More Cuts at ESPN

No choice. They don't pay, they don't get the highlights. Nor, should it get to real hardball, would ABC affiliates.

 

If they are going to trim so much talent, does it mean Sports Center repeats in the morning? Just wondering how ESPN keeps up its current daily schedule while losing a bunch of people.

 

You don't need four people at a table to make their mark on every segment. ESPN is the only entity that fails to realize this.

 

Watched CNN lately? It's like a "Hollywood Squares" retrospective, without Paul Lynde to block.

Would the WWL go back to repeats of previous night's games? Anything to reduce the number of gabfests. It's like what we were talking about on the RIP Sports Reporters thread. When ATH and PTI were the only shows of their ilk on, well, OK. But I have no idea WTF LeBetard's show is about, or the name of the show before that. Is Michelle Beadle still there for eye candy? And daytime SportsCenter seems to be a waste. You can always break into programming in case of breaking news. And make it real breaking news, not the Sabres calling up Peter Puck from their developmental affiliate or LeBron clipping his nails.

 

SportsNation with Beadle is before LeBatard's show. I am not sure what purpose SN serves.

Probably dangerous to say this, but I used to like LeBatard's show once they moved to the Clevelander and added Bomani Jones. (Maybe he was on there before the move, but I don't recall it.)

Now it's just way too obvious they are out of material. I persuaded someone else to watch it recently, and he said it was the worst thing he had ever seen.

 

All I'll say is you mess with Stan and Neil in LA, and I'll be pissed. Those two aren't everyone's cup of tea, but IMHO they're the closest thing the network's had since Dan and Keith.

 

I'd bet it doesn't fall quite that a la carte. There';; still combo packages, more like ESPN3 or whatnot. I assume there would be many who like having the idea of lots of options at their fingertips. I like having Law and Order available most of the time, but I wouldn't pay per episode.

The thing that's amazing about Travis is he's kind of dancing around the core issue, but he's too much of a blowhard to not miss it and bloviate about liberal leanings or his personal economic might makes right idea (ignoring the fact that ESPN still holds most of the economic might). ESPN, much like newspapers, works from the top down. It has a massive audience to service, and has to have a wide enough appeal to capture large niches, plus has a range of infrastructure it can't quickly move past (sports shouting used to have wide appeal, but probably less now, though not as much less as the tone here would indicate). A place like Outkick or numerous other blogs can be content working smaller, more loyal audiences because they're working from the bottom up. There's also the odd dynamic that I'm sure all the written content and video content account for probably a very small portion of their web traffic, with scoreboards and stat widgets carrying most of the load.

 

ESPN should have used its resources from the 538 to crunch what it should offer. But I guess when the braintrust is focused on things like "The 6," who needs numbers?

 

I hope they keep Beadle, Jalen, and Chauncey. Those 3 have a tremendous rapport with each other, and it's an enjoyable hour of NBA chat.

 

Each of the four major professional sports has its own cable network with its own hosts. They have screamers (Michael Irvin, Deion), but they also present lots of information. Yes, much of that information is spoon fed pablum, but some isn't. So much ESPN programming is competing with the leagues to which it pays huge sums to broadcast their games. Let's take the NFL draft as an example. It was one of the events that put ESPN on the map as a national entity. And now, it competes with an NFL Network broadcast in which the latter naturally gets first dibs on "scoops."