re: Whitlock: How a Gawker-Affiliated Website Made ESPN Politically Correct

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used to leave ESPN on all day, when I was at home.

Always going in the background, so I could watch some highlights and clips here and there as I worked around the house.

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Same here.

ESPN went from witty commentary and hilights to hiring people who could generate the most buzz on social media by being loud (literally yelling)

Heard a guy on FOX sports radio who used to be on ESPN discussing this the other day.

I think the cord cutting thing is hurting them, but i think ratings are hurting them more, especially for live sporting events. And are these cord cutter numbers reflecting those that left cable, but still have ESPN through, Sling/Vue/DTVnow and now Hulu? I'm a cord cutter i guess, but i still pay for ESPN through Sling.

Monday Night Football was down a lot last year. Airing a football game where you expect to make millions on advertisements, and then have to give money back to the advertisers b/c the ratings were down play a very large part. Those huge contracts they gave the NFL and NBA are advertising driven. Their sportscenter and daytime crap has little to do with the money they through at those two leagues.
That's a simple fix. Quit starting the fricking games at 8 central time. 75% of the country lives in teh eastern and central time zone. We are all sleeping by halftime. Also, no one wants to watch the Bills and Texans play. So what if you piss off some guy from Florida or North Carolina or whereever, the Cowboys, rest of the NFC East, Packers, Seahawks, Patriots and any other hot topic team should be the teams playing on Monday night more often than not.

MLB ratings have always been somewhat low on ESPN.
The recent NBA ratings took their hit b/c of star players deciding not to play. Last year those saturday night games were great. This year they were terrible.


Biggest thing is they need to adapt and offer a streaming fee for WatchESPN and all of it's content. That can't be that difficult or expensive to do. By not doing it, you get zero dollars from it. Even if you just get it from some folks for college football season, is that not worth it? I'd drop sling and pay for it all year, simply b/c i watch LSU football, basketball and baseball.

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Giving a dumb arse guy an award for dressing like a girl, kinda turned me off.

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See that kind of stuff is just dumb to me. Why even watch the Espy's to begin with?

My watching habits are, if time, I will try to catch the AM sportscenter if I want to have something on to watch while I iron clothes. But other than that, i only watch ESPN for live sports. I don't even bother with the rest of the content. Not really because of the subject matter, but because the shows aren't that good to begin with. Except for PTI, but it gets old after a few shows.

Ratings is something that should worry them more than cord cutting.

How many of you actually watch the pregame NBA and NFL shows? Stuff is so regurgitated and broken down during the week in between games that nothing is really ground breaking or fresh come gameday. Unless something emergent happens. For instance, I don't watch any of the SEC on CBS, NBA Primetime, or NFL Countdown. Or Fox shows for that matter. I just put the game on once it starts. I would imagine a lot of people do the same.

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And are these cord cutter numbers reflecting those that left cable, but still have ESPN through, Sling/Vue/DTVnow and now Hulu? I'm a cord cutter i guess, but i still pay for ESPN through Sling.

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You haven't cut the cord if you are getting the same channels through a different service streaming or otherwise.

Cutting the cord is cutting the cord. Not paying for channels period.

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hose old school people found out they can watch ESPN live events via streaming without having to carry a package to watch

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Wait. What?

Yea.

You're either paying to watch ESPN or watching it illegally technically speaking.

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Their biggest revenue source is the monthly cable fee and something like 70% of cable subs do not watch ESPN to begin with.

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60% of their revenue come from subscriber fees. the rest is advertisement. They thought that by having the college football playoffs and more NBA games, they could get higher advertisement money, which is why they threw those stupid numbers at those two leagues.
Then they go put the playoffs on new years eve night, and have to give back millions of dollars to advertisers, they have big time NBA players sitting out their primetime games, and have to give back millions in advertisement money, and showed a ton of shitty MNF games throughout the year, giving back millions in advertisement money, all b/c they didn't get the ratings they expected for their live primetime games.

Just the last college football playoff lost them $20M in advertisement money b/c they are idiots and put it on a night that couldn't garner the maximum number of viewers. They've been arrogant and very stupid on the timing and product of their live primetime games. As i said, starting shitty MNF games after 8 central time, when 75% of the country lives in ET and CT time zones is just stupid. Playing the college football playoffs on NYE, is just stupid. They deserve to lose money for being such idiots. No one gives a shite about your hour long pregame show.


Compared to 2011, they are probably easily a billion dollars less annually when it comes to subscriber fees. I saw in 2015 they were at $6.9B in subscriber fees, which was down a little over half a billion since 2011, and at $3.9B in advertising money. I'm sure the CFP and NBA deals had them expecting that advertising money would go up significantly, but it hasn't at a rate they were predicting. I don't think cord cutting is the reason they aren't seeing the maximum revenue on the advertising.
Cord cutters shouldn't have a role in decreased ratings. If they weren't watching it when they paid for it, then they aren't watching it when they cut the cord, so rating shouldn't dip b/c of them.

I think they expected to lose revenue from cord cutters, maybe not as much as they are, but they knew that was coming. I think they are being hit more by the dip in ratings and expected advertisement money from the CFP and NBA deals.

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