More Cuts at ESPN

Lacey, you know as well as everyone else that's not how cuts work. The word comes down the pipeline "we need X." Six steps down the pipeline, a dullard manager looks at his tiny slice of the pie and says, "I can do 1/10,000th of X and earn brownie points." So he makes his cut, regardless of whether it actually hurts or helps the total corporation.

 

I know but I was having a brain lock. That is the reason I also misspelled dollars three times.

 

ESPN's looming layoffs have anxious on-air talent mulling giveback options

 

That was true of the original division bloggers -- the money was good, but the "independent contractor" status (with strings attached) led at least one of them to leave. I believe the writers they added later are technically full-time employees, though, albeit at a significantly lower salary.

 

Even more cuts.

'Bloodbath' in Bristol: ESPN could cut 70 people

 

The article says some of the staff are going to management and offering to take big cuts to stay . So we could have ESPN basically holding auctions to see who stays and who goes.

 

What I don't understand is why ESPN overpaid for all the NFL writers and various writers they've had. I mean think about reality. Let's say you are an NFL writer for ESPN who got hired away from the local newspaper for about 40,000 more than you were making at the newspaper. You had a nice 5-9 year run enjoying covering the team and having the brand ESPN behind you. It's been a great run; a great job. Now you are going to get replaced so naturally you want to get the word out you'll accept a huge cut to stay. Why? You're settled. You're dominating the beat. You're on top of the world as ESPN's football writer in an NFL city. You can't go back to the newspaper probably. So why did ESPN overpay and mess with lives to begin with? Did they not know this day would come?
Finally ... remember when all the big websites were getting started? The big money they were throwing out there to get writers? Haven't virtually all the Websites had major cuts? Like the foxsports.com; cbssports.com; sportingnews.com; yahoo.com; etc. Haven't they all had major cuts? It was like a fantasy land when they all were hiring, as if they never thought the day would come they'd have to cut back.

 

When the internet started investors and managers thought that advertising markets would change over time from print to electronic but that said markets would behave in a similar fashion. Newspapers thought that advertisers would come to them because they had the largest market and they could remain highly profitable oligopolies. But what no one realized is that the supply of advertising space, which had been limited by the physical constraints of the print product, would become infinite in a world of electrons. It is very hard to command premium prices in a world with infinite supply. Instead companies that could provide ads tailored to a specific subset of the population would draw premium prices.

What happened locally has also happened nationally. The national sites paid huge money to draw traffic. But their ad pricing has never reached the levels they anticipated. So cutbacks are being made.

 

Ed Werder is out? Damn.

 

Apparently the reports about big names getting let go wasn't bullshit.

 

Jesus. dropping a vet who covers a showcase franchise like the Cowboys is pretty shocking. Guessing he was making major bank and they figure they can do it cheaper?