RIP ESPN The Magazine

I used to be so devoted to SI that when I was working for six weeks in the Seven Corners areas of Northern Virginia I would buy the magazine off the rack. But the local Barnes and Noble and Safeway only received a new edition on the second Tuesday after the close, which dated the magazine. I found that a dumpy supermarket got the magazine the Thursday after close, five days earlier, so I would dutifully swing by and buy the copy. Now I get SI as part of of Texture ($10 a month and you get 200 magazines). I never look at SI. I find it hard to believe my habits have changed that much but they have.

 

My grocery store typically has 16 or so gun magazines.

 

Is The Undefeated next? I imagine they could keep cutting budget but keep it going for a while. With no print product, costs are mostly limited to personnel and rent (neither of which is insignificant).

 

ESPN is giving Undefeated EIC Kevin Merida another job, per Ourand, though he's still keeping his Undefeated gig:



Don't really know how to interpret that shuffling of jobs, other than to say I'm not sure the Undefeated has made any sort of impact. And with the NY Post report from a few months back about how ESPN isn't done cutting costs, I can't say I'm optimistic about its long-term prognosis.

 

When you're paying $100 million for EACH of those dog Monday Night Football games, you got to cut corners somehow.

The Booger-mobile, and now The Mag.

 

To be as fair as possible, ESPN pays that much so it can get rights to all NFL highlights and the Super Bowl on ABC every four years. They're not just paying for MNF games.

 

ABC hasn't televised a Super Bowl since 2006.

The get the doggiest of the dog Wildcard game (usually a Houston Texans game).

 

Well, shut my mouth. Guess I hadn't noticed. Then yeah, ESPN made a bad, bad investment.

 

I always believed ESPN getting shit MNF matchups and such was subtle payback for things like Playmakers, which you will recall the league was (rather publicly) none too pleased with.

 

More likely the Concussion reporting, Ray Rice reporting, and Goodell reporting.

 

That and other things. ESPN has covered the NFL in the last 10 years or so like an institution that needs to be discredited and dismantled. It covers the NBA with endless wonder and admiration. That’s how Skipper felt about the respective sports and it shows in the coverage of them.

 

$1.9 billion per year
No super bowl
The dog wildcard game
No flex
About twice what the other networks pay
Tons of Jaguar and Titans games and other atrocities

It's unreal.

If they told the NFL no, and the NFL told them to go pound sand, how many people who like sports were going to drop cable/espn?

Good god, that was a bad negotiation.