Espn to cut 150 employees

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!

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.

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.

Didn't they just do this a few months ago?

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.

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.

Sad day. There's some good people losing their jobs. 

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.

Good thing they're paying John Gruden $6.5 million to deliver commentary.  That's money well spent.

Hill, Pete F, Bill Walton, Galloway could go anytime.

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.

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.