etc. It doesn't really matter who signs their paycheck. If I want their insight, I can easily find it. I've followed Keri from Grantland to SI, I've followed the various beat writers I like for, say KU, from the Lawrence or Topeka paper to the KC Star or other outlets. A layoff sucks in the short term for these guys, but the ones who are worth a shit will still maintain their audiences and their relevance.
Definitely agree with the crowd about what ESPN needs to do with news programming. I used to watch the hell out of sportscenter in high school, and a bit in college. That definitely dwindled after I graduated to the point that I'm simultaneously bored and annoyed to have to watch SC related shows now. There's no content, nor anything worthwhile about watching for an hour. The only anchor worth a damn was Czarniak imo, and she's probably out today too. Too much bullshit, too little sports news. I also recently soft cord cut (dropped FIOS TV in favor of PSVue), and I haven't noticed one bit of difference. I plan on dropping that during the summer when there are no sports on, because live sports are about the only thing that make me turn on a tv.
decent recap and touches on some of the weirdness of some of the choices namely cutting younger, cheaper, and in growing sports segments while also cutting older expensive established guys in non-big revenue sports they went after a little bit of everyone this time
i think what people say they want and what they really want are two different things here. fox and nbc both had what were essentially highlight shows and no one watched.
reddit's nba site is good if you don't get deep into the comments because then it becomes a bunch of powes telling each other they don't know anything about basketball
I don't even know what channel FS1 or NBC Sports are, nor did I know they even had those shows, so how am I supposed to watch it?
I do pray that Matt Stinchcomb gets fired and hopefully mugged in the parking lots. Gross sweaty fuck
NBCSN's highlight show had no voiceover to help tell the story of the game. Highlight driven storytelling is what sports fans want. Apparently there aren't enough of us to justify getting that programming, though.
I watch ESPN's live events and that's damn near it these days. How the hell is this page 12 pages in one day?
I just want to say that I dislike Jemele Hill and it's not because she's an African-American or due to her sex. You should be able to not like someone as annoying and self-important as her without being accused of racism or sexism. She sucks, IMO.
The people yelling about the liberal sjw causing ESPN to lose viewership blow my mind with their stupidity. For a group that claims it hates "PC culture" and the "pussification of America" so much conseratives are such whiny little bitches.
ESPN is not losing subscribers due to politics. They may be losing viewers but subscribers are what matter. But disliking politics being mixed with a sports network doesn't make anyone PC, a snowflake, in need of a safe space or whatever other bullshit label you want to place on legit criticism
This is exactly it. Not sure if it has been talked about in here, but this has less to do with who is viewing ESPN and more to do with affiliate fees that are in a state of decline. The traditional TV model is built on affiliate rights fees, without them the majority of networks wouldn't be profitable or have margins that wouldn't warrant any serious investment. Viewers are doing a few things: Cord cutting Cord nevering demanding ala carte (currently in Canada) skinny bundling All of these things together are causing the # of subs that ESPN (and other networks) are getting paid for to decrease. Ultimately it boils down to viewers for years have been paying ESPN (and other networks) even if they didn't want to because they didn't really have any choice in the 300 channels they had to get. This coupled with the fact that ESPN rate/sub is the largest in the business (by a large margin) they were able to create models that showed positive to flat returns for all the huge investment they have made in rights fees that they have been buying up. Now that the affiliate fees have dried up, they are having a harder time servicing these payments and hit their operating budget without cutting heads. Its only news because ESPN is the industry leader and are cutting a large # of jobs (like to see what the % of total workforce is), but this is happening to all TV networks especially sports networks, just on a much smaller scale. TV consumption has changed and will never be what it once was and this is the industry figuring out how to operate in the changing marketplace.