re: What I Don't Understand about ESPN's Strategy

The business strategy I don't understand is targeting young and sometimes uneducated minorities... are they really buying up the products on commercials? It's all about money. Good ratings equals higher prices for commercial spots. But at some point the company paying for commercials won't buy ad time if no one is buying product

If those old school shows were still getting the ratings, they'd air them

I'm not saying they should go back to the days of 24/7 highlights. What I'm saying is they have swapped one easily accessible form of content for another form of easily accessible content. That doesn't solve anything.

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hey are generating content that is so easily replicated there's no reason for people to have to keep the channel.

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once again, they are literally producing acadamy award nominations right now

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ESPN has done nothing to expand its customer base in this age of cord cutting.

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as long as we put OTL, E60, and 30 for 30 aside, that is what they are doing right now. the most valuable demographic wants debate and talk shows. it is what it is. so they are giving it to them

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They clearly are in panic mode.

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as is literally all of fricking broadcast television

You're sort of agreeing with my idea, but they only produce 1 or 2 30 for 30's a month. My point is that is the type of content they really need to move towards. Sports talk shows are just as dated as sports highlights shows.

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I'd be demanding some answers.

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Honestly, there's nothing ESPN or Disney can do here. Here's the problem:

Thanks to the internet and smartphones in particular, next day or even hours later results are not needed. People know instantly if their teams won or lost and they can get the highlights on the spot. This has killed the need for shows like Sportscenter, which built ESPN.

ESPN is an unsustainable business model and can only be marginally profitable from showing actual sporting events. Contract rights to broadcast those events is extremely costly. To make matters worse, they have ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNNews and other channels, they have to fill them with something. The most common way (after live sports themselves) is through talk shows. What else can they do? Problem is, today's generation isn't all that interested in discussion-based, topical sports discussions. It doesn't move the needle and younger folks don't watch these hour long shows with enough regularity to achieve solid ratings.

This, in turn, has led to the "hot take" era of ESPN, where they encourage brash points of view delivered in absolutes, like "The Cleveland Cavaliers CAN NOT win the NBA Finals this season" or "Alabama will beat Clemson, I GUARANTEE it." These shock jock-style soundbites are designed to spread across the airwaves and generate clicks and views. (Think Skip Bayless.) But now even those aren't working anymore.

The political stances have alienated many views and this has helped bring about the endgame quicker but the model was doomed the minute smartphones started rolling off the assembly line.

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its not just that. the whole idea of cable television is outdated. there is nothing ESPN can realistically do to change that

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LeBatard talks about it all the time. They had a perfect business model for years, if you wanted cable you paid for ESPN whether you watched it or not.

Now people actually have options. They're definitely behind in the game and didn't get out in front of this one, but what were their options?

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the whole idea of cable television is outdated. there is nothing ESPN can realistically do to change that. they could turn into netflix

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this is the next step, IMO. If they offered a monthly subscription service to WatchESPN that was completely free from Cable/Satellite companies, millions would subscribe. I'll go as far as saying that ESPN, and maybe HBO, could completely destroy cable for good if they offered this outside of Cable subscriptions.

There are a ton of people who just want to watch games. A live game subscription service with the collection of games that ESPN has would do awesome. And they wouldn't have to have filler shows eating budget. Just show live sporting events.

yes. that is the next step with someone like ESPN. we will eventually start paying for games on a nightly basis or we will eventually start buying season packages for a single team/league. it is what it is. but we arent going to start seeing ESPN start throwing a shite ton of money into original programming because right now all of their money is tied up into live sports

Like people wouldn't bitch if espn showed hours of baseball and hockey highlights on a replay throughout the day