More Cuts at ESPN

This is also why I doubt ESPN can go back to its old model though, of just showing more sports. What's available from the major four or college sports that isn't already owned by regional cable sports networks, and that's actually valuable inventory? I suppose if they just want cheap programming, they could buy the rights for broadcasting some mid-major games, and just because it's ESPN it'll probably get more valuable over the years. But that would be a hell of a hit to current ratings, and they're broadcasters, not the TV equivalent of AAA baseball.

 

50 percent of espn's content more or less sees the eyeballs of college kids and the unemployed. They don't need to give those demographics original content all the time

 

ESPN also missed the boat on fantasy sports. They used to have a wide diversity of games, but kept cutting them back - particularly if they lost the coverage contract to that sport (think NHL and NASCAR, for example).

I played religiously from 2003 to 2014, but quit after they chopped all your records out. Still surprised that Yahoo surpasses them in free leagues.

 

That's the rub. I think it helps your branding and loyal customer base beyond the toob. It attracted lots of eyeballs to the WWL website too.

Sure, it would be best if the fantasy angle could generate a profit all of its own (and with a big enough following combined with ads, I personally think it could have).

But they never did it that well, and I have always wondered if their location in Bristol hurt them a lot by having a lot of computer sci/programmers say fuck no, I'm not living in CT.

 

I have played fantasy football with CBS Sports since 2001. All the league records are still there. It's pretty much the only reason I still go to that site, which I used to write for. None of the same columnists are still there. At least none of the ones worth reading. Gotta imagine it's a boon to CBS to maintain fantasy sports.

 

Bring back Nation's Business Today!

 

They quit showing hockey and began the World Series of Poker. After every golf tournament, they spend five minutes on Tiger Woods finishing 66th and half a minute on the actual winner. They praise Colin Kaepernick and try to chastise Tom Brady. They want to shove a leftist agenda down our throats rather than stick to what got them here, all because of social pressure.

I know this sounds like a Clay Travis rant, but I thought this long before he ever did. ESPN used to have really good, creative talent, and Chris Berman was one of those pioneers - and now he's leaving. Slowly over the decades the really good talent has retired, got fired, moved to another network or died. Now we're stuck with athletes who can't speak proper English and way too many people on the set for one football game.

The world will survive without a bloated ESPN. I haven't watched any of its networks since the day after the Super Bowl, and quite honestly I don't miss it at all (Not until college football season, at least).

 

Scorching.

 

I know they tried to become involved in high school sports as well, which was an absolute disaster (we've talked about the them trying to bar Joe Davidson of the Sacramento Bee from the press box of a game they were broadcasting, which is unrelated, but an example of how they like to bigfoot everything). That's something best left to RSNs and local stations. And in addition to state and regional polls, Maxpreps and similar sites blew what they had out of the water.

 

Flipping back and forth between ESPN and ESPN2 just trying to kill 10 minutes before basketball starts and I already want to put an ice pick in my skull. Everything's about the NFL except for a segment on Tim Tebow going 0-3 in Mets spring training, which is only a thing because he was part of the NFL hot take-industrial complex. Enough.