Rise and Fall of ESPN

[alduflux]

I would be ok with paying $10-$15/month for the 4 months of basketball season, instead of it being bundled into cable for $7-8/month 12 months of the year.

An anecdotal observation.

Last April after 20 plus year of paying a monthly subscription that paid ESPN I cut the cord. I expect to be roughly a 4-6 month a year subscriber with some form of a skinny bundle (right now that would be with playstation vue). I would consider ESPN year round if the package of networks was $10 a month, as they have year round programming I'm interested in at that price point, but not at the $40 plus required from traditional carriers.

[ivet]

ESPN should do a 30 for 30 called Requiem of ESPN and have Big East people go on there and talk about the good old days of ESPN.

[GoldenWarrior11]

ESPN should do a 30 for 30 called Requiem of ESPN and have Big East people go on there and talk about the good old days of ESPN.

Bravo!

[DeltaV]

ESPN should do a 30 for 30 called Requiem of ESPN and have Big East people go on there and talk about the good old days of ESPN.

Bravo!

Do you remember blindly turning on Big Monday on a cold January or February night? You wouldn't even know who was playing, but you knew it would be a good Big East game.

Now, its Worst Carolina blowing out one of the JV ACC teams.

[MullinMayhem]

Was flipping through the XM news channels this morning in the car and FOX News was discussing ESPN and the Jemele Hill comments regarding Trump. They were saying that people don't want politics with their sports which is definitely true. They also said they had a simple solution: watch Fox Sports 1 instead! Was hoping for a Big East shoutout but I'll take a FS1 shoutout for now lol.

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

Subscriber Losses Present Challenges For ESPN – Barrett Sports Media – September 21, 2017

ESPN’s number of subscribers and revenue are in decline. Recently, the company has been criticized for being too political.

ESPN was widely considered invincible and their loss of viewers has been a surprise, but the television industry has rapidly modernized in recent years. In 2011, ESPN had over 100 million subscribers, but currently they‘re down to less than 88 million, according to Nielsen.

Networks earn revenue from both advertising and subscriber fees. ESPN generates more from subscriber fees than any other network because they own exclusive licenses for many sporting events. According to Variety, ESPN receives $7.86 per subscriber each month with the next highest being TNT at $1.58.

In 2015, ESPN had an estimated 94.4 million subscribers each paying $6.61 monthly totaling $7.74 billion in yearly revenue. ESPN factored those numbers when agreeing to multi-year licenses with the NFL ($15.2 billion), MLB ($5.6 billion), and the NBA ($12.6 billion).

With declines in traditional cable television subscribers due to various streaming platforms, experts project the loss of subscribers for ESPN to continue. Saddled by the cost of exorbitant licensing fees, ESPN may need to carry out additional budget cuts and increase subscriber fees to remain strong.

Walt Disney threatens to pull ESPN, ABC from Optimum - Fox Business News - September 25, 2017

Walt Disney has threatened to pull its programming from the fourth-largest U.S. cable distributor, Altice USA, if the two parties cannot reach a deal before the end of the month, the cable company said on Sunday.

New York-based Altice, which is owned by a European conglomerate and is better known as Optimum, said Disney had asked it for "hundreds of millions of dollars" in new fees to be able to continue carrying ESPN and ABC, even as ratings suffer.

The two parties have been working on a new contract to replace the one that expires at the end of the month, and Walt Disney has warned customers that its channels will go dark on October 1st if a new deal is not worked out, according to media reports.

2017 ESPN and ABC College Football Schedule - ESPN

Fri, Oct, 6 - Memphis at Connecticut - ESPN
Sat, Oct, 7 – #1 Alabama at Texas A&M - ESPN
Fri, Oct, 13 – #2 Clemson at Syracuse - ESPN

If Disney doesn't get its way, 4 million cable subscribers could lose ABC and ESPN programming – Boston Herald - September 25, 2017

According to the New York Times, the Altice contract is the first Disney distribution agreement to come up for renewal since the start of ESPN’s troubles. And Altice has claimed that Disney was seeking to force even those who do not receive ESPN to pay for it, suggesting that high fees were the cause of rising cable bills.

Unless the two parties come to an agreement on a new contract by the end of the week, Altice subscribers will lose access to ESPN along with all the other Disney-controlled networks, including ABC and Disney Channel. But a loss for Altice would also be a loss for Disney, as other cable distributors may try to turn down price increases in upcoming renewal talks as well.

Watch this space.

[Edrick]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/w ... mn-1052792

[Savannah Jay]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/why-espn-could-abandon-nfl-football-guest-column-1052792

Two things I found noteworthy. The Mouse has obviously been in the ear of ESPN leadership. I am guessing the declining profit margin is hitting ESPN execs in the pocket book and they looking ahead to subscriber revenues vs. rights fees and profit margins. On the upside, though, Stever will be hired to be the next president of ESPN and he will keep spending mightily on "CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT" because, to him, profitability doesn't matter. So he will keep throwing ESPN money at the NFL, even if ESPN is losing subscribers and even if the NFL's ratings are in decline. And in his spare time, he will make a point of coming on here to tell us how wrong we are about (fill in the blank).

In addition, according to Stever, "CTEs been around for a long time. I mean, it's been 5+ years since Duerson died and 4 years since Seau died." And since Stever's declaration last fall (August or Sept 2016), we found out that 110 of 111 brains of former NFL players examined had CTE. Which brings me back to this article... The last two sentences, when talking about a 6'1" 14 year old quarterback who was throwing spirals downfield and hitting his receivers in stride, "Except that after the game, the quarterback’s parents shared the news that this was their son’s last football game. They had given him the choice of being a starting pitcher or playing basketball, saying a violent game littered with heavily documented brain injuries wasn’t on the list for their son’s future career opportunities." But Stever said CTE is old news!!!!

[MullinMayhem]

ESPN is going to keep failing as long as they remain a very biased political channel. People do not tune in for MSNBC or FOX, they tune in for sports. Long gone are the days where Chris Berman would be giving some funny commentary over highlights or Stuart Scott would be yelling "Booya!". As long as they keep people like Jemele Hill employed who should get a job as an activist instead, they will continue to falter. We all know why she's still employed though, let's be real. It's still shocking to me how clueless MTV and ESPN are...as Michael Jordan once said "Republicans buy sneakers too". Smart man...not sure why you would want to alienate literally 50% of America especially in business where it will affect your bottom line. ESPN was at its best when you had no clue about the political stance of their hosts.

As an added note, did anyone see that ESPN partnered with a Barstool Sports show? They lasted one episode and then ESPN cancelled it after PC pressure (some ist or ism). It's very obvious why Barstool is trending up and ESPN is trending down. Barstool is much more down to earth, original, authentic, and funny. ESPN is that old out of touch dad trying to be cool to impress his son's friends but his friends roll their eyes. Barstool does not care about PC culture...ESPN is downright frightened by it. Barstool is not political and ESPN is basically an extension of MSNBC and CNN. But they still don't get it.

[GoldenWarrior11]

ESPN is going to keep failing as long as they remain a very biased political channel. People do not tune in for MSNBC or FOX, they tune in for sports. Long gone are the days where Chris Berman would be giving some funny commentary over highlights or Stuart Scott would be yelling "Booya!". As long as they keep people like Jemele Hill employed who should get a job as an activist instead, they will continue to falter. We all know why she's still employed though, let's be real. It's still shocking to me how clueless MTV and ESPN are...as Michael Jordan once said "Republicans buy sneakers too". Smart man...not sure why you would want to alienate literally 50% of America especially in business where it will affect your bottom line. ESPN was at its best when you had no clue about the political stance of their hosts.

As an added note, did anyone see that ESPN partnered with a Barstool Sports show? They lasted one episode and then ESPN cancelled it after PC pressure (some ist or ism). It's very obvious why Barstool is trending up and ESPN is trending down. Barstool is much more down to earth, original, authentic, and funny. ESPN is that old out of touch dad trying to be cool to impress his son's friends but his friends roll their eyes. Barstool does not care about PC culture...ESPN is downright frightened by it. Barstool is not political and ESPN is basically an extension of MSNBC and CNN. But they still don't get it.

Earlier this week on First Take, Stephen A. Smith criticized J.R. Smith, and other NBA players, for wearing a hoodie during games on the bench because "it reminds white people" of Trayvon Martin.