
Taking the pulse of ESPN - prostoalex
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2017/06/26/Media/ESPN-main.aspx
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ericfrederich
Think there was an article on here earlier either about ESPN directly or about
cable in general. Someone had a real good point... ESPN used to be actual
sports news, analysis, and coverage. Now it's like TMZ for sports. It's
terrible programming talking about serious issues like Tom Brady's haircut.

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Touche
I don't now about analysis, I don't remember a lot of that in the past, it's
always been somewhat superficial. You're right that it's become louder and
more TMZ in the past few years, but I think this is a general trend in media
that covers news items.

Facts are not valuable; they are free to anyone on the internet. What's
valuable is your ability to add entertainment surrounding those facts. How do
you stand out against others doing the same thing? Be louder, more
controversial, etc.

Given that we keep seeing the same problems in our society play out in various
arenas (look at politics), my question is are the sociologists asleep at the
wheel? Why are they not observing these patterns and offering up solutions?

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Touche
If I were Amazon or YouTube I'd strongly consider making a bid the next time
one of these leagues were available.

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kasey_junk
If I were one of the sports leagues I would be terrified of the next time one
of these deals come up. On the one hand they are sitting on one of the few
assets that still has some value live (though I tend to watch all of my sports
30 minutes delayed). On the other, the entire media landscape is having the
margins sucked out of it in an impressive pace. Those rights deals are
outrageously expensive for the people that get them.

I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon, Netflix or Google snapped up the rights
deals at a blockbuster price. But I also wouldn't be surprised if the price
was much less than people thought due to less competition as well.

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dagw
Both the NFL and MLB already have high quality streaming offerings today,
including more advanced features like chose your own camera angle. They just
don't distribute these services widely because TV pays so much better. If
prices drop too far, they'll probably just keep the rights and start streaming
the games themselves.

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kasey_junk
Yeah I thought of that as one option, but that means that the sports leagues
need to get in the business of streaming video. Now they can dip their toe in
it because the numbers are so low, but to support the Super Bowl for instance
you'd have to be fairly sophisticated.

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dagw
_to support the Super Bowl for instance you 'd have to be fairly
sophisticated._

That is a good point. Good old cable technology still has some advantages.
From what I can find the current record for a single live video stream is 4.6
million concurrent viewers, and the Superbowl consistently gets over 100
million.

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Shivetya
with the professional teams flush with so much broadcast money there needs to
be a bigger push to legally block them from exploiting deals from cities and
counties for building costly venues at taxpayer expense. throw in the IRS
really needs to revisit its rules which allow the write off of tickets to such
events as business expenses

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Touche
Who is going to create such laws? The federal government? Why should they tell
cities how to spend their money?

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devinhelton
If players have a union and collectively bargain, and the owners collectively
bargain, then the fans/cities should also collectively bargain. Create a union
of the cities that host the leagues, and have them bargain for rules such as
no taxpayer subsidizing of stadiums.

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DrSayre
Federal Government should not be allowed to tell cities how to spend their
money, but something needs to be done what devinhelton said. Look up Atlanta
about their stadium deals for the Falcons and Braves. The City Council
basically ignored the citizens completely and went ahead to spend millions to
replace 2 stadiums that really wasn't that old to begin with.

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Touche
Did the city council get re-elected when they went against citizens?

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DrSayre
Im not sure. I remember reading an article about it awhile back and wondered
if they would get re-elected, though I cannot find that article at the moment.
I believe it was to approve additional funds for the Braves new stadium. If I
remember right, they kept anybody who was against the deal from speaking about
it at the meeting. There was a big scene and they went ahead and voted for the
additional funding.

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PaulHoule
If you just want to watch spots put up an OTA antenna and you will get as many
games as you see on ESPN. What ESPN specializes in is sports commentary, which
is often worthless.

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HelloMcFly
This is not true for the vast majority of basketball games, Monday/Thursday
NFL games, most soccer games of interest, or hockey. But if all you're
interested in is local baseball, the NBA/NHL finals, or Sunday NFL then go for
it.

I'm saying this as an NBA/MLS junkie that's cut the cord.

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bluedino
>> Monday/Thursday NFL games

Mondays are on ESPN but Thursday night is on network TV. Not that you'd want
to watch a TNF game. And MNF is a good excuse to go to the pub and watch the
game.

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HelloMcFly
I thought Thursday nights were NFL Network only unless it was also your local
team (which never had relevance for me as I didn't live in my home market).
Has that changed? I haven't really followed the league since dropping cable a
few years back.

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lando2319
This year 7 are NFL Network exclusives, the rest are simulcast to various
places, CBS, NBC, Amazon

Last year I believe Yahoo and Twitter had a couple, TNF seems to be the place
to experiment with different distributors.

[http://www.nfl.com/schedules/2017/TNF](http://www.nfl.com/schedules/2017/TNF)

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douche
I can't bring myself to watch espn any more. They've gutted so much of their
actually insightful talent, while retaining the hot take artists and trolls.
And I don't need to be constantly bombarded with left-wing propaganda and
outrage with my sports scores.

In addition, their broadcasts are just not very good. Watching TNT and Espn
during the NBA playoffs this year was like night and day.

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Kluny
Yeah, it's another case of an old media company thinking that the internet is
stealing the fanbase. No, it's because your product sucks. That's the only
reason. There are still tons of sports diehards even among millennials who
would get a cable subscription for nothing but ESPN if it wasn't such utter
garbage.

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kasey_junk
Can you quantify that? Cause its not just ESPN that is losing subscriptions to
cable cutters its the entire industry. There is basically no cable
subscription channel that is adding subscribers. The best some can say is they
aren't losing them as fast as others. They study this _a lot_. Its pretty
clear from their data that millennials have a different media consumption
pattern from their predecessors and that new consumption pattern is moving up
the age bands as well. Anecdotely, I recently cut the cord, am not a
millennial, and am a huge sports junky that had cable (actually satellite)
just for sports. I did it because a) I consume less television generally these
days and b) the value proposition wasn't there with all the other ways I can
consume sports now.

ESPN is being hit the hardest because they had the largest piece of the pie
that is shrinking. Also their sports broadcast deals are staggeringly
expensive.

Finally, ESPN is not moving to a sucky product for funsies. They are doing it
because contrary to our inclination people _do_ watch the talking heads
screaming at each other, in about the same amount as other programming, and
its _much_ cheaper to create.

[edit] another thing that might be driving ESPN more to the talking heads
model is the way views are calculated. As part of the metrics there is some
accounting for public places that are showing television so from a 'real'
perspective the bar showing Around The Horn on mute to a few patrons in the
afternoon is not very valuable to advertisers, but based on the metrics they
use it is. Model error is real.

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Touche
I think ESPN is being hit the hardest because their content costs the most.
Look at this deal they signed. Can you imagine AMC or whatever other premium
content channel having to spend 12 billion for a few shows a week?

