ESPN is imploding

[ArmchairQB]

‘Member when you used to like what ESPN brought to sports? Stuart Scott, Rich Eisen, Chris Berman, Bill Simmons. I ‘member. Those names they’re cutting look more like sports being brought to ESPN instead of the other way around. Maybe they’ll remember where their value came from and go find some young hungry sports journalists. UT has a good program if they need help finding one.

 

[allvol123]

Literally do not watch that channel other than for actual games.

 

[Dadof2Vols]

Are the SEC Network/ACC Network/College Football the only thing espn knows how to do proficiently these days?

If they were smart, the would close their Bristol Conn facility and move everything down to Charlotte to collocate with the SEC/ACC Network studios. That would save them some serious Sacajewea's and they would closer real sports teams.

You do not understand what your saying, I have been on the Bristol ESPN campus many times, not possible to move to Charlotte unless you have a few extra Billion laying around which Disney does not.

They have a field of one of the largest collection of satellite dishes in North America on property.

 

[Dadof2Vols]

ESPN is owned by Disney. Disney made ESPN political. Choosing sides in politics costs you the viewership of those that disagree with your viewpoints. Lack of viewership costs advertising dollars. Supporting the WNBA, which no one watches, costs you money. Stakeholder capitalism destroys companies. ESPN is not profitable & going bankrupt. Disney is not profitable and going bankrupt. Pixar is now unprofitable. If you make 3m, plus the cost of your co-workers, plus the costs of production, and the overhead of corporate managers, you better bring in a significant viewership by your presence. None of the people fired really did. They will be replaced by people who make a fraction of what those let go did. This is why profitability & staying out of politics is so important. Notice how no one in upper management got fired. I guarantee you many in management are looking to jump ship. They know they are next.

Bob Iger made Disney woke by allowing the highly liberal creatives and liberal Athelete announcers be hired. The studio creatives are the ones pushing an agenda, Bob is letting them do it.

Bob loves to hire people he considers creative and then let them do what they want when being creative. He lets the inmates run the asylum.

Smart management is jumping ship, CFO just walked away and surprised everyone by doing it.

 

[woodpusher]

They need to let go of the people whose in charge of their recruiting rankings.

Is Skip Bayless still there?

 

[Dadof2Vols]

The ESPN business model is badly broken and they completely lost their way under the Disney thought leadership in trying to shape and create fan followings where none existed or they simply alienated large blocks of audiences through their subjective personal opinions and preferences rather than sticking to the objective overview and broadcasting live sporting events that their audience wanted to watch.

ESPN needs the SEC Network much, much more than the SEC Network needs their infrastructure and cameras and Sankey should take an "SEC first" position with these clowns and drive down any streaming fees or additional costs to watch any SEC event broadcasts.

The ESPN costs for broadcast rights for live events has continued to climb, while the cable revenue model for ESPN has deteriorated as households jettison their traditional 350 channel $250 a month cable package for pure streaming and significantly lower monthly fees for the digital access, costing ESPN hundreds of millions of dollars in monthly fees.

Hate that a lot of the high dollar on air commentary and on air talent got tossed this week, would like to see Herbstreet on the street as well, but ESPN purists fondly remember the early days of ESPN, their spartan and bare studios, their commitment to sports news, results, interview and wonderful highlights, without the polarizing and political opinions and commentary and their pandering to non sports related social issues for no apparent reason.

The ESPN network is third rate pedestrian trash without the SEC, we need to remind them of that every Saturday this Fall.

You are right about the cable cord cutters but wrong about ESPN needs SEC more than SEC needs ESPN. ESPN keeps extracting higher carriage fees in spite of cord cutters because Disney negotiates in package deals with cable companies for the package…Think Disney Channel, ESPN, ESPN2, ABC network, freeform, nat geo, etc….those are all owned by Disney. Without all these packages cable networks die tomorrow, think all the people who still have cable just for sports…

however the SEC network could not walk in and demand a high package carriage fee because they only have SEC to negotiate with and if the cable company says no then you are screwed.

ESPN needs cheap content to replace high cost content they are walking away from(NFL, NBA, NHL, ETC,..). They will not be able to compete with Apple and Amazon moving forward. Streaming is losing money hand over fist with no end in sight. BUT ESPN will pay the SEC more than it makes off SEC just to have reasonable content as an alternative to expensive professional ball. If the SEC tried streaming on their own then they would lose massive amounts.

They both need each other like it or not, the divorce would kill them both.

 

[K-town Vol Fan]

Nm

 

[lifeisdeep]

Jemelle Hill hasn’t been at ESPN in a long time. She works for The Atlantic, which really isn’t surprising.

They just gave Pat McAfee an 85 million dollar contract. They'll be fine and they aren't going anywhere.

You have an odd definition of "fine". If by fine you mean what it's like to be on the deck of the Titanic right after making contact with the iceberg, yes, they're fine.

I'm 57 and I can't recall in my lifetime any television network making this many sweeping cuts in one month.

 

[lifeisdeep]

People will always take shots at God. God has largely gone silent since the Old Testament days and that has given power to the atheists and non believers. Read the Old Testament part of the Bible again God conversed and talked with mankind all the time and intervened with events and important battles and then in the New Testament well not so much. Just remember God at anytime and any moment could end all that speculation and doubt about his existence and come down with Jesus in the middle of Times Square and reveal himself to man and show humanity that the one true Christian god and messiah is 100 percent real.

Not "could" - will. I doubt it will be Times Square; but the whole world, woke ESPN and everyone else, will know it when he does.

 

[Dudleys87]

I used to watch Around the Horn and PTI all the time, but I can’t tell you the last time I watched either one. The only programming they can do that’s unique to them are the hot take shows, and those aren’t even the most popular in its genre. Sportscenter is basically irrelevant bc I can go on twitter and find any highlight I want in seconds. ESPN’s move to politics tried to offset their irrelevance and created even less viewers when they allowed people like Jemelle Hill and LeBatard to express their POV.

Don’t forget HOF Kurt Schlling (sp?) getting the axe over an opinion

 

[Dudleys87]

Axe Todd McShay but keep Kiper.

SMH.

 

[Voldog1998]

Don’t forget HOF Kurt Schlling (sp?) getting the axe over an opinion

And Hank Jr. too

 

[RDU VOL#14]

Don’t forget HOF Kurt Schlling (sp?) getting the axe over an opinion

That’s true. I forgot about Schilling.

 

[BowlBrother85]

No they won't, because people have been de-cabling from cable TV packages to the tune of 70m subscribers down to 50m. This is a massive loss of revenue. Streaming is incapable of offsetting this loss. The SEC will be profitable for ESPN but it will not be enough to stop the overall hemorrhaging of subscribers and the rising cost of buying sports packages.

You don't know what you are talking about. They will be making more than enough in ad revenue to offset the loss of cable tv subscribers .... and you are not accounting for the market that Texas is bringing. You are wrong all over the damn place.

 

[BowlBrother85]

Don’t forget HOF Kurt Schlling (sp?) getting the axe over an opinion

Curt Schilling should just stick to his video gaming empire anyway. That guy is going to revolutionize the entire industry ... or perhaps not. LOL.

 

[BowlBrother85]

You have an odd definition of "fine". If by fine you mean what it's like to be on the deck of the Titanic right after making contact with the iceberg, yes, they're fine.

I'm 57 and I can't recall in my lifetime any television network making this many sweeping cuts in one month.

SEC Reaches $3 Billion Deal With Disney, Drawing CBS Ties Toward an End (Published 2020)

Because signing a 10 year contract worth $3 billion is what a business does, when they have a "going concern" ???

Has the thought crossed your mind that the executives at Disney might know a little bit more about the financial standing of their corporation than you do?

 

[BowlBrother85]

For what it's worth, I do not believe those of you who are saying that you won't be watching college football on ESPN in the fall of 2024, when such games as :

Georgia @ Alabama
Tennessee @ Oklahoma
Alabama @ Tennessee
Florida @ Tennessee
Tennessee @ Georgia
Georgia @ Texas
Oklahoma @ LSU
Florida @ Texas

.... are being played?

If you really do mean that, then you are going to miss some good college football games for a very silly reason.

 

[lifeisdeep]

SEC Reaches $3 Billion Deal With Disney, Drawing CBS Ties Toward an End (Published 2020)

Because signing a 10 year contract worth $3 billion is what a business does, when they have a "going concern" ???

Has the thought crossed your mind that the executives at Disney might know a little bit more about the financial standing of their corporation than you do?

Yes because no one ever continues making deals until the day they file for bankruptcy. What an amazing argument you have made.

 

[BowlBrother85]

Yes because no one ever continues making deals until the day they file for bankruptcy. What an amazing argument you have made.

Bankruptcy!?!?! LOL.

My arguments are much better than those being made by idiots who think Disney is going bankrupt.

 

[Vol-e-ball]

SEC Reaches $3 Billion Deal With Disney, Drawing CBS Ties Toward an End (Published 2020)

Because signing a 10 year contract worth $3 billion is what a business does, when they have a "going concern" ???

Has the thought crossed your mind that the executives at Disney might know a little bit more about the financial standing of their corporation than you do?[/QUOT

You don't know what you are talking about. They will be making more than enough in ad revenue to offset the loss of cable tv subscribers .... and you are not accounting for the market that Texas is bringing. You are wrong all over the damn place.

Every bit of financial data since 2022 says your wrong. I never said the SEC deal was bad for ESPN or Disney. You implied I said it.

As far as Disney executives go? They're a straight up joke and being sued by their own stockholders for lying to them. Their CFO jumped ship or was fired, who knows. I have zero confidence in them.

Disney will continue to exist. ESPN will continue to exist. Hulu will continue to exist. I never said they wouldn't. By the way, their 8 films, so far this year, have lost 890m in aggregate. Now there is a writers strike, which will delay future movies coming out next year.

I saw Indiana Jones last night and liked it. I'm a tiny itty bitty stockholder, who has not sold his stock as of yet, because I too hope they turn it around.

Can they turn it around? Maybe. Maybe not. But they ARE currently headed towards bankruptcy, if they don't turn things around. In 2023 Q1, Disney posted a 659m loss. In Q2, it was a 841m loss. They shuttered the Star Wars Hotel. Stopped new construction, although they did announce an expansion in Disney Land. Now for a company as large as Disney this is not catastrophic by any means, yet. But it does limit their ability to create more "growing concerns" in the future.

They could shut down Disney Plus and go back to selling their content directly to other streamers, which was way more profitable. They could sell off ESPN or Hulu to replace losses and re-energize their core business model. They could refocus on their core business demographic, stay out of politics, and close more Disney Stores, etc. They are a long way from gone, just like InBev, the parent company of Bud Light, which is also still in my portfolio.

I'm saying they are headed like a rocket ship in the wrong direction.

 

[joevol33]

 

[lifeisdeep]

Bankruptcy!?!?! LOL.

My arguments are much better than those being made by idiots who think Disney is going bankrupt.

Anyone who thinks the size of a company precludes bankruptcy is a mental midget and probably sixteen years old.

 

[volnbama_]

And that Jemele woman is still around.

Like @Vol-e-ball said, ESPN has decided to be a political channel and is still sticking to it. We'll see how long they last without major change.

Jemele Hill has been gone since before covid

 

[ptcarter]

I had to google Jemelle Hill to figure out who she is/was. Are those pronouns?

 

[butchna]

You do not understand what your saying, I have been on the Bristol ESPN campus many times, not possible to move to Charlotte unless you have a few extra Billion laying around which Disney does not.

They have a field of one of the largest collection of satellite dishes in North America on property.

They encased in concrete…circa 1980’s? Can’t be moved?