The Holy Land of Hoops

ESPN is still the unquestioned gold standard of sports networks however lately disturbing information on their financial health has arisen. USA today published a very interesting article on the cost of ESPN in future should some of the speculated changes occur. This article is only speculation but if true could be destructive to the WWL should a la carte pricing go into effect. They estimate a la carte ESPN would cost $36.30 per month. They go through each of the major sports both professional and college and conclude that only college football and basketball fans would benefit from paying the $36.30 per month. Of course in the BE none of us would directly benefit except those like me who love college football.
I will not be paying this price on a monthly basis even should it include ALL ESPN channels and all broadcast events. Which of course a la carte pricing may not.

This may be the beginning of the end for a truly great and innovating if also exceedingly arrogant network. Hopefully they will get their act together but major questions exist.

Please read:
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/07/espn-al ... -month-hbo

I wouldn't and I don't know many who would. There's just too many ways to get sports content anymore for free.

No.

A couple of things from the article and to the other posters who already commented.

1. The media conglomerates will never just let you choose one of their channels if a la carte ever comes to fruition (which i don't think it ever will). If you want ESPN they will also make you take at the very least ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNnews etc. Same with ABC and ABC Family and all of their other channels. Viacom, NBC-Universal and Fox will all do the same thing and make you buy packages of channels. People begging for a la carte do not realize that they will end up paying much much more for way fewer channels. The popular ones like ESPN prop up the less popular ones. So if your wife likes lifetime you might end up paying way more for that than you do now since it will need more money to stay operational.

2. If this actually happens those options of getting sports for free wont exist. They exist now because you can stream a game live though an illegal European website that is literally taking a TV feed and streaming it. Those wont exist if there are less sports on TV. So no, there wont be too many ways to just get it for free.

3. A la carte is a bad idea for customers and people bitching about having to pay for ESPN and don't watch sports are looking to cut off their nose to spite their face. The costs for consumers will go up across the board and thats not speculation thats a fact. But go ahead and enjoy having to look through individual packages from each media provider and paying an exorbitant amount for less than what you get right now. Also if the media companies set the price it's more than likely going to be the same price across the country so our rural friends will be paying what our city friends do and the companies will more than likely set the price at the cities cost of living number which will be a LOT more than what our country friends pay now.

Just a guess, but this could lead to a situation where the rights to sports are finally brought back down to a reasonable cost, thus narrowing the gap between the P5 and everybody else. If that happens, you have a lot of P5 schools in conferences that never made geographic sense and no longer make financial sense.

To a lesser extent it could hurt us, but I believe most of our revenue comes from avenues other than tv.

marquette wrote:Just a guess, but this could lead to a situation where the rights to sports are finally brought back down to a reasonable cost, thus narrowing the gap between the P5 and everybody else. If that happens, you have a lot of P5 schools in conferences that never made geographic sense and no longer make financial sense.

To a lesser extent it could hurt us, but I believe most of our revenue comes from avenues other than tv.

I think we're in better shape to handle a major shift in the way sports are broadcasted and a quick decline in Tv money than the G5. We don't sponsor FB which needs a tremendous amount of cash to function and we already have thrived in the toughest conference making less than we are now. Though I doubt we will ever see a sharp drop in conference TV contracts. If anything it will be more of a plateau. Though when things shift more to online streaming as compared to cable the major players will still be heavily involved. It might note be ESPN on channel 206 on direct Tv but ESPN that closer resembles ESPN3 where you scroll through and pick which game to watch out of what they have the rights to.

I think the right question might wind up being a little different than this.

Look at it like this: if you are currently paying say 100 bucks or whatever for Directv, would you be totally cool paying, say, 55 bucks for the 20 channels you really want and watch? Because yeah, ESPN might have that tag, but it is still a far cheaper total bill for darn near everything you currently watch due to canning the 500 superfluous channels.

The answer might not be as cut and dry as it seems for everyone. It depends how people look at it.

handdownmandown wrote:I think the right question might wind up being a little different than this.

Look at it like this: if you are currently paying say 100 bucks or whatever for Directv, would you be totally cool paying, say, 55 bucks for the 20 channels you really want and watch? Because yeah, ESPN might have that tag, but it is still a far cheaper total bill for darn near everything you currently watch due to canning the 500 superfluous channels.

The answer might not be as cut and dry as it seems for everyone. It depends how people look at it.

but these companies will NEVER just let you pick what you want. They will make you take some of their other channels. You wouldn't be able to get ESPN without the rest of the ESPN channels as an example.

No.

I'll take the FS/TBS pkg as I only watch college basketball.

NJRedman wrote:

handdownmandown wrote:I think the right question might wind up being a little different than this.

Look at it like this: if you are currently paying say 100 bucks or whatever for Directv, would you be totally cool paying, say, 55 bucks for the 20 channels you really want and watch? Because yeah, ESPN might have that tag, but it is still a far cheaper total bill for darn near everything you currently watch due to canning the 500 superfluous channels.

The answer might not be as cut and dry as it seems for everyone. It depends how people look at it.

but these companies will NEVER just let you pick what you want. They will make you take some of their other channels. You wouldn't be able to get ESPN without the rest of the ESPN channels as an example.

I think he said 55 bucks for 20 channels as referring to that. Say you just buy the ESPN and Fox Sports packages. That could very well be $55 or somewhere around there. Pricey per channel but cheaper than the old bill.

Now, what you were talking about before with the other random channels that you'll end up buying because one family member likes X and another family member likes Y? That's where the price really starts to rise. Suddenly you're adding all these other packages on top of the $55 price tag to get a handful more channels. Of course, what could happen is that Netflix, Hulu, etc. end up looking suddenly more appealing. When Lifetime was something a person watched partly because they already had the channel, that was one thing. Now when it has to be considered on its own? Alternatives become a lot more appealing. A lot of those weaker channels will probably shut down.

Personally, I want to watch (a) college basketball and (b) HBO. Netflix and Amazon Prime, two things I already have, will take care of the rest. The issue might be though that Netflix and Amazon Prime don't have as many shows, when minor networks are shutting down left and right. What might change this and forestall the collapse of much of television is an adjustment in online TV ad revenue. Currently, it's not worth much, but if more and more people are using online means for their television, it could begin to scale up so that networks make money off of it.