OT (and SIAP): Why ESPN is Struggling

Submitted by FauxMo on

I take no pleasure in people losing their jobs. I take even less pleasure in such a thing when people are losing their jobs because of what appears to be gross mismanagement. Here is a link to an article explaining how ESPN appears to have HIGHLY overpaid for certain broadcast rights, and did so just as it made a huge mistake that cost the channel millions of subscribers:

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/espn-made-two-critical-mistakes-132855270….

 

P.S. There is a link to other articles within this article that have more hard numbers. They basically confirm the thrust of this article, however...

ijohnb

October 27th, 2015 at 3:38 PM ^

a lot of it is seriously just over-saturation, particularly with the NFL.  I turn it on ESPN to watch specific games, but I turn it off as soon as those games are over.  I am not just nuetral toward it either, the channel genuinely irritates me.  For a long time I had ESPN as my fall back channel but it is the opposite of that now because I think their content is terrible.

BomTrady

October 27th, 2015 at 4:01 PM ^

House Hunters International.  Relaxing, educational, useful.  

ESPN is none of those.  It's sad.  I grew up watching ESPN for hours a day.  Now, I don't think I've watch an hour of non-live-sports in a year.  Bunch of blow hard idiots who know nothing about sports.  I don't care what Lebron James has to say about Big Ben's injury nor do I have or CARE about what is happening on the Twitter.

Rabbit21

October 27th, 2015 at 5:12 PM ^

I like the shows where the people are at least somewhat open to something different.  The ones where the people hate everything and make me wonder how their agent hasn't killed them, make me hope they choose the worst possible fit.  

The House Hunters international are great, really fun to see slices of life all over the world and see why people make the moves that they do.

gbdub

October 27th, 2015 at 7:39 PM ^

You realize House Hunters is like WWE level fake, right? Most of the time the people have bought a house before filming even starts, half the time the homes they "tour" are just houses of friends etc. they throw in to pretend there was a "choice".

Fine for ogling houses in neat places, but the "plot" is all scripted and mostly fiction.



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bluebyyou

October 27th, 2015 at 4:10 PM ^

I  also used to watch ESPN way more frequently than I do now.  They last straw for me was their incredibly biased reporting of Deflategate.  Listening to some of the jock reporters extol the virtues of their theory without ever once mentioning the Ideal Gas Law or realizing that tires lose pressure when they got colder made my eyes roll.  Mark Brunell was a case in point.  

The only concern I have is the impact upon the B1G and its contract negotiations. 

SoDak Blues

October 27th, 2015 at 5:05 PM ^

This is absolutely on point. The whole coverage was ridiculous. There were probably 10-15 different threads here that covered all of the minutia of the science of deflation. I learned more physics on mgoblog during that period than I will ever remember from undergrad.

I get my sports news from this blog and watch whatever my wife wants to watch at night (usually HGTV or History channel).

uofmfootball97

October 27th, 2015 at 3:52 PM ^

For the longest time, ESPN was, for the most part, the only channel I really watched. But when the A-Rod, Favre, Tebow storylines were covered ad nauseam it became too much to handle. Combine that with terrible "jounalists" in Stephen A, Bayless, etc and I don't watch anything they offer with the exception of live games and the occassional 30 for 30.

ClassOf14

October 27th, 2015 at 4:38 PM ^

I couldn't agree more. For anything that is not a live game, I have no reason to watch ESPN anymore. Their daytime talk shows are awful. Most of their talking heads often try to just get by with offering commentary on drama that is going on within a sport, instead of the sport itself. And even for highlights, sportscenter has gone from must watch TV to unnecessary for me. It's much easier to take out my computer or iPad and find highlights of just the specific games I'm interested in, and I don't have to watch all the ads or fillers that come with watching SC.



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