The Decline of ESPN...What Happened?

[Urbandale2013]

I agree they're focused on the big brands, but isn't that just business? If my company made widgets and widget A appealed to 10 million people and widget B appealed to 1 million people, wouldn't I want to spend more time marketing and developing widget A? Yes, I could spend money trying to grow the brand of widget B, but the ROI is going to be better with widget A. Broken down to base components, I understand what they're doing, and it not necessarily wrong from a business standpoint.

No it is awful business. It would be Widget A is popular with 10 million people but it is popular because it is complimentary to people who own widget B, C, D, E, and F. Each of those are owned by 2 million people and the 10 million that own those represent 50% of those who own Widget A. ESPN would be deciding to stop making everything but Widget A which means they now have a customer base of 5 million buying Widget A. They lost 75% of their customer base even though Widget A used to make up 50% of their sales.

 

[dosry5]

Just look at womens cycling, really an interesting sport, but the Dutch win everything, yet some unknown cyclicst from Austria Anna Kisenhoffer goes out and wins the Olympics Road Race in Tokyo, probably one of the top 10 greatest upsets in all of sports in the last 100 years, at least in my opinion, but Anna Kisenhoffer would never win regularly on the pro circuit, because they have radios and they would have all her tendencies figured out. This was an eye opener to me, the more the randomization is bred out of sports, the less interesting it is, and the only way to breed back in randomization is decentralization which is the exact opposite that ESPN is doing, which is centralization. This will come to head eventually.

I was just talking to my buddies the other day about the lack of stories on women’s cycling……said no 35-49 year old male, ever

 

[MartyFine]

Disney is an evil corporation.

 

[VeloClone]

I was just taking to my buddies the other day about the lack of stories on women’s cycling……said no 35-49 year old male, ever

Wow, that went right over your head. Read his last two sentences and ignore that his example is women's cycling and you might figure it out.

 

[Cloneon]

Disney Parks have figured out since Covid that they can charge more and people keep coming. In fact they have realized that the people who buy season passes or just come on budget days do not buy merchadise, so their goal is to raise raise raise the prices so only upper middle class and above can afford to go to their parks and they will make the same amount of money if not more. Not sure how this is related to ESPN though, but their risk is the overall sports viewship goes down, which in my mind is a potential problem but not clear that it will happen in the short term.

I've yet to see a company where when 'margins' exceed 'quality' they continue to get better.

 

[Halincandenza]

Smart phones and social media. Sportscenter is just not needed anymore. Neither are their other shows. People just want to watch the games.

 

[KidSilverhair]

7 years ago I use to love ESPN Sports Radio. I'm out driving around for work. Mike & Mike in the morning followed by Colin Cowherd and then followed by the Dan Patrick Show. Seriously that was great radio in any way you spin it. Now, the shows are junk.

I was with you til you got to Cowherd. Like Stephen A. or Skip Bayless, he’s the very definition of yell-about-things-you-know-will-get-people-riled-up, because you get attention that way. Plus, he was always in the forefront of “only traditional powers matter” and “people only care about big name blue bloods.” He *hated* the idea of underdogs like Iowa State drawing any attention away from the big boys. (Plus, didn’t Cowherd replace Patrick? I don’t think they were on ESPN Radio at the same time, but maybe my memory is faulty.)

The golden age of ESPN Radio was Mike and Mike, followed by Tony Kornheiser, followed by Dan Patrick.

 

[dosry5]

Wow, that went right over your head. Read his last two sentences and ignore that his example is women's cycling and you might figure it out.

i know the internet is serious business, but I was joking. I’m really sorry.

 

[atlantacyclone]

Everything that goes woke is ruined…

 

[CascadeClone]

I used to (as in 30 years ago) watch SportsCenter every day. I don't get to watch sports as often as I would like and loved seeing what happened yesterday. Now they refuse to tell me what happened yesterday and insist on telling me what is going to happen tomorrow and it comes courtesy of screaming personalities. No thanks.

I watch live sports on ESPN because that's where it is televised, but that's it.

This. They used to do a lot of reporting, showing you what happened with the games you didn't/couldn't watch. Sportscenter used to give you the highlights on a ton of games, so you could really follow leagues. But now, it's a couple games of highlights and sometimes they don't even include all the scores. But lots of opinions from talking heads, most of which are recycled from other talking heads. And they are all bland anyway - Disney kind of keeps them bland. There's about 2 one actually interesting like Barkley.

Apparently, they have found they get a lot more attention with "personalities" and "hot takes" that rile people up. It's the same as what used to be news channels are doing too, fwiw. Which I have zero interest in any of that.

 

[2122]

ESPN leadership, for some strange reason, elected to infuse their politics into their coverage. HUGE mistake. Turned millions of viewers, including me, away. Extra Sports Programming Network became Extra Politics Programming Network. Like there wasn't already way more than enough of the latter...

 

[RezClone]

I agree they're focused on the big brands, but isn't that just business? If my company made widgets and widget A appealed to 10 million people and widget B appealed to 1 million people, wouldn't I want to spend more time marketing and developing widget A? Yes, I could spend money trying to grow the brand of widget B, but the ROI is going to be better with widget A. Broken down to base components, I understand what they're doing, and it not necessarily wrong from a business standpoint.

If widget A's popularity was based in large part to the existence and secondary popularity of widget B, that should affect your business decision making to the benefit of widget B to some degree. (i.e. many consumers primarily loyal to widget B for whatever reason make up a sizeable portion of widget A sales because their inherent love of widgets in general with a particular affinity for widget B results in them consistently giving widget A a chance and consistently consuming widget A as a result.)

I think it was CW that said CFB is a symphony and you need all the parts to be working in concert to achieve the quality the consumers enjoy and have become accustomed to. Something along those lines, and I thought it was a good analogy. It doesn't seem enough people in power share that view right now, unfortunately.

 

[CascadeClone]

"Go woke, go broke."

Their bread and butter is obviously live sports and highlights. SportsCenter couldn't fail with personalities like Stuart Scott.

But then, they gave on air talent (I won't name names but you know a couple) a platform to voice political opinions and it pushed many people away.

At the same time, they gave platforms to awesome shows. Those shows grew too big for their tight salary budgets and they ran off good talent. This has happened way too many times.

The political stuff is only like 5% of the hot air. I agree with most people that when I want sports news, I don't want political opinions - I can and do get that elsewhere from far more informed sources. But imho its the blathering-to-actual-sports-news ratio that has got WAY too high that is their biggest problem. Sort of like how MTV stopped showing music videos lol.

ESPN is just the same rehashed hot air about why Chicago can't find a QB, Duke's latest 5 star's draft prospects, or the Yankees huge payroll. I'd MUCH rather see highlights of the Marlins-Rockies game, and I don't even gaf about either of those teams at all.

 

[Mr Janny]

No it is awful business. It would be Widget A is popular with 10 million people but it is popular because it is complimentary to people who own widget B, C, D, E, and F. Each of those are owned by 2 million people and the 10 million that own those represent 50% of those who own Widget A. ESPN would be deciding to stop making everything but Widget A which means they now have a customer base of 5 million buying Widget A. They lost 75% of their customer base even though Widget A used to make up 50% of their sales.

How complimentary are the different products, really, though? How dependent is widget A on all of the other widgets?

Look at the last non Covid year, 2019. Of the top 9 most watched regular season games, 6 of them were conference games. 5 of them only feature teams that either are in or soon will be in the SEC.
ESPN is banking on having the biggest brands in the sport playing each other, being a huge draw, and there's little evidence to indicate that it won't be. They've got teams with massive fanbases that aren't only regional. And they control a massive media outlet that will continue to market the hell out of their product and make sure that people know that it's the best game in town. Not to mention, other media outlets will continue to market ESPN's product as well. Other sports media aren't going to suddenly stop talking about SEC football.
I don't particularly like it, but this is going to make money. People thinking that adding OU and Texas is going to result in the downfall of the SEC and ESPN are going to be disappointed.

Redirect Notice

www.google.com

 

[Mr Janny]

If widget A's popularity was based in large part to the existence and secondary popularity of widget B, that should affect your business decision making to the benefit of widget B to some degree.

I think it was CW that said CFB is a symphony and you need all the parts to be working in concert to achieve the quality the consumers enjoy and have become accustomed to. Something along those lines, and I thought it was a good analogy. It doesn't seem enough people in power share that view right now, unfortunately.

I don't know how true that actually is. And even if it is, I don't believe that the degree that it's dependent is enough to make the new SEC less profitable than it already is.

 

[BillBrasky4Cy]

IMO you can't over state how the rapid decline of cable subscriptions has hurt ESPN. They have charged the carriers a steep premium to carry their content and that money is decreasing at a rapid rate. If ESPN wasn't backed by Disney, they would have folded by now.

 

[Macloney]

We just paid $60 per admission and $100 per Fast Pass last weekend at King's Island and all it made us realize was that we have to start paying the extra $15 for Fast Pass Plus.

 

[AuH2O]

How complimentary are the different products, really, though? How dependent is widget A on all of the other widgets?

Look at the last non Covid year, 2019. Of the top 9 most watched regular season games, 6 of them were conference games. 5 of them only feature teams that either are in or soon will be in the SEC.
ESPN is banking on having the biggest brands in the sport playing each other, being a huge draw, and there's little evidence to indicate that it won't be. They've got teams with massive fanbases that aren't only regional. And they control a massive media outlet that will continue to market the hell out of their product and make sure that people know that it's the best game in town. Not to mention, other media outlets will continue to market ESPN's product as well. Other sports media aren't going to suddenly stop talking about SEC football.
I don't particularly like it, but this is going to make money. People thinking that adding OU and Texas is going to result in the downfall of the SEC and ESPN are going to be disappointed.

Redirect Notice

www.google.com

The point is those games are huge not because there are 7 million LSU fans, or 8 million Notre Dame fans. Those games are huge because they draw fans from other schools. I bet there were a lot of Purdue, ISU, Iowa, Oklahoma State, etc. fans watching those games. That's the difference in Notre Dame drawing 8 million for a game, or like last year's game vs. Pitt (which got outviewed by ISU-Okie St. head to head) drawing around 2.5 million.

The optimum for ESPN and CFB as a whole is still promoting the big brands, but maintaining a big tent, where fans of lots of teams are still "in the club," even if they are not promoted nearly as much. CFB certainly doesn't need parity, but it can run the risk of getting to be so exclusive that there's a big drop in national interest.

 

[RezClone]

I don't know how true that actually is. And even if it is, I don't believe that the degree that it's dependent is enough to make the new SEC less profitable than it already is.

Ya I hear ya. Even worse, even if it is true, I worry the damage caused along the way before they figure it out will be catastrophic and irreversible to our beloved school and others like it.

 

[Urbandale2013]

How complimentary are the different products, really, though? How dependent is widget A on all of the other widgets?

Look at the last non Covid year, 2019. Of the top 9 most watched regular season games, 6 of them were conference games. 5 of them only feature teams that either are in or soon will be in the SEC.
ESPN is banking on having the biggest brands in the sport playing each other, being a huge draw, and there's little evidence to indicate that it won't be. They've got teams with massive fanbases that aren't only regional. And they control a massive media outlet that will continue to market the hell out of their product and make sure that people know that it's the best game in town. Not to mention, other media outlets will continue to market ESPN's product as well. Other sports media aren't going to suddenly stop talking about SEC football.
I don't particularly like it, but this is going to make money. People thinking that adding OU and Texas is going to result in the downfall of the SEC and ESPN are going to be disappointed.

Redirect Notice

www.google.com

Ok but in my orbit I know that I will complete stop watching SEC football. My dad will likely stop as well. My friend who is more willing to watch just what ever the big game is will likely stop watching much. My other friend who is a Big Ten fan will likely keep watching but if Iowa gets relegated I imagine he would stop too. My mom and sister will just not watch anything as they only watch because me and my dad watch.

I don’t know anyone who is a Big 12 affiliated fan who would just keep watching the SEC super league. The people that are more casual fans will stop watching altogether or just watch the NFL.

No doubt in the first 5 years everyone involved would be making a lot more profit but after that the drop off will be real.

The big schools have national fanbases because college football is a big deal across the country. When it isn’t a big deal across most of the country the casuals who make up those national fanbases will go away.