More Cuts at ESPN

Sure it has value. But, the value is measured in internet dollars, which are not convertible to real dollars.

 

"Value" (in this context) is a revenue minus costs proposition. I have a very hard time believing that, in an era in which people are increasingly disinclined to pay to watch live sports on television, there's value in breaking news about those sports.

 

Sorry, but I don't believe for a second that people are dropping all of their cable/satellite channels because they dislike the politics on one of them. Nor do I believe sports fans are going to complicate their ability to watch live events because of matters unrelated to the actual competition.
If there were a la carte options and people were dropping ESPN more than any other major network, the political argument would be worth discussing. But that's not the way it works.

 

It's smart. All those folks are looking for jobs now.

 

For being called the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, about 98% of the krap that they have on during the day is sure as shit not entertaining.......it barely qualifies as sports.

 

Did any of the geniuses who put ESPN in a position to lay off a few hundred in the last year lost their jobs? Or are they merely cutting expenses to meet their bonus numbers?

 

Or how that makes fiscal sense. I know they buy the rights in part because the rights allow them to create ancillary programming such as nightly NFL news shows, etc. But wouldn't those shows have to deliver massive profits in order to make up for the losses incurred on the game broadcasts? They're not taking in $100,000,000 in ad revenue per game, are they?

 

It was predicated on the idea that this and the other rights deals would force sports fans to pay for the monthly cable subscription. That's where they make their real money and why they pay so much more than the networks for much lower ratings.

Funny enough, millions of people are finding out they can do without cable, even the sports. And ESPN is left holding the bag. The NFL and MLB contracts last until 2021, the NBA until 2025. So, really, there's no relief in sight.

 

This is where I think it starts to come out of the leagues' profits. Who knows what the landscape will be then, but obviously if the contracts were up for bid in this era of cord-cutting, they wouldn't yield nearly the dollars they do now. We've heard a lot of talk that we're in a rights bubble. I could see a correction in that, with ensuing labor strife over the smaller pie.

 

Linda Cohn throws a log on the Clay Travis-built fire:

https://nypost.com/2017/04/27/sportscenter-anchor-agrees-politics-are-hurting-espn/

 

Jesus Christ, that's Linda Cohn?



Does she have the Visser package with the surgeon?