The Sports Media Thread

[dfwabel]

Before we started such a thread, 350 employees were laid off in 2015, most were off-camera. FS1 did their purge around this time last year as part of $250M in cost savings across all FOX networks. So it's not like many of these layoffs can just move to FS1. 

 

ESPN basically overpaid for rights fees.

NFL: $1.9 billion per year for 10 years. (Total: $15.2 billion)

NBA: $1.4 billion per year for nine years. (Total: $12.6 billion)

MLB: $700 million per year for eight years. (Total $5.6 billion)

College football: $470 million for 12 years: (Total $5.64 billion)

 

Credit: Jimmy Traina/SI,com

 

A fair share of cuts in recruiting (thank goodness) and B1G coverage since they lost half the inventory to FOX. 

[DustDevil61]

16 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

This is extensive. They're firing people like Jayson Stark. All the actual journalists are getting canned while Stephen A Smith still has a job and they offered 4 million dollars to Skip Bayless. ESPN. They're even deader to me than they were before and they were pretty dead to me before. 

 

1 minute ago, OnWis97 said:

Sadly, that's partly on the viewers.  Sports news/journalism is kind of like real news/journalism; there's so much of it and the masses reply by watching people shouting opinions at one another.

 

I'll admit...I do (did?) like debate shows like PTI and Around the Horn, but that's because the people involved were actual sports journalists. There is (was?) definitely a level of professionalism that Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser (and the mishmash of reporters on ATH) that Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith lacked. But of course Skip and Stephen A. will be there long after anyone else I mentioned is gone.

[CS85]

It's a combination of ESPN being like every other news channel in that they will always favor what makes them more money and how they make money is people watching programming and the programming people prefer is shouting heads and catering to the human pudding that remains in our society.

 

Tack on HUGE amounts of money required to keep NFL/MLB programming, which is the only reason people pay for cable anymore, in addition to the millions who are fed up with cable, period, and you're going to lose many, many millions of dollars.

 

This was always going to happen.  In our lifetimes cable television will become a retired medium.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I was wondering if anyone from the TrueHoop family would get the axe. Goodbye and goos luck Radio Ethan. 

[infrared41]

18 minutes ago, CS85 said:

It's a combination of ESPN being like every other news channel in that they will always favor what makes them more money and how they make money is people watching programming and the programming people prefer is shouting heads and catering to the human pudding that remains in our society.

 

Twas ever thus. 

[Sport]

People are gonna want to find reasons for this. There's two - 1. cord cutting and 2. their product is not good enough to make people not cut the chord. The sad irony is that all of the reasons people hate ESPN - Stephen A Smith, contrived debates, over coverage of the NFL and NBA, driving the same stories into the ground over and over - those are all staying. The actual good things are the victims. 

 

I've cut the cord and gone back a couple times and currently have a cable provider, but I never watch ESPN because I don't need to. First of all they don't do a good job, they don't cover the two sports I'm most interested in, and the networks that do cover those sports do a way better job than ESPN ever did even when it wasn't a 24/7 NFLNBA channel. 

[WSU151]

1 hour ago, DustDevil61 said:

 

 

I'll admit...I do (did?) like debate shows like PTI and Around the Horn, but that's because the people involved were actual sports journalists. There is (was?) definitely a level of professionalism that Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser (and the mishmash of reporters on ATH) that Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith lacked. But of course Skip and Stephen A. will be there long after anyone else I mentioned is gone.

 

Do you mean Skip will be on TV long after anyone else, or that'll he'll be on ESPN??  Skip hasn't been with ESPN for a few months now.

 

I have no idea why ESPN even tries to have a SportsCenter-like show anymore.  Every highlight possible is on the internet, and better covered on the league networks.  Corny catchphrases and overhyped players and activity lost its appeal years ago.  Morning SportsCenter (a traveler's staple back in the day) isn't needed anymore.   

 

I have no idea how Linda Cohn stays on at ESPN.  Her prime was way back in 2002 or so.  

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I have Sling TV so I can watch NBA, MLS and, yeah,  some NFL and NCAA football. 

 

But I can't ever remember thinking I needed to tune in for SportsCenter -- in any permutation -- or any of the various studio shows. 

 

I do think there's growth opportunity in online writing and podcasting. People have their phones with them everywhere (I'm writing as I wait for lunch) and I almost always have headphones when I walk in the city. I have money too, and might be more receptive to ads that aren't underwear and various recipe delivery systems. 

 

Sports media is changing but it isn't going away. 

[HedleyLamarr]

For those that still hold out hope the NHL will get back with ESPN....forget about that.  Whatever hockey department ESPN had (Burnside, LeBrun, Buccigross, Joe McDonald) has gotten the axe today.

[JayMac]

1 minute ago, HedleyLamarr said:

For those that still hold out hope the NHL will get back with ESPN....forget about that.  Whatever hockey department ESPN had (Burnside, LeBrun, Buccigross, Joe McDonald) has gotten the axe today.

Did Buccigross get the axe? His contract is/was up this summer so I figured they would let him ride it out. They haven't given two :censored:s about hockey in almost 20 years. This is no surprise.

[WSU151]

2 minutes ago, jmac11281 said:

Did Buccigross get the axe? His contract is/was up this summer so I figured they would let him ride it out. They haven't given two :censored:s about hockey in almost 20 years. This is no surprise.

 

A couple years ago, when I think the current ESPN website was designed, they didn't have an "NHL" dropdown in the top banner next to the other three leagues.  NHL was included in "Other Sports".  I think a few thousand tweets complaining about it made ESPN realize it was a pretty stupid mistake. 

[Still MIGHTY]

For all the flack ESPN deservedly gets for not talking hockey on air, their online writing was some of the best. Losing LeBrun and Burnside and even MacDonald on the day the 2nd Round starts is a downright criminal thing. Now they're not even pretending to care about the sport. Not even a cursory effort.

 

Losing Ed Werder the day before the draft is gross too. I'd hope the NFL Network or someone scoops him up by the end of the day.

 

And Baseball Tonight is going to be significantly downsized. From staff to actual shows during the week. Richard Deitsch basically said to expect ESPN to outsource some MLB shows from the MLB Network.

 

As someone making their way through the low level/early stages of the business and someone that grew up with the thought and dream that ESPN is the pinnacle of the profession and everything I should aspire to be, this is kind of disgusting and disheartening. ESPN will never be what it once was to me in that way.

[Kramerica Industries]

2 hours ago, WSU151 said:

 

A couple years ago, when I think the current ESPN website was designed, they didn't have an "NHL" dropdown in the top banner next to the other three leagues.  NHL was included in "Other Sports".  I think a few thousand tweets complaining about it made ESPN realize it was a pretty stupid mistake. 

 

About two years ago, ESPN changed the look of their scoreboard pages; you can click on MLB or NBA or whatever. 

 

Two years later, the NHL scores page remains unchanged. Pretty much tells me all I needed to know. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Apparently The Ringer is profitable in and of itself. That's easier when you're paying for staff and hosting time and not TV rights,  but probably helpful into for ESPN going forward. 

 

One complaint Bill Simmons had during his time at ESPN is they never monetized his podcast until well late in the game. He's since proven you can build a profitable digital content platform if you reach people where they already are instead of where they were. 

 

Even now, way too many of ESPN's podcasts only advertise other ESPN products. That's a waste. 

[dfwabel]

18 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

Apparently The Ringer is profitable in and of itself. That's easier when you're paying for staff and hosting time and not TV rights,  but probably helpful into for ESPN going forward. 

 

One complaint Bill Simmons had during his time at ESPN is they never monetized his podcast until well late in the game. He's since proven you can build a profitable digital content platform if you reach people where they already are instead of where they were. 

 

Even now, way too many of ESPN's podcasts only advertise other ESPN products. That's a waste. 

The Ringer also keeps costs down by rarely producing video compared to The Nerdist and Frankie Midnight's Barstool.

 

 

Oh, and ESPNU is moving production from Charlotte to Bristol.  SEC Network remains there as well as ESPN Events. This may just free up space for their ACC Network partnership.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article146919714.html

 

[Cujo]

in memoriam

 

Ed Werder

Trent Dilfer

Jay Crawford

Jayson Stark

Dr. Jerry Punch

Danny Kanell

Chris Hassel

Len Elmore

Dallas Braden

Doug Glanville

Raul Ibanez

Pierre LeBrun

Jim Bowden

Jane McManus

Jaymee Sire

Dana O’Neill

Brendan Fitzgerald

Calvin Watkins

Paul Kuharsky

Scott Burnside

Melissa Isaacson

Joe MacDonald

Mike L. Goodman

Dottie Pepper

Ashley Fox

Austin Ward

Jesse Temple

Eamonn Brennan

Mark Saxon

Jeremy Crabtree

Jean-Jacques Taylor

Johnette Howard

Derek Tyson

Doug Padilla

Chanel Jennings

Ted Miller

Brian Bennett

Ethan Strauss

David Ching

C.L. Brown

Robin Lundberg

Dave Tuley

Justin Verrier

Tom Farrey

Rufus Peabody

Marysol Castro

Greg Ostendorf

Reese Waters

Jade McCarthy

David Hirshey

Roger Cossack

[nickp91]

by the standards of the 90s, SportsCenter was extremely smart. Competing with local news

[Sykotyk]

ESPN suffered one fatal flaw. Once they wound up with 5 channels (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPNU, and ESPN Classic), they had huge rights fees to a lot of major properties.... they couldn't show more than one at a time. They couldn't put an NBA game and an MLB game on at the same time on competing channels. So, the extra channels became pointless most of the time. Other than college basketball or football, the additional channels meant a lot of dead space to fill with WSOP or Gymnastics. Or anything else.

 

The additional channels was more about extracting more money from cable providers than it was actually filling those channels with viable content. So, aside from airing those sports, they had to focus on them to such an extent, that the rest of the time was nothing but putrid crap and the talking-head shows. Yeah, PTI was great when it first started, but it died a quick death and it's corpse has been propped up on the network for the last decade or more.

 

But, that nearly $10/mo rights fees paid by cable providers for the Disney Sports Cartel package was charged to all subscribers. And it's those cord-cutters they're hemorrhaging is the problem. ESPN has nothing they can do to entice them to stay. And their carriage agreements stop the concept of 'a la carte' from ever happening. ESPN is on the basic tier, or not at all. The poison pill cable providers can't risk swallowing.

 

But where the network brass has failed their carriage partners, the leagues are going to really feel the brunt of it. Sports relies heavily on random, casual fans tuning into the random big game but otherwise ignore the sport, league, or team the rest of the time. The Super Bowl is the most notable relic of this idea. But, March Mardness, the Stanley Cup Finals, NBA playoffs, World Series, the All-Star games, even things like Sunday Night Baseball or MOnday Night Football rely heavily on casual channel-flippers lingering on the game long enough to register and hopefully long enough to count for most of the game.

 

As cord-cutting continues, and it will, the problem will be those cord-cutters will have fewer and fewer opportunities to randomly watch those sporting events. Children who may vaguely watch and one day become fans won't have access to something that may, in a true a la carte nature, be far too costly. Tightly packaged away with the 'basic cable' package, that sports tier would be the first thing axed by non-diehard fans. And that would up rights fees for everyone who IS a fan. And make their price-to-say-no that much more attainable.

 

It kills future viewership in exchange for milking the most money out of the fan base today. It's short-sighted. MLB saw this in the 80s and 90s where it seemed to focus so much on older, aging fans, instead of cultivating the next wave of fans.  Available viewership does that, too.

[Sport]

14 hours ago, DG_Now said:

Apparently The Ringer is profitable in and of itself. That's easier when you're paying for staff and hosting time and not TV rights,  but probably helpful into for ESPN going forward. 

 

One complaint Bill Simmons had during his time at ESPN is they never monetized his podcast until well late in the game. He's since proven you can build a profitable digital content platform if you reach people where they already are instead of where they were. 

 

Even now, way too many of ESPN's podcasts only advertise other ESPN products. That's a waste. 

I remember hearing him say that he was never allowed to have anyone guest on the BS Report podcast who worked for another sports media network, which is dumb in the same way that Bill Wirtz not televising home Blackhawks games was dumb. That really limits the amount of people you can talk to about sports. It all funnels to the same place. 

 

Podcasting is the little engine that could and has a good future. I don't know why anyone listens to sports talk radio anymore. I accidentally listened to Mo Egger here in Cincinnati the other day. Mo is really good as far as radio sports guys go, but it was like 1 minute of advertising for every one minute of discussions and there's no skip 15 second button for me to mash. Plus, they take calls from listeners which is the fastest way to lose me. Podcasting, though, the listener can curate subscriptions that perfectly align with their interests, the discussions are more in depth, more casual and relaxed, and there's fewer gatekeepers. And I have purchased some meundies so the ads on podcasts work

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Where does all the money for Casper, MeUndies, Nature Box, and Blue Apron come from? In addition to podcast ads, I also get pretty fancy mailers from them at home.

 

Are that many people buying mail-order mattresses? It seems like they all exploded over the podcastsphere, but it's weird to time new products in a new marketing space. Why not Ford? Or Unilever? Or does Unilever own all that stuff (I wouldn't be surprised at all.)