Espn to cut 150 employees
November 29th, 2017 at 10:55 AM ^
They had very good talent and showed sports highlights. The Top 10 and No So Top 10 were great.
Now the SportCenter at 6:00 is movies, music, whatever, and ... sports. It's not what people tune in for at 6:00 pm. They want sports. Thus, rating are free falling.
November 29th, 2017 at 11:18 AM ^
Back in the day you had to watch SportsCenter to get highlights from around the country - the last segment of the local news would show local highlights along with a few important national games, but you needed to watch SportsCenter to get anything else. That pretty much went out the window with the proliferation of web video - who's going to watch an hour long highlights show when they can just look up what they want to see on YouTube right now? Never mind highlights pushed out minutes later via Twitter.
So ESPN had to come up with somethin besides just showing highlights. And what they came up with sucks. But what they were doing back in the day just wasn't working any more, so it's not like staying put was an option.
November 29th, 2017 at 12:10 PM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 12:23 PM ^
I dunno about that causal arrow. If I'm in the market for, say, NBA highlights, there's no era of Sportscenter that I'd prefer to 20 minutes on r/nba. A fixed, 30- or 60-minute video stream is just the wrong medium for 5-second highlights that appeal to different tastes.
November 29th, 2017 at 12:52 PM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 4:40 PM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 5:37 PM ^
It's not smart phones per se, but expansive data plans and ubiquitous, high-quality video streams. If all ESPN is offering is highlights, there's just no way that they compete with a different medium that's much, much better at feeding you highlights (of your own choosing, at your leisure, and of nearly infinite potential variety). I agree that a lot of their flavor-of-the-week programming is awful, but there's no golden age of Sportscenter that would be particularly successful in the current environment.
November 29th, 2017 at 1:08 PM ^
Yes sportscenter cant have the same draw it used too but I would absolutely watch a show again that was an hour long of prepackaged/cut up highlights on an endless loop.
Yes I see highlight on twitter now but thats only live highlights and I dont go searching for it. There is still a place for sportscenter
November 29th, 2017 at 10:41 AM ^
I remember watching Sportscenter every morning before school to see who won games the previous night. Actively reading the ticker at the bottom because I had no clue who may have won in the NBA, NHL or the Monday Night Football game. Those were the days!
November 29th, 2017 at 11:07 AM ^
This was my childhood. I woke up early every mornining to watch SC and loved the anchors back in the mid to late 90's. Now...not so much.
November 29th, 2017 at 11:53 AM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 10:48 AM ^
Smith should have never been appointed as Captain of that ship in the first place. He was a disaster on the Olympic and almost sunk that thing too. Putting him in the captains-quarters of the Titanic was like Alabama hiring Brady Hoke after he was fired here.
November 29th, 2017 at 10:49 AM ^
I agree. SportsCenter was once an icon of sports TV, when it was a news and highlights show. Then it opted to become a gossip rag where talking heads with no real knowledge (Bayliss, Stephen A. Smith, Jamele Hill, Paul "Jugears" Finebaum. etc.) discussed the same three topics day in and day out until viewers, like me, tuned out.
You can only listen to them carry on about LeBron and the Cowboys for so long.
On top of that, they paid over the top rates for sports TV rights - they pay more to air NFL games than the broadcast networks do despite getting only one playoff game a year and NO Super Bowls. That raised carriage fees so even people who don't care about sports have to belly up more cash for basic cable.
So yeah, this is like throwing the cooks off the Titanic while the captain tells the first mate to keep heading towards that ice berg.
Screw ESPN.
Thus ends my mini rant.
November 29th, 2017 at 10:59 AM ^
if he had headed directly toward the iceberg and slowed the ship as much as possible, it would likely not have sank, or at least would have taken long enough to sink that help could have arrived. But no, he went with the fancy dancy "port around." Not a chance.
November 29th, 2017 at 1:04 PM ^
To think what could've been with Jack and Rose....
November 29th, 2017 at 1:13 PM ^
uhhh ya...
they get to shore Jack becomes an alcoholic and Rose gets knocked up. Rose has mental breakdown after mental breakdown because her rich family has disowned her and she cannot adjust to life without luxury. They live their remaining 20 years hating eachother and the only thing they leave behind are their children who will continue the cycle of unhappiness.
November 29th, 2017 at 2:17 PM ^
That was surprisingly specific. Sounds like you gave that some real thought.
November 29th, 2017 at 2:31 PM ^
is actually worse than that. The end of Rose and Jack's romance is shown in Revolutionary Road. Let's just say that life off the boat wasn't what they hoped it would be.
Seriously, if you watch that movie, it is like watching a really shitty "what could have been" ending to Titanic.
November 29th, 2017 at 10:55 AM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 11:36 AM ^
Finebaum on the shit heap, too.
November 29th, 2017 at 12:51 PM ^
Be nice to Pete!!
November 29th, 2017 at 12:08 PM ^
If FS1 was smart, they would be working on picking up that show for their network.
November 29th, 2017 at 10:57 AM ^
Didn't they just do this a few months ago?
November 29th, 2017 at 10:58 AM ^
My take is that it was a very profitable and bloated company that has trimmed some fat. I read somewhere that ESPN is by far the most expensive channel on cable tv. And their subsribers are falling at a slower rate than cable subribers as a whole. I don't see any of their layoffs as a sign that the network could collapse.
November 29th, 2017 at 11:37 AM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 12:03 PM ^
Here's the article. ESPN subscribers down 13% while overall cable down 16%.
http://www.businessinsider.com/espn-losing-subscribers-not-ratings-view…
November 29th, 2017 at 11:01 AM ^
Theyve got to get away from some of the stupid money they spend. I get it may be a drop in the bucket, but they send like 5 of the Monday Night Football hosts, i.e. Randy Moss and Charles Woodson to each game. Think about the airfare, hotel, expenditures that incurs. Just have them in the damn studio, its the same thing. They do the same thing with some of the football games. I really don't need a sideline reporter because nothing they say or talk about is valuable.
November 29th, 2017 at 12:17 PM ^
I agree that the number of on-air personalities involved in live events gets excessive. But that excess might make sense if you think about a business model that's going to have to increasingly rely on live events. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, ESPN's extended blocks of highlights are becoming obsolete -- the internet is just way better at showing people clips. So rather than having people watch Sportscenter for an hour before a three-hour game, it might make sense to try to stretch that three-hour game into a four-hour event with Randy Moss juggling footballs pre-game, etc.
November 29th, 2017 at 11:07 AM ^
Sad day. There's some good people losing their jobs.
November 29th, 2017 at 1:16 PM ^
MTV has figured it out though... Non-Stop Challenge seasons.
November 29th, 2017 at 11:13 AM ^
The old Sportscenter used to be two guys sitting at a news desk running through the highlights of games with some wit and verve. It was must-watch for any sports fan. It was fundamentally a highlight show with an occasionally interspersed personal interest story here and there.
Contrast with today's grossly overproduced, swingin'-zoomin'-effects-driven camera and graphics work on a set that looks like it's a Terry Gilliam satire of a dystopian media nightmare society. It's a personal interest and personality show occasionally interspersed with some highlights when they need filler material.
I'd watch the old Sportscenter style if they brought it back.
I'll get off my own lawn now.
November 29th, 2017 at 11:47 AM ^
i'm going to figure out a response to your post, probably agree with it all, but i have to go through my dictionary first. are you sure there's a 'y' in dystopia....?
November 29th, 2017 at 12:07 PM ^
I probably agree as well.
Right on the money; they might as well just blow it all it at this point.
Only things worth watcing is live football or basketball, women's softball during series, and little league.
Shows are a tire fire; the personalities are essentially loud morons for the most part. 30 for 30 and the dude from miami are the only decent shows.
November 29th, 2017 at 11:39 AM ^
Good thing they're paying John Gruden $6.5 million to deliver commentary. That's money well spent.
November 29th, 2017 at 11:49 AM ^
Hill, Pete F, Bill Walton, Galloway could go anytime.
November 29th, 2017 at 4:36 PM ^
I'm going to throw this out there:
Galloway is a much better TV personality than Desmond Howard. I watched a Thursday night game that Howard commentated on and I wanted to smash the TV.
The only thing I hate about Galloway is his OSU crap...
November 29th, 2017 at 11:56 AM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 12:34 PM ^
Would you prefer people to dislike them out of ignorance?
November 29th, 2017 at 12:39 PM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 1:04 PM ^
If you like ESPN, I'm not sure why you'd want anyone to stop watching them. Lower ratings aren't good for a TV network. You should be happy so many "haters" tune in to them.
November 29th, 2017 at 12:05 PM ^
The problem with ESPN is that the vast majority of their content is crap that's played on mute on TVs hanging in lobbies, lounges, and bars. If it's not a game, programming attached to a game/game day, or 30 for 30 type stuff, then who really watches it? Turn off all the talking heads and just broadcast the SMPTE color bars the rest of the time. Sponsors airing ads on ESPN during the day will continue to flush that money down the toilet and ESPN can save some bucks on 'talent' and production.
You're welcome Disney for the free consulting.
November 29th, 2017 at 12:17 PM ^
While I'm not rooting for anyone to lose their job, I think that you may be looking at this the wrong way. ESPN had effectively become a monopoly and was likely making outsized profits relative to the value they created. If that assumption is true, it is highly likely that their staffing levels became far too large relative to the work being done.
Now with cable cutting and other networks bidding up the broadcast rights on properties they have owned for years, they are being forced to look at the costs within their business.
We can debate whether or not the move towards personality driven programming is good or bad, but the reductions in staff/expenses are a different discussion.
November 29th, 2017 at 12:31 PM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 2:49 PM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 2:58 PM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 12:44 PM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 12:58 PM ^
November 29th, 2017 at 2:10 PM ^
Btw, politics is no longer just different opinions. It’s facts vs lies.
November 29th, 2017 at 2:39 PM ^