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stever20 wrote:

billyjack wrote:Another article on the struggles of ESPN, today in the NY Times. It's becoming mainstream thinking that ESPN is swirling in the toilet bowl. Part of ESPN's appeal is that everyone is watching it, and that it's the place to be... once this facade is smashed then not sure they can recover... the giant ESPN stegasaurus may be stuck in a tar pit. Never thought things would be moving so quickly.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/b ... -espn.html

The problem with this is that for sports, it is still the place to watch most sports. NBA, MLB, College Football, College Basketball, NFL for Monday Night Football.

Until ESPN's portfolio is shrunk, ESPN isn't going anywhere. And it's going to take a long time for that to happen.

Of the 5 properties you just mentioned, from mid-March thru end of August only the NBA thru mid-June and MLB (which fans can find on MLB Network or via local coverage like NESN) are in action. And many of ESPN's baseball guys were just given the axe. So 5+ months of banking on the NBA, which ends in mid-June.

ESPN nowadays is basically a seasonal college sports channel which also has talking heads shows, and it's 6 times the cost of other sports networks.

The key takeaway is that it's shocking that people (not just me, but regular news articles) are actually debating whether or not ESPN is in the toilet bowl. If you had told me 5 years ago that this would be the case, it would have seemed impossible. Their struggles have far exceeded even my best case scenarios.

With the exception of 30-for-30's, ESPN produces nothing and they're just a middle-man, and provide content that fans can find elsewhere... and they're expensive. They're meddlers and manipulators, like Enron was.

So... they hit the trifecta...
- they're a middleman and produce nothing.
- many sports fans hate their guts due to meddling.
- they're expensive.

There's still on ESPN 4 MLB games a week. Also during the time when you said, ESPN gets the HR derby which has become the #1 event of the summer outside the all star game. Compare what ESPN has to what FS1 has- which is maybe 1 Saturday game and 1 weeknight game. So to say it's just the NBA from March to August is stretching things quite a bit. While yes there are other places for MLB, ESPN still has a lot of good national games- by far the most of the national channels.

Like I said- until ESPN loses sports rights- they're going to be the place sports fans turn to first for sports.

ESPN's troubles really have nothing to do with FS1 or CBS-SN.

Over the next 2+ years, etc, they'll be competing on their own to stay relevant. Actually, if FS1, etc, were to make up more ground, then ESPN is even more screwed. And the $6+ ESPN cost is way too high.

I don't see how ESPN can really gain viewers. They already have some major properties and already have good viewership based on that. But viewership is shrinking despite already owning those properties.

The only sport that i can imagine having the potential to explode and expand viewership is soccer... EPL, World Cup, La Liga, Bundesliga, Italian soccer. Ton of untapped potential. But didn't ESPN just lose the World Cup? Maybe i'm wrong. But that's only every 4 years. NBC has England... Fox has the Bundesliga and Spain i think (plus low viewers with MLS)... not sure anything is left in soccer.

Anyway, how does ESPN's viewership increase? I don't see their path forward. But I can imagine a slow bleeding over the next few years til ESPN just collapses. Jay Bilas and and Dick Vitale will be the last ones left.

billyjack wrote:ESPN's troubles really have nothing to do with FS1 or CBS-SN.

Over the next 2+ years, etc, they'll be competing on their own to stay relevant. Actually, if FS1, etc, were to make up more ground, then ESPN is even more screwed. And the $6+ ESPN cost is way too high.

I don't see how ESPN can really gain viewers. They already have some major properties and already have good viewership based on that. But viewership is shrinking despite already owning those properties.

The only sport that i can imagine having the potential to explode and expand viewership is soccer... EPL, World Cup, La Liga, Bundesliga, Italian soccer. Ton of untapped potential. But didn't ESPN just lose the World Cup? Maybe i'm wrong. But that's only every 4 years. NBC has England... Fox has the Bundesliga and Spain i think (plus low viewers with MLS)... not sure anything is left in soccer.

Anyway, how does ESPN's viewership increase? I don't see their path forward. But I can imagine a slow bleeding over the next few years til ESPN just collapses. Jay Bilas and and Dick Vitale will be the last ones left.

Viewership hasn't decreased though. Looking ESPN was up in prime time 1st quarter of this year by 8.50% from last year. And then April, ESPN was up by 9% from last April. So 1st third of the year ESPN up by 8.5-9%. Some shrinking viewership.

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Explode? Soccer? You're extremely late as televised soccer exploded years ago. Soccer is everywhere, all the time, on every Sports channel, outside the US, even espn.

If you are referring to a potential explosion of soccer viewership in 'merica...lol. Don't hold your breath or bet the farm. US sports audiences are too well manipulated, conditioned, and programmed to consider adopting a sport créated in Europe. Not gonna happen.

So ESPN is garnering a smidgen higher viewership ratings on a shrinking viewer base. Wonderful. Disney recently reported lower earnings for 2016, and blamed ESPN. Were it not for Beauty & the Beast money haul - the earnings drop would have been much worse. The glory days at the wwl are over. ESPN is "the walking dead", they just haven't received the email yet.

gtmoBlue wrote:Explode? Soccer? You're extremely late as televised soccer exploded years ago. Soccer is everywhere, all the time, on every Sports channel, outside the US, even espn.

If you are referring to a potential explosion of soccer viewership in 'merica...lol. Don't hold your breath or bet the farm. US sports audiences are too well manipulated, conditioned, and programmed to consider adopting a sport créated in Europe. Not gonna happen.

So ESPN is garnering a smidgen higher viewership ratings on a shrinking viewer base. Wonderful. Disney recently reported lower earnings for 2016, and blamed ESPN. Were it not for Beauty & the Beast money haul - the earnings drop would have been much worse. The glory days at the wwl are over. ESPN is "the walking dead", they just haven't received the email yet.

Ratings is based on the % of tv viewers, not the % of ESPN subscribers. And a 8.5-9% increase is nothing to sniff at.

Oh, and last month, they saw an increase in the # of subscribers.

FOX meeting with the ad folks for fall. one of the host was Joe Buck. Early leak at a tiny bit of games on FOX/FS1.

https://twitter.com/JordanStrack/status ... 7460629504

Wow! I knew that Espn had lost subscribers, but I had No Idea they have lost 11 million of them. No wonder daddy Disney is pissed! Time to give up on bandaids and break out the tourniquets and shock trousers Steverrrr. Start multiple IV's, crank up the defibrillator, and break out the cardiac syringes... it's getting to be Code Blue time in Bristol. Lol.