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ESPN - What's going on with the once proud network?

davis4uk

davis4uk

Junior
Apr 29, 2008
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The first tangible evidence of the fallout from the massive lay-offs was on display following NCAA punishment annoucnement via the shoddy coverage of the Louisville NCAA ruling. The initial reports focused on Pitino's 5 game suspension, and it appears that local media in L-Ville had to cue the folks at ESPN that the real story of the punishment was the likely vacation of the banners and wins throughout the years the players were ineligible. Eventually the story was straightened out and it received some national coverage, but my goodness what a difference a year makes at the Worldwide Leader.

On a personal note. I am also very saddened by ESPN becoming a instrument to push an overwhelmingly one-sided social agenda. I don't want to seem insensitive toward some of these obscure sports stories that push lifestyle / social causes, but don't they know they are carving out massive (50%) portions of their audience and throwing it away by being so one sided?
 
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Wall Knight Teague said:
It has turned into a mouthpiece for the liberal cesspool attempting to turn this country into a 3rd world garbage dump...
Click to expand...

In other words, "Let me take the opportunity to use a totally unrelated question and turn it political so I can show how much I hate people I don't agree with."

Basically, ESPN spends Billions on broadcast rights for games and footage. Cable subscribers are going down in number extremely fast. They aren't making enough money from those subscribers to pay for the content they are buy so they had to cut some big salaries. And unfortunately, the best and longest standing reporters are first to go. People want divisive, opinionated people on TV to get people to watch. Stephen A for example. If something isn't a national story, they won't spend much time on it. They want big national stories to get as many viewers as possible, and frankly the U of L situation is regional at best. I bet when the actual vacation of the title comes out, after U of L reports to the NCAA which games they are vacating, it will be more of a national story.
 
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I get that they in theory they want national stories. How do you explain the radio network spending 3 hours on a Saturday talking about the Olympic Women's Hockey team's salary equivalency and facilities compared to the men. Literally that was on for a three hour show called "Trifecta" on the weekend ESPN Radio. I could site many examples of this type of thing and it does nothing for their bottom line.... Stephen A Smith is a wonderful host but they are breaking up their most successful show (Mike and Mike). I just don't understand.
 
Louisville is the minor leagues, covering them wont bring in enough views.
 
They made a basic mistake in math.

Their calculation: We have 85 percent of straight men as viewers now, so there is little room for growth. But if we stridently push a liberal, feminist and gay agenda by force feeding people the WNBA and stories like Caitlyn Jenner and Sam whatshisname the gay football player and squatting during the National Anthem we'll add 10 percent of women, including 20 percent of lesbians and 15 percent of gay men.

Instead they added two percent of women, two percent of gay men and subtracted 35 percent of straight men.

It wasn't social engineering. Just bad math that led to cynical, stupid programming decisions.
 
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Wall Knight Teague said:
It has turned into a mouthpiece for the liberal cesspool attempting to turn this country into a 3rd world garbage dump...
Click to expand...

Always dem derned librels trying to take away your health care and make sure everyone is armed to the teeth and silence the media and pass legislation in secret like a 3rd world garbage dump. When will they ever stop? Let us all b forced to pray to Jesus, perhaps he will send more guns to help.
 
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davis4uk said:
I get that they in theory they want national stories. How do you explain the radio network spending 3 hours on a Saturday talking about the Olympic Women's Hockey team's salary equivalency and facilities compared to the men. Literally that was on for a three hour show called "Trifecta" on the weekend ESPN Radio. I could site many examples of this type of thing and it does nothing for their bottom line.... Stephen A Smith is a wonderful host but they are breaking up their most successful show (Mike and Mike). I just don't understand.
Click to expand...
They are breaking up Mike & Mike so Greenberg can get his own morning show to try and be a sports version of "good morning America" or "Today." They have realized they have to create original content to survive because people watch highlights and check game scores on their phones and not the TV anymore. (Golic is pissed he got left behind. They aren't speaking in real life and haven't been the last 2 months)
 
Seth_C said:
Always dem derned librels trying to take away your health care and make sure everyone is armed to the teeth and silence the media and pass legislation in secret like a 3rd world garbage dump. When will they ever stop? Let us all b forced to pray to Jesus, perhaps he will send more guns to help.
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Sorry you got your ass kicked tonight, Mr. Ossoff.
 
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I read something about the icy relationship between Mike and Mike, and that the end of the show is being moved up due to the current implosion in their relationship. One or the other of them is on vacation at any one time anyways so they should just keep the show intact as they aren't ever on together anyway!
 
SpamburgerHamburger said:
In other words, "Let me take the opportunity to use a totally unrelated question and turn it political so I can show how much I hate people I don't agree with."

Basically, ESPN spends Billions on broadcast rights for games and footage. Cable subscribers are going down in number extremely fast. They aren't making enough money from those subscribers to pay for the content they are buy so they had to cut some big salaries. And unfortunately, the best and longest standing reporters are first to go. People want divisive, opinionated people on TV to get people to watch. Stephen A for example. If something isn't a national story, they won't spend much time on it. They want big national stories to get as many viewers as possible, and frankly the U of L situation is regional at best. I bet when the actual vacation of the title comes out, after U of L reports to the NCAA which games they are vacating, it will be more of a national story.
Click to expand...


You're constantly downplaying the UL scandals / semi defending them in a round about subtle way.

It's weird
 
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Wall Knight Teague said:
It has turned into a mouthpiece for the liberal cesspool attempting to turn this country into a 3rd world garbage dump...
Click to expand...
Is this really happening again? I thought this was a message board about basketball and not a bunch of political whining? Stop with this nonsense already and get over yourselves.
 
Untouchables22 said:
They are breaking up Mike & Mike so Greenberg can get his own morning show to try and be a sports version of "good morning America" or "Today." They have realized they have to create original content to survive because people watch highlights and check game scores on their phones and not the TV anymore. (Golic is pissed he got left behind. They aren't speaking in real life and haven't been the last 2 months)
Click to expand...
Now, it makes sense... golic was blasting RP while Greenberg just sat back and said "call me naïve, but I believe him"
 
Seth_C said:
Always dem derned librels trying to take away your health care and make sure everyone is armed to the teeth and silence the media and pass legislation in secret like a 3rd world garbage dump. When will they ever stop? Let us all b forced to pray to Jesus, perhaps he will send more guns to help.
Click to expand...
Dem dern librels taking a damned beating these days for no reason I guess, eh?

MAGA, son.

ME(spn)GA!
 
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Saw an ad during the CWS for SC6 where they cover "sports, music and movies"...why would ppl care about music and movie takes on a sports network...hell, ppl hardly care about their sports takes.
 
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CatsFanGG24 said:
Saw an ad during the CWS for SC6 where they cover "sports, music and movies"...why would ppl care about music and movie takes on a sports network...hell, ppl hardly care about their sports takes.
Click to expand...

images
 
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SpamburgerHamburger said:
In other words, "Let me take the opportunity to use a totally unrelated question and turn it political so I can show how much I hate people I don't agree with."

Basically, ESPN spends Billions on broadcast rights for games and footage. Cable subscribers are going down in number extremely fast. They aren't making enough money from those subscribers to pay for the content they are buy so they had to cut some big salaries. And unfortunately, the best and longest standing reporters are first to go. People want divisive, opinionated people on TV to get people to watch. Stephen A for example. If something isn't a national story, they won't spend much time on it. They want big national stories to get as many viewers as possible, and frankly the U of L situation is regional at best. I bet when the actual vacation of the title comes out, after U of L reports to the NCAA which games they are vacating, it will be more of a national story.
Click to expand...

This is really all it boils down to. Cord cutters like myself, giving a double middle finger to the cable and satellite companies by going to streaming. You notice it more with ESPN because they have spent billions on contracts with college football/basketball/NBA/MLB/NFL, and really need the subscribers to continue doing that, so they are letting people go in droves. Sure, people with political butt hurt will crow that they are taking ESPN down, but it's a very minor impact and none at all unless you cancel your cable subscription. Cord cutting has affected pretty much every cable channel. Someone once posted that it hasn't affected Food Network/A&E/History/Discovery/etc. but if you'll look at your channel guide, you see marathons of Cake Wars/American Junkyard/Parking Lot Wars/Sawmill Boys/etc. These shows cost little to produce and they can just replay them over and over. Another angle is that there is a decent size chunk of the younger generation that cares little about sports, especially team sports.

Right now and for the foreseeable future though, ESPN is still the undisputed king of sports, and it isn't close.
 
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SOMETHING ABOUT LIBERAL AGENDA, TOO MANY GAYS ON THE TV, ANTI-UK, UNC AND DUKE, AND WILBON IS RACIST.

I attribute most of their downfall to changes in consumption habits (streaming over cable) and would say the political stuff plays a small part, maybe 75/25.
 
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SpamburgerHamburger said:
In other words, "Let me take the opportunity to use a totally unrelated question and turn it political so I can show how much I hate people I don't agree with."

Basically, ESPN spends Billions on broadcast rights for games and footage. Cable subscribers are going down in number extremely fast. They aren't making enough money from those subscribers to pay for the content they are buy so they had to cut some big salaries. And unfortunately, the best and longest standing reporters are first to go. People want divisive, opinionated people on TV to get people to watch. Stephen A for example. If something isn't a national story, they won't spend much time on it. They want big national stories to get as many viewers as possible, and frankly the U of L situation is regional at best. I bet when the actual vacation of the title comes out, after U of L reports to the NCAA which games they are vacating, it will be more of a national story.
Click to expand...
I do not disagree with your assessment of the situation... They cut losses dropping high salaried employees and keeping divisive ones.... But I challenge that it's a good business model.... I, for one, only watch the game content and none of the commentary that that tries to be entertainment... I'm not one that like to hear folks talk about sport as I'd rather rather watch or play sport.
 
MdWIldcat55 said:
They made a basic mistake in math.

Their calculation: We have 85 percent of straight men as viewers now, so there is little room for growth. But if we stridently push a liberal, feminist and gay agenda by force feeding people the WNBA and stories like Caitlyn Jenner and Sam whatshisname the gay football player and squatting during the National Anthem we'll add 10 percent of women, including 20 percent of lesbians and 15 percent of gay men.

Instead they added two percent of women, two percent of gay men and subtracted 35 percent of straight men.

It wasn't social engineering. Just bad math that led to cynical, stupid programming decisions.
Click to expand...
I think you nailed that, because I do think the people running ESPN are that stupid. Kroger can add new shelf space and new endcaps for special interest foods, while at the same time retaining all mainstream foods. ESPN only has one shelf, and so it had to remove mainstream foods to make room for special interests. What ESPN should have done instead was to create more shelf space, like it did with ESPN3. It should have created ESPN LGBTQ, ESPN BDSM, ESPN Water Sports, ESPN Paddle Boyz, etc.
 
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SuporChin said:
Is this really happening again? I thought this was a message board about basketball and not a bunch of political whining? Stop with this nonsense already and get over yourselves.
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Actually, it is ESPN that got political and is partly why the are faltering. I quit watching because of the agenda. Wall Knight Teague is absolutely correct.
 
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warrior-cat said:
Actually, it is ESPN that got political and is partly why the are faltering. I quit watching because of the agenda. Wall Knight Teague is absolutely correct.
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Who cares if they got political? So what if ESPN decided to focus more on social issues or other topics that you might not like. Whoop dee do. So many posters act like someone shot their dog because ESPN decided to cover Michael Sam, Caitlyn Jenner, or any other number of social issues. If they were advocating for issues you care about, there wouldn't be a word about it. This whole thing isn't about covering political/social issues, it's about covering issues you don't agree with.
 
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SuporChin said:
Who cares if they got political? So what if ESPN decided to focus more on social issues or other topics that you might not like. Whoop dee do. So many posters act like someone shot their dog because ESPN decided to cover Michael Sam, Caitlyn Jenner, or any other number of social issues. If they were advocating for issues you care about, there wouldn't be a word about it. This whole thing isn't about covering political/social issues, it's about covering issues you don't agree with.
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You are correct, but we don't have to watch that crap and we are not.
 
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MdWIldcat55 said:
They made a basic mistake in math.

Their calculation: We have 85 percent of straight men as viewers now, so there is little room for growth. But if we stridently push a liberal, feminist and gay agenda by force feeding people the WNBA and stories like Caitlyn Jenner and Sam whatshisname the gay football player and squatting during the National Anthem we'll add 10 percent of women, including 20 percent of lesbians and 15 percent of gay men.

Instead they added two percent of women, two percent of gay men and subtracted 35 percent of straight men.

It wasn't social engineering. Just bad math that led to cynical, stupid programming decisions.
Click to expand...
Nailed it
 
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SuporChin said:
Who cares if they got political? So what if ESPN decided to focus more on social issues or other topics that you might not like. Whoop dee do. So many posters act like someone shot their dog because ESPN decided to cover Michael Sam, Caitlyn Jenner, or any other number of social issues. If they were advocating for issues you care about, there wouldn't be a word about it. This whole thing isn't about covering political/social issues, it's about covering issues you don't agree with.
Click to expand...
I care and so do millions of other people, snowflake
 
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